Science Fiction Short Story
The Buried Civilization
ISBN 978-955-44323-1-4
“Bro, are you sure this is not a big mental problem?” Chamal asked the senior psychiatry student again because this mysterious dream he kept seeing had become somewhat of a psychological problem.
“No, no, bro. do not be afraid. There is nothing wrong with that. Even if you don’t remember, you might see a part of a movie you watched when you were young. And it’s not a scary dream. Get this tablet from the pharmacy and drink it at night before going to bed. Then the stress in your mind will be reduced.”
After thanking the psychiatry student and leaving, Chamal felt somewhat relieved. He came to the restroom of the university and sat on a bench there. He once again began to reflect on the events he had seen in his dream one by one.
He was on a battlefield when the dream began. But he did not understand whether it was a war that happened in the past or a war that will be going to happen in the future. But it shouldn’t be recent.
Deafening roars were heard as if the sky was thundering. Flashes of bright, intense light appear from time to time. Planes moving so fast that it was hard for the naked eye to see, flying weapons that had never been seen or heard of before, the wreckage of destroyed planes scattered everywhere, flattened buildings, burnt corpses… He walked forward through all this. But suddenly someone ran to him. He came screaming because of the noises from around him. He pulled Chamal’s hand and started running in another direction. Although Chamal was not clear on any of the words spoken by the unknown guest, Chamal knew that the guest said: “Follow me”.
After running for a long time through the collapsed buildings and debris, the two of them then came close to an object that could be thought to be some kind of small plane. Four or five other people were staying near it. They must have been waiting for these two. As soon as they both boarded, the plane immediately took off. Chamal had no idea about the speed or distance it traveled. The only thing he felt was that his body weight was rapidly decreasing within two minutes. He looked out the transparent window at the back of the plane. They were in space. The world he had set foot in a moment ago seemed miles away. But he believes that it is not the earth.
In less than five minutes, a blue planet was seen on the front screen of the plane. Chamal knew that it was the earth. After that again the dream is unclear. He did not remember how or where they got off the plane.
When the next part of the dream began, he was in the hall of a large building. The person who accompanied Chamal from the battlefield was beside him. But the other five people who came on the plane were not seen. Many people inside and outside the building were frantically doing various kinds of work. But Chamal did not understand what they were doing. It was all beyond his knowledge and experience. Some had weapons in their hands that he had never seen or heard of, and some had weapons attached to their bodies. He did not understand if they were real humans or some other life specie like robots. Walking through all this, the two of them stopped in front of a young woman. Chamal did not know who the girl belonged to. But Chamal remembers that she was very pretty and was wearing a special dress than the others.
As soon as she saw him, she ran forward and hugged him and kissed him. Then, holding a bag in one hand and his hand in the other, they ran in another direction. After coming out of the building, they passed a few more buildings and arrived at an open area. No one else was around except for the three of them. The three of them ran to a small building in the distance and entered it. Then she took out a small box-like machine from the bag she had brought and began to tell him something nervously. Even though he had seen the same dream about twelve times now, he couldn’t remember even a single word she said. But one thing she showed him was well remembered. That is when the bottom corner of the box is touched twice with the thumb, one out of four times, something like the lid of the box will open. But he had no idea what was inside it.
The building is like a temple. In a corner, there was a large statue. But it is not clear whose. All three of them bowed their knees to it. Then, as per her instructions, Chamal and his companion went to two carved watch-stones on one side of the building. There was a dig about eight feet deep. The two of them jumped into it, removed a stone from the ground, and made a small opening. Then the two of them placed the box she had brought in the opening, put the removed stone back in its place, and came out of the dig. At the same time, there was a huge noise and a sharp light from outside. Chamal looked at her. She was also looking at him with deep sadness. He understood very well what her eyes said. That means that in a few moments, we will all die.
At the end of the dream, Chamal sees the sad eyes of that unknown girl. Then everything slowly fades away. He wakes up. He sees this same dream for twelve consecutive days without any change. But he had no idea about the people or places he saw.
Six months later…
“Damn it. We came on the day of this sacrifice. Look at the damn traffic. We will unable to leave here for another hour.” Chamal put his head out of the window of the van and looked around and said to his cousin named Kasun who was sitting next to him.
Kasun is his aunt’s son. Both of them were of the same age and were studying at the University of Colombo, but they were in two faculties. Chamal studied in the Faculty of civil engineering, and Kasun was in the Faculty of Arts. Now they are halfway to the Swarnamali Stupa on their pilgrimage to Anuradhapura. As the university holidays came, they were able to participate in the pilgrimage travel organized by the residents. Chamal was not very interested in such pilgrimages. But finally, he decided to participate in pilgrimage travel because Kasun also came.
