By Annabelle Kennedy, TIWP Student

The hot sun beat down on the back of Layla’s neck, searing her skin. Sand and dirt stuck to her clothes, was trapped in her hair. Her hands were blistered and raw from hours of intense labor. Normally Layla Kent did not dig holes; she let others do that work for her. She tended to sit back and relax while everyone else worked in the hot sun while she was sitting beneath an umbrella drinking a martini. But she would not be doing that today. 

Because today she would make history. 

She dug her shovel into the ground once more, heaving crumbling chunks of earth over her shoulder and onto the huge pile behind her that had been slowly increasing in size. The wooden handle of the shovel tore cruel welts in her palms and made her elbows feel like melted string cheese. But she didn’t stop digging. 

The events that had led up to her being here had started three months ago in Colorado. Layla was an archaeologist, and she took pride in her work. She traveled across the world to find ancient specimens and skeletons and ruins from places like Mexico and Greece. More than once these expeditions had dead-ended and left her standing in the middle of a crater that she had thought would contain fossils or ruins, and finding things like glass earrings and a dog’s chew toy. 

But this time would be different. She knew it. She had been digging for eight hours straight, and had even managed to get ahold of a bulldozer to help. 

She heard the patterning of footsteps behind her and reluctantly stopped digging, swinging the shovel over one shoulder. She turned and saw Freddy Stoll striding towards her, being careful to walk around the wide crater that had been dug. His ashy blond hair was blown into a snarled mess by the constant wind, and his white button-up had already been saturated with dust. Freddy was Layla’s friend and fellow archaeologist. He had agreed to accompany her to Mexico for the dig, but only because “I want to try horchata, I hear it’s awesome!” Layla got the impression that back in school, Freddy had been a bit of a class clown. He was always cracking jokes, finding reasons to make people laugh, and was fiercely loyal. 

Now Freddy looked critically at Layla, lips pursuing at the dust coating her clothes. “How are you doing?” he asked, smirking. “You certainly look well-rested.” Layla rolled her eyes. “Says the man who drank three cups of coffee yesterday and didn’t go to bed until 3 in the morning.” 

“What can I say? Coffee helps my adventurous side.” 

“Unless you’re referring to spilling tea all over my archaeology papers, refusing to help me dig, and only coming to Mexico for the horchata, I don’t know what ‘adventurous side’ you’re talking about.” 

Freddy grinned. 

“Maybe Gustav should send you on more expeditions. It brings out your funny side.” 
Gustav Hayes was Layla’s boss, and one of the most dramatic and incompetent people that Layla had ever met. He was built like a bulldog, broad-shouldered and square-jawed with an extremely short temper and a seemingly never-ending supply of toupees that always made him look like he had a dead dog perched on his head. His face always seemed to maintain the quality of a rotten beet-mushy and soft and just as purple, which was often. There was a betting pool on how long he had before he suffered an aneurysm and his heart gave out. He delighted in cracking jokes-often degrading ones-and criticizing Layla and sending her on long, grueling expeditions that almost always resulted in Layla losing hours or even days of sleep, and spending her Christmas and summer holidays waiting on hand and foot in airports in Egypt, or getting savaged by mosquitos in Bolivia. Layla despised him with every fiber of her being. 

Layla scowled at Freddy and brought her shovel down again onto the hard-packed earth. This time, though, the shovel struck something hard., something that echoed throughout the dig site with a clear ringing sound that made her skin tingle and her teeth buzz. Freddy laughed nervously. “What was that?” he asked, his voice tinged with uncertainty. Layla frowned. “I don’t know. Get a shovel, will you, and help dig this thing out.” She gestured to the shovel rack that had been put up when she had begun digging. Freddy pulled a shovel from the rack and started to dig. 

The more dirt they uncovered, the more confused and shocked Layla felt. Beneath the dirt was a pane of glass, probably one of thousands. The pane was thirty feet across and nine feet wide, and covered in a thick layer of dust due to the time it had spent underground. Layla’s eyes swept across the reflective surface. One thing was very clear: this was no ruin. In fact, it looked newly built. But who would build such a thing? And how? She couldn’t even begin to imagine how many years and the amount of material it would have taken someone to build this. It was unthinkable. 

Layla finished clearing away the dirt and dropped her shovel with a clang. She knelt and used the sleeve of her white button-down to brush away some of the dust from the window pane, which was already filthy. She would have to wash the shirt when she got back, but it was worth it. She peered through the clear oval she had made in the glass, and gasped. “Freddy!” Her voice was an awestruck rasp. 

Freddy joined her at the spot where she sat, kneeling on the pane of glass. When he saw what she was looking at, his breath caught. “Holy mother of quesadillas. . .” he trailed off. Layla couldn’t bring herself to speak, but silently, she concurred with the sentiment. What she was seeing was unbelievable. 

