105 The Third Fragment

It must have been some while since we had felt the gentle sunray above us, especially at that day since we had most of the day drenched in rainwater. Even though the weather was still raining a little bit, the sun had then emerged again from the clouds giving us some more warmth as we ventured deeper into the second jungle.

There were actually a couple of very distinctive features from the current jungle compared to previous one that made the sunray to be able to reach us. First of all, unlike the previous jungle which had countless massive-sized trees and bushes, the current one we were currently in had way less trees, although still large and gigantic when we saw one, and therefore the sunray would be easier to penetrate into the jungle. Instead of being almost covered entirely by vegetation, the current jungle had thick mosses covering countless rocky surfaces.

Not only that, the rocks seemed to have been neatly shaped like some people long ago in the past had shaped it like that. Then, the second thing that I noticed shortly after was that the ground was not soil like I had initially thought. Instead, it was also a rocky surface with mosses growing all over it. Strangely enough, I did not feel that the mossy surface to be slippery, which was the exact reason why I had thought it earlier to be soil instead of rock.

I had to admit however, I had to look out every once in a while for any protruded surfaces since I did not want to get myself tripped over it and fell down to the ground, since it would hurt if I did. As we walked deeper into the jungle, I came to realize that the mossy large rocks were getting more and more dominant while the trees were getting less in number.

Suddenly, Jessica tripped over something and almost fell hard to the ground. Luckily I was able to catch her since I was walking right behind her. I quickly looked at what might have caused her to trip, and found out that there was indeed a couple of protruded part of the rocky ground that had come up a little.

"Th-thanks…" she said with a relieved tone.

"Watch your steps, okay?" I responded as I held her hand.

Billy waited for the two of us to be on our feet again, and proceeded to our next checkpoint right after that. At that moment, Jessica muttered about how she somehow felt like the rocky surface we were currently walking on seemed not to be naturally formed but rather, man-made. Nevertheless, she quickly shrugged it off, probably since she thought that it would barely give her another clue about anything. However, almost instantly after that another unusual occurrence took place, making all three of us began to feel like another possible threat had emerged, and not only just the aliens anymore.

It was a quake that was suddenly felt on the ground that we had been standing on, strangely with few of the rocky surfaces went up and down a little bit for a brief moment. I instantly urged all three of us to move very slowly and further away from the moving rocky surfaces as I began to feel anxious and my stomach holding up on me a little bit. Fortunately, it did not take too long before the quake began to subside until it finally stopped.

I first told the two of them to not move since I could not be sure if the quake had completely stopped. However, after roughly two minutes and there was no more quakes, I finally gave the green light for all of us to move again. Jessica then slowly approached one of the protruding rocks on the ground, while Billy moved a little further from them.

"Wah bener…" Jessica muttered to herself that she was right about something as she was still looking at the protruded rock.

"What is it?" I asked her.

"These are no ordinary rocks…" she responded right away as she sighed heavily. "I think they are megaliths."

I was very surprised when I heard her saying it, since it would mean that long ago in prehistoric times a population had indeed resided somewhere near that jungle. However, she also continued that there would be no telling how far long ago it might be since she had not noticed any signs of lost civilization traces earlier in the jungle before we reached the current spot, indicating that the nature had almost completely took over what was left from that civilization.

"I doubt if we can find any proof of prehistoric community existence that might support this later on…" she concluded.

At that moment I did not know what else to say, since everything that she said made sense. Nevertheless, she then quickly stood up again and said that we should move on again, and hoping that somehow we could find some more similar structures. We proceeded deeper into the jungle again after that, but another strange event then followed.

It was the sudden collapsing of the rocky grounds around Billy, forcing him to jump to the nearest ground that had not collapsed. He barely reached the edge of the rocky surface by both of his hands, but luckily both Jessica and I could quickly reach him and helped him to get up. As he stood up again, I realized right away that the collapsed ground had actually revealed to us some sort of a chamber under the very ground that we had been walking on.

It was very dark down the chamber that I could barely see anything from where I was standing, but as soon as I turned on my flashlight and aimed it towards the revealed area, I realized that it was actually not as deep as I had imagined earlier, perhaps no more than six feet under. Immediately after that, I felt like no one could give a suggestion, or rather be sure whether for us to proceed forward and ignore what had just been revealed before us, or to actually jump down and see for sure where the chamber might lead us to.

Just then, I could hear a rather familiar whooshing sound in the distance from deeper inside the jungle. It only took me a few seconds before knowing for sure that those were the exact same flying sound that belonged to the aliens, indicating that they were coming to us, or rather to where the collapsing sound was coming from.

"Great, I forgot that it barely rains now." I muttered to myself. "Those creatures can now fly easily with their camouflage on!"

"Then we have no choice but to jump down!" Billy responded as he jumped right away.

Jessica then followed him almost immediately after, and when I could make sure that she had landed safely down in the chamber, I jumped down and rushed a little deeper inside. Just as I had reached the part of the chamber where I could only barely see anything anymore, I heard the same flying sound arrived right above the spot where he had just jumped.

One or few aliens must be flying idly there, and I slowly had my heart beating faster with each passing second, waiting for the sound to vanish. I could sense that Jessica wanted to turn on her flashlight as well, but I held her with my left hand since I did not want to give out any sort of clue to the aliens that we were hiding at the spot just several feet below them. I was not able to tell how long we waited, but as the flying sound slowly vanished, I could feel the tense and tight atmosphere around us to begin subsiding as well.

"So much for a better weather…" I said in a low voice as I breathed heavily.

"Do you think that it is safe for us to come out now?" Billy asked me, also in a low voice.