“I told my mother about that early. But no point” Kasun said while looking outside.
Even after half an hour, their vehicle could only travel a few meters. From the morning onwards, thousands of people were coming to worship the pagoda. The limits of tolerance for Chamal and Kasun had been almost exceeded. But the elderly women in the van did not want to turn back. But after a few more minutes of conversation, the pilgrimage group agreed to turn back and return in the evening.
“There are many old temples along the way. You don’t want to be worried. Let’s worship a temple on our way.” The driver of the van said as if to calm the crowd.
The van stopped at a very old-looking temple called Ghrushi Aramaya. Everyone walked inside the temple with a pious heart.
“Hey boys, do you know that this is a place that existed before the Anuradhapura kingdom was built? I meant it was there even before the Buddha came to Sri Lanka. At that time, this was a place where the sages meditated. After Buddhism spread in Sri Lanka, it is said that all those sages who meditated became monks, and this place became a Buddhist temple.
“Then how old is it, uncle?”
“Oh… it’s more than ten thousand years old. King Ravana has also come here.”
The elders started preparing flower pots for worship. While them doing it, Chamal and Kasun start walking in the temple.
“The driver is correct. Look like this is a very old place. Isn’t it?” Chamal said while looking around.
It was a large site spread over many acres, and in many places, there were ruins of buildings that were supposed to have been built of black stone. A long time ago, this place must have been a haven of great architecture.
“Ah, I need to pee now. Wait a minute. I’ll pee on that tree and come back,” said Kasun, pointing to a nearby mango tree.
“Don’t do it, man. This is a temple. I also need to pee too. Stay there. I will ask that man,” said Chamal. He went to a person who was mowing the grass in the temple garden to ask for the location of the toilet.
As the grass cutter said, the two of them started walking toward the back of the temple garden.
“Dude, it’s a long way to pee. If there is an emergency, it would go in pants.” Kasun said with a smile.
Finally, they reached the toilet near the end of the temple garden. Next to it, there was a small room which was supposed to be where the servants of the temple stayed. But at this moment, no one was staying there. A few meters away, there was a small pond made of black stones. Like other places on the temple grounds, ancient ruins are everywhere. Seems no one tried to preserve that valuable history.
“Oh, I can’t wait anymore. Almost close to wetting my pants. I’ll go and come soon.” Said Kasun and went into the toilet.
Until Kasun came back, Chamal looked around. He felt a strange sense of familiarity in this place. But he didn’t care. When it was his turn, Chamal went to the toilet and came out. He can see the small pond very well which was near to the toilet door. But his eyes stopped not at the pond, but at the two stone watchtowers nearby. His heart tingled with the sudden flash of memory.
“Oh God, that dream…” He had forgotten that dream that had appeared continuously for days. After that, even though it appeared a few times, he didn’t care much. But now, what is going on? Is it that place?
“This can’t happen,” he muttered, walking towards the pond and leaning towards a watchtower. Now there is no doubt. That dream began to play in his mind like a movie. Although, the watch stone carving had worn away over time. But he could still make it out. The sudden shock knocked him to the ground.
“Kasun, come here for a little bit.” He called to Kasun who was trying to pick a mango.
“Do you remember I told you a while ago about that dream I saw continuously?”
“You said you were in a war, right? Also, you said there was a beautiful girl too.
“Dude, this is the place”. Chamal answered after some hesitation.
“What?”
After that, an argument ensued between them. Chamal wanted to go down into the pond. He was sure as hell that the box that the girl had given was inside it. But Kasun scolded him as a madman. After arguing for a few minutes, Chamal ran into the nearby servants’ cabin, took off the pants and shirt he was wearing, wrapped a sarong around his body, and returned to the pond.
“You think I’m crazy. Wait, you will see.” Before Kasun said anything, Chamal dived into the pond without thinking twice.
It was deep than he thought. He was fully sunk in water. But after grabbing the edge of the pond and coming back up, Chamal took a deep breath and dived again to touch the bottom of the pond. After trying seven or eight times, Chamal was able to find a small gap at the bottom where he could put a finger. He tried hard to pull it out. But with the passage of time, it was clogged with silt and soil. He realized that this was an extremely difficult task. Suddenly he remembered that there was a screwdriver on a table in the servant’s room. He got out of the pond again and ran to the room and brought a screwdriver and another sarong.
“I found it, dude. Wear this and quickly dive into the pond.” Chamal said while throwing the new sarong to Kasun.
