I work as part of a research team in Greenland. We think we've found Noah's Ark. [Part 3]

Part 1
Part 2
Do not stop.
?I won?t,? I muttered, crawling through the dark.
Keep going.
?I will.?
This is a gift.
?My gift.?
My words were a hushed sob. I was speaking just to hear the comforting sound of my own voice. It had been at least a day. By sheer chance I?d reached a small room all the way on the other end of the ship during my flight, and I?d hidden away in it while listening to the ever-so-quiet footfalls of the clay men that lived here. It had been so tempting to stay in the one place where I might avoid their groping hands. But it wasn?t that simple. I had no food, only a small supply of water, and sleep was impossible. After a long time huddled in the dark I finally pushed the door open and began to crawl my way along the righthand wall, desperate not to make a sound. All my equipment had been abandoned barring the light and gun; whatever I brought out of the ship would just have to fit in my head.
You?re so close.
?I know,? I hissed. The words sounded a little too loud for comfort, so I stopped and waited for signs of the slightest change in my surroundings. I had no idea where I was, but I could only assume danger wasn?t far off. Thankfully, nothing moved, and I released a breath before continuing.
The others failed.
?They all did,? I whispered, a little more carefully this time.
They never wanted the truth.
?No one wants the truth,? I replied.
You won?t have to share it with them.
?They never deserved it.?
You are close to where he worked.
I stopped. I couldn?t risk turning the light on but I waited to see if I could feel anything, some possible change in air pressure, that might tell me if I was near a doorway. I must have stayed like that for a full minute only to reach my hand out and nearly fall through a vacant spot in the wall. I was hardly a tunnel rat. I couldn?t even tell that I?d been kneeling next to an open room. I might have laughed under other circumstances.
I crawled inside and pulled the door shut with aching care. Hoping for the best, I turned my light on and revealed a modestly sized space with rows and rows of desks. I was the only living thing there. It was a workspace with one corner filled with vases of clay and half-finished pieces lying haphazardly on the ground. Some had been smashed, beaten, stomped. Others were still standing, precious, beautiful.
He really was a good sculptor. Each one was a meticulous and beautiful rendering of a different bird. They didn?t look like perfect replicas of the real things, but rather like the ideal of how they should look. There was a shelf filled with thousands of pairs of sparrows, crows, parrots, and hens, all inert but incredibly lifelike. I picked one up and noticed it felt different to the clay samples I had taken. I figured it for a practice run, a way to hone his skills before trying for the real thing.
?Not like the others,? I muttered quietly.
He destroyed these works and many others. He did not understand the curse, did not understand why the real ones failed.
?How long was he on this ship thinking the fate of humanity depended on him?? I asked myself.
He never stopped trying.
?So why did he smash these ones? Rage? Frustration??
He died of old age. Alone.
At the far end of this room was another doorway. I approached it, shaking, ready to enter the next chamber when the door I?d closed juddered forward with a terrible grind. It moved no more than an inch and I snapped around, fixing my light on it?wild shadows flying around the room like gargoyles on a cathedral?s spires?but it was still. For a moment I thought I?d imagined the sound when, once again, the frame shivered and the door moved forward another inch. A single white finger probed the gap and reached around the door, soon followed by two others.
Run.
I turned just as a round head peered at me, but I didn?t wait to see what it was. I ran, passing into another room filled with dozens of sculptures of life-sized deer, each one hauntingly beautiful, a complete a far cry from the wretched misshapen thing that chased me. Others lay smashed on the floor, broken before they could ever be finished. These rooms were chained together in an open row of workshops where the ancient artist had practiced making all kinds of things. I ran straight through each one, trying my hardest to ignore the rising boom of footfalls behind me.
His talent wasn?t enough, I thought.
You?re getting close.
The rooms started to change, and I noticed that they were now filled with those familiar empty cages. It made me hope I was close to where we?d entered. Although close is a relative term when trapped in a nightmarish labyrinthian city of pitch-black wicker walls.
Left.