What she was looking into was a massive circular biodome with light now streaming through the thick glass pane from the one clear spot she had cleaned off. The floor was almost a hundred feet down, almost as tall as a ten-story building. The whole biodome was maybe fifty feet across in either direction, and she could see that the walls were covered in strange markings that extended down to the floor. Hieroglyphics, maybe, or something else-she couldn’t be sure. There were tall pillars placed in rows which she could only assume were covered in the same designs. And directly below her was an expanse of trees that covered a good fourth of the dome floor. The trees almost touched the rounded glass ceiling, and their leaves were brighter colored then any other leaves she had seen on Earth. They seemed to glow with a soft light that emanated from the leaves themselves, like miniature fireflies. She could see that the ground was a patchwork of stone and dirt and moss that spread across the ground and curled up and around the pillars like fingers. 

Freddy’s eyes were as big as dinner plates. “What is this?” he asked, his voice full of awe. 
“A biodome,” Layla replied dryly. Freddy’s eyebrows scrunched up. “Well, I know that, but how did it get here? Who built it? And why? And-” 

“I don’t know, Freddy!” Layla snapped. She took a deep breath. “I’m going down there.” 
“It’s ten stories!” 

“And we have more than enough rope!” 

“We don’t know what’s down there!” Freddy’s voice was high-pitched and wary. 

“And that is why we are archaeologists, Freddy. We are all about exploring the unexplorable, and sometimes risking our lives to find new things and make new discoveries. It’s not going to be easy. So if making new discoveries means being dropped down ten stories into a huge glass dome containing God-knows-what, then that’s what I’ll do.” Freddy looked at her as though she’d gone insane. “No wonder Gustav gets so mad at you all the time.” Layla smirked at him and flipped her braids over her shoulder. “If he fires me, so be it. I want to take a look at this.”
Freddy hesitated. “I’m coming too!” He decided. He turned and called over his shoulder. “Lyle! We need some rope!” 

Lyle Stoll was Freddy’s brother. They shared the same sense of humor and wide smile, but the similarities ended there. Lyle had long brown hair that he wore in a ponytail, and unlike Freddy, who always dressed like a college professor, crisp white shirts that always got saturated with dust, brown slacks and hiking boots, Lyle delighted in wearing brightly colored jackets and patterned ties and neon dress shirts that could have been seen from space. He had an infectious laugh and loved grilled salmon. 

Lyle strode towards them, struggling to lift the coil of rope slung across his shoulders. He was sporting a combination of a bright neon turquoise coat with a pumpkin orange shirt and turquoise houndstooth trousers. The ensemble shouldn’t have worked in the middle of the desert at a dig site, but it did. As he walked towards them, heads turned and voices started up with a sound like leaves rustling, but Lyle looked as though it didn’t bother him in the slightest. 

Freddy strode over to his brother and lifted the rope coil from his shoulders with very little effort. “Need some help, little brother?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. Lyle stuck out his tongue at Freddy and glanced over at Layla. “What have you guys found?” 

“A biodome.” Layla replied, a grin spreading across her face. Lyle’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re serious! In the middle of a desert? Who put it there?” 

“No idea.” Layla admitted. “Come see.” Lyle peered down through the glass and his jaw dropped. “Oh, WOW! What’s down there? Why do the trees GLOW? And what are those MARKINGS?” he gestured frantically to the trees and the walls and pillars covered in lines. Layla shrugged. “I don’t know. Hieroglyphics, maybe, or some other language? I’d need to get a closer look.” Lyle grinned, looking from Freddy to Layla and back again. “If you two are going down there, I’m coming too!” He waved vaguely at Freddy. “You heard her, Fred! Get that rope tied down!” Freddy complied, but he didn’t look happy. 

Freddy lashed the rope to a large boulder and packed small rocks around the edge of the boulder to give it extra stability. He led the rope out onto the pane of glass and stopped right in the center. He lifted his foot high. 

“You can’t possibly tell me you mean to kick that window open,” Layla said. “The amount of strength it would take-” Freddy brought his foot down on the glass. Nothing. Again. A crack appeared, spreading from the center down the front of the glass. Again. This time the window wobbled and Lyle inhaled sharply. “Be careful, Freddy!” 

“Don’t worry, Lyle! It’s stable, it’ll hold me!” 

Freddy’s next kick caused cracks to spread across nearly the whole face of the pane. He turned and gave them a triumphant look. “See? I told you that it would hold me!” 

Then the glass gave way. 

