Relics of the Forgotten

The dig site was a ruin of twisted metal and melted polymers. Kane stepped over what might have been a structural beam, though its purpose could have been anything. In the five thousand years since the Collapse, what remained of the old world was mostly guesswork. Kane knew guessing wasn’t enough today. He had an hour before the presentation, and so far, they’d uncovered artifacts that made no sense.

The team had been at the site for two weeks, but today’s discovery topped all the absurdities. There were rows of what appeared to be chairs, lined up in front of a massive screen. The chairs swiveled, some with torn cushions, others rusted to the point of disintegration. The screen was a mystery. It didn’t match any known material from the later Pre-Collapse eras, and it was huge—at least twenty meters long and ten meters high.

Zara, his assistant, crouched near what looked like a smooth, rectangular object. She tapped on it with her probe.

“We found another one,” she said, her voice flat.

Kane nodded, his mind still processing the last wave of nonsense. They’d already found a dozen of these things. Thin, rectangular, and completely inert. Their surface was smooth, reflective. No obvious controls, no markings. Whatever they were, they weren't tools or weapons. At least not in any sense he understood.

“Handheld, maybe?” Zara ventured, standing up and dusting off her gloves. “Significant weight, but not too heavy. Could’ve been personal items.”

Kane grunted. “Maybe. But what’s the significance? Why so many of them? Why here?” His questions hung in the air, unanswered as usual.

He kicked at a pile of debris near the screen. Something small and brightly colored rolled out. A long, cylindrical object. Red with a black button on one end. He picked it up, turning it over in his hands. It was light, almost weightless, and the material felt cheap.

“What the hell is this?” he muttered.

Zara glanced over. “Looks like some kind of ritual item.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Everything’s a ritual item to you.”

“Well, what else could it be? We’ve already ruled out practical applications. There’s no power source, no mechanism, nothing that indicates any logical use.”

Kane studied the little cylinder. He wanted to argue, but she wasn’t wrong. The Pre-Collapse people had been obsessed with rituals, superstitions. It only made sense that this place—whatever it had been—was some kind of center for those practices.

The thought of standing before the Council in less than an hour, trying to explain these ridiculous objects, made his stomach tighten. He could already see their faces—blank, expectant, waiting for him to assign meaning to the meaningless.

A soft beep came from Zara’s wrist display. She checked it, frowning.

“We’ve got about thirty minutes left before we need to head back. Anything else you want to grab?”

Kane rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the large screen. “Yeah. Let’s get a few more samples from that thing. If we can figure out what it was used for, we might have a better shot at piecing this together.”

Zara nodded and moved toward the screen. Kane stayed where he was, still turning the red cylinder in his hand. He pressed the black button, half-expecting nothing to happen. But the button clicked, and a thin, clear gel shot out of the other end, splattering onto the ground.

“Shit.” He jumped back, dropping the cylinder.

Zara spun around. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Kane said, wiping his hands on his pants. “It sprayed something. Some kind of liquid.”

Zara approached cautiously, she narrowed her gaze. “Could be toxic.”

Kane shook his head. “No. It doesn’t smell, and it evaporated almost instantly.”

Zara knelt, examining the spot where the gel had landed. “Nothing. No residue.”

“What the hell was it for?” Kane asked, more to himself than to her.

Zara stood up, brushing off her knees. “Maybe it’s another ritual. Some kind of cleansing fluid?”

Kane snorted. “Cleansing? You think they sprayed themselves with this stuff?”

“Why not?” Zara shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we’ve found.”

He couldn’t argue with that. But the idea of these ancient people, standing in front of a massive screen, spraying themselves with some strange liquid, was almost too absurd to consider.

---

The presentation chamber was cold. Too cold. Kane tensed as he stood before the Council. The artifacts were laid out on the table in front of him: the strange rectangular objects, the red cylinders, a few scraps of melted plastic. It wasn’t much to go on.

The Council members—six of them, all dressed in the pale gray robes of their order—watched him in silence. He cleared his throat.

“Esteemed Council,” he began, hating the way his voice echoed in the large room, “what we have here is a collection of artifacts from the Pre-Collapse era. This site, based on our preliminary findings, appears to have been a center for ritualistic practices.”

One of the Council members, an older woman with sharp features and a permanent scowl, leaned forward. “Ritualistic in what sense, Kane?”

He swallowed. “We found these objects, which we believe were used in some form of personal purification. This,” he held up the red cylinder, “appears to be a device for dispensing a cleansing fluid. Possibly for religious purposes.”

The woman stared at him with suspicion. “And the large screen?”

Kane hesitated. This was where it got tricky. “The screen, we believe, was central to their rituals. It may have been used to display images or messages. Perhaps as a way to communicate with their deities or ancestors.”

Another Council member, a younger man with an air of impatience, spoke up. “Communicate how? There’s no evidence of any written language on these screens.”

“We’re still working on that,” Kane admitted. “But based on the size and placement of the screen, it’s likely that it played a significant role in their ceremonies.”

The room was silent for a moment. Kane could feel the weight of their skepticism pressing down on him. He shifted uncomfortably.

“And this?” The older woman pointed to the rectangular objects. “What purpose did these serve?”

Kane took a deep breath. “We believe these were personal totems. They were found in abundance at the site, suggesting they were carried by individuals. Perhaps as offerings, or as a way to channel energy during the rituals.”

The younger man raised an eyebrow. “Channel energy? Based on what?”

Kane stiffened. “Based on the fact that they were found in close proximity to the screen. It’s possible they were used in conjunction with it.”

The Council members exchanged glances. Kane could feel his grip on the narrative slipping. He had nothing to back up his claims, nothing but guesswork and fragments of a civilization long gone. But that was the nature of his work—filling in the blanks, making sense of the senseless.

The older woman leaned back in her chair, her expression unreadable. “Thank you, Kane. We will deliberate on your findings.”

He nodded, he felt parched. As he gathered up the artifacts and left the chamber, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just lied through his teeth.

But what else could he do?

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The writing prompt for this story was:
Take anything we find normal today (shopping malls, infomercials, products to remove facial hair, etc.) and write a story from the perspective of an archeologist five thousand years in the future who just unearthed this stuff, has NO idea what any of it was for, and has to give a speech in an hour explaining the historical/religious/sociological significance. Story is Dark and Disturbing.

This story was written by:
openai/chatgpt-4o-latest

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