I burst out of the cage-room into yet another corridor and headed left without even thinking. Those footfalls continued, and as I sprinted I found long white arms appearing out of doorways on either side. I ducked them as best I could but at the very last moment one grabbed my hood and lifted me from the ground. My heart was in my throat and my vision narrowed to a static-white tunnel?I think I ****** myself, I don?t remember?but I quickly wriggled my way out of my jacket before the arm?s twin snatched at the space where my head had been just moments before.
I hit the floor running and carried on, legs powering like pistons while my lungs burned with acid. I could hear more of them coming and there was just enough oxygen left in my brain for me to start wondering what the long-term plan really was.
Keep going.
They won?t follow.
I ran for what felt like forever until, eventually, I looked back and saw more of those strange things lingering far off in the darkness. It was only fleeting glimpse, but I felt as if they should have been closer than they were. I didn?t want to think they were slowing. I didn?t want to feel that sort of hope. But I found my feet moving faster nonetheless, as if whatever lay ahead really might just keep me safe.
You?re here.
I stopped at last. Where I stood was a cross-roads of sorts, quite possibly in the same chamber we?d been attacked in the day before. Dozens of small footpaths had been carved in the dust by regular passage and they converged on some space far ahead. I followed to the centre where a small crater a few metres wide had been made in the snowy ash. As far as I could tell I was alone so I took the time to catch my breath. But after that? I had no idea.
So close.
?So close,? I murmured.
The air in that place had a reverent stillness. My torch seemed to stretch farther than usual, lighting the space around me in a cool lunar glow. Endless flakes of dust fell around me and for a moment I thought of standing in a snow globe. I felt like I was at the heart of the cosmos, like the whole world was holding its breath.
He blamed himself. Blamed his mortality.
Something stirred and I faced the darkness. Its footsteps were quiet like a deer?s in the snow but I could feel the vibrations in the sole of my feet.
He needed something better than he was.
It approached. I realised this was the truth I?d been looking for, the explanation for it all.
He needed a god.
?And he made one,? I answered, my voice a quiver.
Where there had been a need for breath, the artist had made something to breathe in his place. In the darkness it had stayed for the last eighty millennia, crafting endless creatures and shapes to bring to life. Ersatz creations for an ersatz god; it had never stopped trying to fulfil its purpose.
It stepped into the light and I saw the face of a weathered old man with a furrowed brow and a grey crown of hair, something inherited from one who?d given it life. He was born of racial characteristics that no longer exist and yet I recognised the face of a man who was intelligent, patient, and committed. It was the face of a priest or a teacher, an idealised representation of its creator that stood 12 feet tall. Time or perhaps the curse had worn it down into a haggard leper of a man, skinny and gaunt with lesion riddled skin. Even as it stood, parts of it fell to the floor in wet clumps that writhed and died. I decided it must be blind since it had no interest in me, not even passing. It strode past and reached down, grabbing some of the ever-present dust to compress and role into slithers of skin it slapped onto its crumbling torso. It was re-fashioning its own body even as it rotted to pieces.
When one of its limbs came too close to me I stood aside and let it wander ahead where I followed. Its feet carved wide paths in the ash and I kept close as it wandered with purpose through the dark. After a while it came to stop by some mounds of dust and it lowered itself to the floor with a ground-shaking thud. Slowly it took some of the loose material and compressed it back into solid lumps of clay. Carefully it began to fashion something. I couldn?t be sure what but I found all fear gone. I could have stayed there for days. I still don?t know how long it exactly was that I stayed there. The god never moved and nor did I. I couldn?t. I was rooted to the spot by the sheer beauty of its work, and I watched with intense fascination as it rolled and shaped and twisted and pulled until at last it had the perfect image. Its enormous hands were deftly skilled and the final product appeared whole before me almost as if by magic.
It was me. My clothes, my hair, my face, even the coat I?d shaken loose just hours before. Every last detail was recreated with inhuman perfection.