If Freddy hadn’t had a tight grip on the rope, he most likely would have plummeted to his death on the floor of the biodome. As it was, the rope slackened and the sprang taut with a sound like a string being strummed on a guitar. The rock that the rope was anchored to lurched forwards with an ominous rumbling. There was a creaking sound and then a clattering sound far below as the broken glass struck the ground. 

Layla and Lyle ran to the edge of the hole, being careful to keep their distance from the edge. “Freddy? FRED?” Lyle’s voice was jagged, broken up into bits and pieces like the glass they were standing on. Layla felt cold, icy fingers of dread wrap around her throat. What if. . . 
“I’m all right, you worryweevils, just scratched up!” Freddy’s voice came up from deep within the biodome, and from their position they could see the outline of his white shirt, stark against the dark stone and dirt. Lyle sighed with relief, and Layla allowed herself to relax. Freddy was fine. She peered down at him, squinting. “How do we get down?” Freddy chuckled. “Climb down, of course.” Lyle looked like he was going to faint. “That high?” 

Layla approached the edge of the hole, then knelt down and picked up the rope, turning it between her fingers. Lyle looked at her in astonishment. “You can’t possibly think of doing this, Layla!” Layla frowned at him. “Why shouldn’t I? The rope won’t break. And if I recall correctly, you wanted to come with me.” 

She gripped the rope tightly in both hands and locked her legs around the rope. She stepped backwards until she was at the very edge of the hole and she could feel the glass shards beginning to give way beneath her feet. Lyle watched her apprehensively. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Layla.” 

“I do, too,” Layla said, and stepped off the edge. 

The fall was sudden and frightening; her stomach tightened as she fell, and her hands threatened to be ripped from the rope that was digging into her palms and searing her fingers. Her left foot was tangled in the rope and her braids whipped across her face and scratched her cheeks. She could hear Lyle calling out something high above her, and she couldn’t even see Freddy. The walls flashed by, and then she felt the rope pull taut and stop abruptly, Her feet slammed into hard stone and she crumpled to her knees, bright spots of color and darkness dancing before her eyes. Layla looked at her hands. They were burned, raw and sliced open in the places where the rope had cut into them, blood welling up and trickling onto the floor, threatening to stain her shirt. She sighed and with a ruefull frown wiped them on her slacks, wincing at the sharp pain that accompanied it. She took in a deep breath and almost choked-the air down here was thick with dust. She slowly got to her feet, opened her eyes and gasped, inhaling another lungful of dust. 

Now that she was at the bottom of the biodome, she could see everything clearly. The trees at the center were even brighter than before, and their trunks curved and twisted like snakes down to the floor where they spread outward in an endless expanse of roots partially covered by thick green moss. The floor was indeed a mixture of dirt and stone, carved thickly with lines and scars that looked very much like claw and tooth marks. 

She marched over to one of the pillars and traced her fingers along the lines carved there. Now that she could see them properly, Layla realized that they weren’t written in hieroglyphics at all. Or Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, or any other language she knew. These were different, sharp hatch marks and dots drilled into the rough stone. They didn’t even appear to be human-made. 

As her eyes scanned the long rows she realized that the symbols kept repeating the same lines over and over again, in a constant stream. But what were they saying? 

She heard a high-pitched shriek behind her and almost leapt three feet off the ground. She whirled around and saw a brightly colored blur descending rapidly towards the ground that was making a noise that resembled a dying goat. Layla relaxed. It was only Lyle. 

Lyle’s feet made contact with the stone floor and his knees buckled. He squirmed around on the ground for a few seconds and then stood, brushing off the knees of his pants. His face was white as chalk and his hands shook. “That was scary!” He looked around the biodome and his face turned, if possible, even paler. “Whoa. . .” 

“I know.” Layla raised her eyebrows at the deep grooves scored into the floor. “Any idea what those could be?” 

“Claw marks. Duh.” 

“Well, I know that, but what-” 

“Something’s down here.” Layla and Lyle both startled. Freddy strode from the shadows from behind one of the pillars. He wriggled his eyebrows at Lyle and Layla. 

“I see you both had a nice trip down.” He sounded more amused than Layla thought was polite. 

“How did you know where we were? This place is enormous.” Freddy nodded. “That is true, but you were hard to miss, what with you screaming like a dying goat.” Lyle’s face flushed red. “What about you? You look like you had a nice trip down,” he said, gesturing to Freddy’s raw and bleeding hands. 

“You tell me that you didn’t end up with the same thing!” Freddy said, snatching Lyle’s hands in his own and poking at the cuts there. “Ow!” Lyle screeched, slapping Freddy’s arm and leaving a bloody streak across his bicep. 

“Both of you, enough!” Layla demanded; her voice echoed around the biodome, unnaturally loud.

To be continued . . . . .