I first was not sure on what to respond. There was actually nothing to guarantee us that we would not come across and encounter the aliens again the second we came out of the chamber. On the other hand, if we kept on stalling then it would eventually get darker outside that it would even be more dangerous for us if we ended up got into contact with the aliens in the middle of the night.

That being said, staying inside the chamber for a while longer could also have another use. Just earlier, Jessica was rather worried if she could find any other evidence of a prehistoric life in the area of what at that moment was a jungle. But then after what had happened right after it, we I quickly knew for sure that we were in fact, currently inside her next needed proof of the existence of a prehistoric life. Therefore I wondered if we should try to venture deeper inside the chamber while we bought us some more time to gain more distance away from the aliens.

"How about if we go deeper inside as we buy ourselves some more time away from the aliens?" I asked the two of them, still in a low voice as I looked at Jessica. "Hopefully, we can find another important proof in here."

"I guess I cannot argue with that." Billy responded as he lifted both his shoulders and turned on his flashlight, but not until I gave him the green light to do it.

"Travis…" Jessica said as she looked me in the eye.

"I hope you can find what you are looking for. Then again, being inside here for now is the best option for all of us for now." I replied to her as I smiled.

I quickly turned on my flashlight again, before we continued going in deeper inside the chamber, with Billy leading in the front, Jessica in the middle, and me in the last line. It also did not take me long before I began to take a look at the overall features of the chamber.

First things first, instead of a chamber, I would say that it would be more accurate to describe it as some sort of a hallway. It was very neatly built, especially for something originating from prehistoric times, and overall it had the shape of a rectangle with the distance from the ground to ceiling reaching no more than roughly six feet, and the width of the path was more or less four feet.

Also, the wall seemed to be built from a distinctive kind of a megalith brick in a shape of a cube. The size of each cube was apparently around two feet for all of its sides. It seemed that each section of the wall was built by stacking three cubes together and within each of several distances away, the cube in the middle would be absent which probably acted as some sort of a window during its days.

As for the ground and the ceiling, each of their sections looked like they were built by stacking two cubes together. Shortly after I had done looking at them with detail, Billy told us that he seemed to have seen a room at the end of the hallway.

"I think I just saw a room at the end of this hallway." Billy said.

We increased our pace, and by the time we reached the end of the hallway, a whole new room was indeed right before our eyes. It closely resembled a circular room, but definitely not a dome since the ceiling stayed exactly the same like it was in the hallway. Aside from that, there seemed to be another circular ring object right in the center of the room floor. When I looked at it closer, the object was actually the very same cube stacked together into a ring shape. Unfortunately for me, I could not get even the slightest hint of what it might be used for in the past.

There was also nothing else of particular interest there, at least for both Billy and I, and therefore I was just about to ask Jessica if she thought she already seen enough there, when I noticed that she had her attention locked towards something scattered on the room floor near her. She then quickly crouched, and picked up something rather long.

"You found something?" I asked her as I approached her.

"I am not sure if this is something…" she responded to me as she stood up again.

She was holding a trapezium-shaped thin stone, but unlike the previous two artifacts, it had absolutely no carvings whatsoever on its surface and was roughly three times and a half to four times longer. It was also completely blank on both of the surfaces, except that there was actually a similar mark on the upper left corner of the stone. I remembered right away that it was the same as the symbol that we had seen back in the first cave, the one which she hypothesized belonged to the group of astronomers of the past.

"And not just one, there are few of them stacked pretty neatly here." she continued as she pointed her flashlight towards the pile of similar stones.

I took a quick count, and there were no less than five stones that were piled together right in front of her, giving a strong possibility that they were indeed used as some sort of a blank document to be carved upon. Just then, Billy seemed to have found something as well since he called for the attention of both of us.

"Jess." he called her. "Kayaknya gue nemu artefak yang ketiga."

"Hah? Dimana?" she responded to his words that stated he had found something likely to be the third artifact, before rushing to him.

At first I was wondering on why he had not picked the artifact up on his hand, but not anymore as I reached him and looked upon the artifact for myself.

The artifact was of the very same size as the blank ones, but with a figure carved on its surface, and unfortunately cracked into three pieces. Billy told us that he found them all separated earlier, but once he had finally pieced them up together, he called us to take a look at it closer. Aside from that, the techniques of the carving was completely the same as the previous two – where one hole had been carved first before drawing a line with the hole as the center of the line.

The figure on the artifact showed a couple of either pillars or poles, each built with five stacks of cubes and had the exact same size. On the top right of the pillar on the left, another figure was drawn – a diamond shaped figure with an extra line coming out from each of its pointed edge. The diamond figure however, had its lower left section hidden by the upper right edge of the left pillar.

The right pillar figure was also accompanied by another partially figure hidden on its upper part. The partially hidden figure however, was not another diamond – shaped one. Instead, the figure seemed to be a combination of square shaped figures, but the squares had all of their top sides absent, resulting in some sort of a combination of blocky 'u' alphabets instead. Apparently, Jessica also quickly noticed the figures as she spoke her words out very soon after that.

"This diamond with lines on its edges… I think it was meant to be the sun…" she said. "And these strangely stacked U-shaped figures, I think they were meant to be clouds…"

"Does that mean they were supposed to resemble a weather condition?" I asked her. "If so, those pillars had the function for them to forecast weather then?"

"Yes, that is possible…" she confirmed, but also still seemed to look for any other possible explanation.

She then proceeded to tell us what she could hypothesize about the possible prehistoric community through what she had understood so far, while Billy and I could only listen to what she had to say…