In response to Chamal’s insistence, Kasun wears the sarong and dived into the pond. After another fifteen minutes of hard effort, the two of them managed to remove the small stone lid. At the same time, Chamal put his hand in the hole under the lid. It was a great surprise. He found it. Chamal understood that what he saw in the dream was not psychotic.
Both of them came out of the pond with a deep breath. But they forget their tiredness. The two of them started looking at the strange box in Chamal’s hand full of curiosity.
According to the dream, after touching the four corners of the box twice with the thumb, it should open. Chamal did the same. As soon as it was over, the top lid of the box opened while the two of them stared in amazement. It contained a few old documents. As he tried to take it and unfold it, Kasun saw someone walking in the distance.
“Hey, the owner of the room is coming. Let’s move quickly.” They wear their pants and shirts as quickly as possible and escaped from the back of the room so that the man who was coming forward could not see them.
* * *
A month later…
There were some documents in the strang box that they found by chance during their trip to Anuradhapura. But since they could not identify the letters and signs contained in it, they had to seek the help of Mr. Sarath Nandasena, an assistant lecturer working in the archeological faculty. But both of them decided not to say anything about the dream or how they got the box.
“I couldn’t read this properly” Sarath started talking.
“I can get a little idea of some of the things in this. But not sure. Because these letters and symbols are different from the letters of inscriptions and our old paperback books. Either this is an old document of a different people in some other country. Or it belongs to an unknown history before the history written in the Mahavanshaya book.
“Sir, what do you mean by it? Is it about Ravana’s time?”
“I don’t know that, son. Maybe it is. Because as far as I understand, this is saying about a big war. I can’t say how many years ago it happened. Cause I can’t read the letters in this.”
“Sir, if you can’t read, how did you say that it is saying about a war?” Chamal asked in a bit of a panic.
“Let me tell you, son. Although I don’t understand the letters, I understand some of the symbols in this document. This is hard to believe. But I will tell you what I understand. This is not a war that happened on this planet. Seems it happened on Mars. I can guest it because I learned about these symbols when we read the Sumerian civilization’s documents.” Sarath said while showing a symbol in the document.
“There is one more thing I can say for sure. Here this symbol tells about some planetary system. Then…, considering this document…” Sarath said and took the third document.
“This is a map. A map of our world. Look at the three marked places. After checking with the current maps, I could imagine what these places are. This shows somewhere in the Antarctic. Then this is a place under the sea. A volcano under the Pacific Ocean. I don’t remember the name now. I wrote down its name. Wait a minute. A volcano called Tamu Masiff. The next place is also a volcano called Tambora. It is on an island close to Indonesia.”
“So what is written about those places?”
“I don’t know. I can’t read these letters. So, I can’t figure out what it says. But I can get a little idea thanks to the symbols of the Sumerian language. There are three more documents you gave me.”
“Here, this is about a place or something on Mars. Then this means something about the moon. After that, it was more difficult for me to find this. This symbol represents a moon belonging to the Jupiter planet. It is called Titan. I guess it should be about that.”
After that, there was a slight lull. All three of them had an inkling of a serious unknown history.
“Sir, what do you think this is about?”
“Mmm… I cannot even guess. When I started reading this, I was stunned. But I can say this. If this is not someone’s fake document, then this is about an incident that no one in the world knows about, not just us. I don’t know if it is about Ravana’s time. But there must be something we don’t know about.”
“I think this is about a war between two worlds. I said that because one document said about a planetary system. In the writings of the Sumerians, there are details about people who come from the sky. I don’t know if it is about people from other worlds. But their scrolls also have planetary systems like this. Maybe this civilization has been lost in that war.”
“Maybe these maps must be about the places where there were wars. Or it could be the places where they had some important things.”
“Sir, are you saying that these people also fought on Mars?”
“I don’t know, son. I said what I thought. Cause there are some details in these documents, maybe there is something in those places.”
“If we tell NASA about this, won’t they look into it?” Chamal asked, but at that moment, he thought it was a stupid question.
Sarath started answering it with a slight smile.
“Son, do you think that just because there is a document somewhere, NASA will do a project that cost millions of dollars?” That’s impossible. Also, we do not know if anyone in this world will be able to read this document exactly. Otherwise, it’s hard for us to imagine exactly what these places are. Just look at the places that say this. Moon, Mars, under the deep sea… Can we visit those places?“
“If these people can go to other planets, they should be much more advanced than us. So what I believe is, that if we are looking for something, we should develop to the extent that we can understand what we are looking for. Either we need our technology to improve more than their technology. At least it should be close to that level. That’s why son, I don’t think people won’t understand that advanced technologies even if they find something.”
———–The End————-
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