The god looked toward me. Its stony blank eyes regarded me with no human emotion I recognised before rising from the floor. It turned back swiftly towards the darkness and exited the light. And just like that, I was alone once more in the dark.
Not alone. You have a gift.
I turned to the statue. It was perfectly still almost as if it was waiting.
Waiting for someone to breathe life into it.
"No," I whispered.
Yes.
-
?Why am I not surprised you?re here??
I opened my eyes. I was lying in the tunnel just behind the bulkhead with no memory of how I?d got there. Standing over me was a very grim looking older man. His name, as far as I knew, required a level of clearance that was somehow above even the president?s head.
?Because you make a habit of ****ting all over my dreams?? I grunted, pushing myself upright while wincing from the pain. I must have been out for hours, lying on the hard frozen floor. Sheer luck had stopped me from suffering hypothermia. Thank God I had my jacket.
?You really shouldn?t have gone in,? he gestured to the ship. ?There are a million different reasons to leave things like this buried and I would hope that over the years even just a few might have sunk in for you.?
?There are no good reasons to ignore the truth,? I replied before adding: ?How did I get here? Do you know that at least? How I got out??
The man shrugged.
?I was hoping you?d tell me, along with a few other details perhaps,? he replied.
?Ah well,? I said. ?Funny thing is but my experiences within that ship are classified.?
?Really?? He raised his eyebrows.
?I?ve come to the conclusion that the information I learned from my excursion is too dangerous to share with the public and uh, none of you men-in-black pricks meet my steep criteria for security clearance. Why don?t you have your people talk to my peo??
?Very funny,? he said. ?I don?t know why you do it. It doesn?t change anything. No one will listen.?
?They don?t need to,? I said, begrudgingly taking his hand as he pulled me up. ?Now, are you *******s going to arrest me or is this carnival finally over??
?It?s over,? the man smiled. ?The others are being evacuated now. Charges will be pressed against Dr Greaves for illegally taking donations from organisations associated with fracking lobbyists. He won?t see prison time but he?ll never work legitimately again. As for you, we didn?t feel it was worth our time to tarnish you any further. At this stage you?d be lucky to get something out there on Dating.mobi.?
?The students?? I asked.
?Strongly encouraged to change their current avenue of study. You know how it goes. First the carrot, then the stick. We?ll get them out of the field soon enough.?
?I remember quite well,? I replied. ?What about the samples??
?Some kind of fungal parasite that leeches genetic traits from whatever it finds in the atmosphere. Some quirk of temperature and humidity makes it best disposed to absorb breath but nothing?s technically stopping it from going all grey-goo in the back of a warm cupboard. When you factor in its potent ability to absorb memories then, who knows? Maybe even you might understand why it needs to be kept under our strict control. We?ve had access to the samples for a few days while we waited for you to pop up. It?s ability to absorb even the most complex of human memories makes it an apocalypse waiting to happen. We found your lead biologist dead in her lab while the thing she was experimenting on finished up her written report.?
?That?s a shame,? I said. ?She was a hard worker and very smart.?
?Yes it is,? he replied, eyeing me with disdain. ?Yet another avoidable death.?
?Good thing you?ve got all the samples then isn?t it?? I said. ?Locked away for all eternity, I imagine. God forbid we get to study it!?
The man laughed uproariously like I?d just made a very clever joke.
?Your words not mine, doctor,? he said before leaving like he?d won the argument (something he loved to do). But I didn?t pursue, instead allowing myself to be taken away by a crew of paramedics to check for signs of injury. Far away, the man began marshalling several groups of people to work on sealing the ark away for all eternity. I watched as, once again, the world set itself towards the goal of destroying the truth I?d worked so hard to unearth. But this time I didn?t feel despair or dejection. I?d learned the full truth this time, and although my stomach hurt like hell and my head was full of holes, I smiled from ear-to-ear.
I knew the truth. The whole truth, or so I thought.
?Christ,? one of the paramedics laughed, shaking a cloud of white clay loose from my jacket. ?It?s like you?re made of the stuff.?
Little-by-little, my smile began to fade.


Source.