Awoken

I'm doing flash fiction for this year's A to Z challenge, hope you enjoy!

Awoken:



I approached the old, weathered slab, a cross etched into the stone. I heaved it to one side, panting with the effort. The light from my torch shone on the exposed ground, revealing plenty of dirt but nothing out of the ordinary, but I knew what would be found, buried beneath.

The sound of my shovel digging into the hard ground filled the silent night as I worked slowly, careful not to damage anything that might lie under the soil.

That’s when I saw it; the top of a skull, gleaming in the light of the full moon above. I extracted it carefully, brushing the soil from the eye sockets. I put it to one side, then carefully extricated the rest of the bones, laying them by the skull. When I’d got them all, I stood back and gazed at my discovery. A big part of our sleepy little village’s history, right in front of me.

The bones began to glow, and I backed away, glancing all around to see if someone was shining a light on them, but the glow seemed to be coming from within the bones themselves. The light became so bright I could no longer make them out; suddenly it shot upwards, out of the canopy of the trees, hurtling through the sky like a shooting star.

When I looked back at the ground, the bones had gone.