Descendants of the Moon

A group of people walked around the cave with backpacks hung on their backs, head torches, and long flashlights. The leader of the group, a man in his late forties, with a lean face, straight nose, and touches of grey hair stopped and all of them stopped. He turned to face them.

"Alright, people." His voice echoed in the cave, bouncing off the walls. "We have come to the cave of Altron. We all know what we are to do right? We will have to split, two people into a group. Find whatever you can."

"Yes, Mr. Fergus," the crew chorused.

"You have to choose your partner and do a great job." He gave them thumbs up and called on one of the men to go with him.

The other members dispersed in twos until it was left with a woman and a man. They faced each other and stared at themselves in silence. The woman twitched up her mouth, tapping her leg on the ground while looking at the man.

"I guess you are my partner then," she said in a quiet voice and turned her back on the guy and started walking away. "Let's get to work then."

The guy went after her immediately and place his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it away.

"Hey, what's the problem? You have been avoiding me since yesterday we got here," the guy said.

"We are working right now." She kept walking without looking back at him.

"Come on, babe, you know that's not the reason. This is not the first time we would be on this together. We worked but we still got along."

"Maybe, I just decided to stop mixing business with pleasure," the girl spat out the words with contempt, still walking fast.

The guy jogged to keep up with her. "If there is something I did wrong, why not talk to me about it and stop giving me this attitude? It's sickening."

She halted and turned to look at the guy, her hands fisted on her waist. "Attitude? Sickening? Well, I don't have anything to say to you until I am done with what I came here to do." She started moving again.

The guy went after her again and this time, he went to her front and stood, making her stop in her tracks. "Alright, babe, I'm sorry for saying those words, but can you talk to me?"

"Can we work, please? We are supposed to be looking for gems not arguing about who is avoiding who."

"You are my partner, both at work and out of work, so how are we supposed to work when you are being so grumpy?"

"I'm being grumpy?" She threw her hands in the air. "Of course, I have every right to be mad at you. I don't know why I keep letting you mess up with me."

There was a second's silence. "What are you talking about? What is this about?"

"I saw you at Jonas the other night..."

"Wait, you were stalking me?"

The girl sighed. "Here we go again. You know what? Forget about it, forget I even said anything about this." She started to leave but turned sharply to face him again, sticking out her forefinger and pointing it at his face. "Don't ever talk to me about this ever..."

"Come on, babe." He drew her gently toward him. "We can talk about this. I just asked you a question."

"You think I am that jobless to stalk you around town?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't even know what you saw me doing at Jonas."

She scoffed. "You are going to pretend you don't know what I am talking about?"

He hiked his shoulders. "Jonas is a restaurant and I don't even know the night you are talking about."

"Okay, I will remind you. Do you remember the night before we came here? Do you remember going to Jonas to meet up with that redhead? Yes, that one," she added when his face crumpled up. "The one you are thinking of."

"Come on, babe. She is just a friend."

"Wow." The girl took a few steps back and chuckled lightly. Then she looked back at the man. "She is just a friend. You go about kissing your friends?"

"No, I...I...I... she..."

"What? You can't speak English?" The man remained quiet. "I thought as much."

"You can't go around assuming that I am sleeping with every lady you see me with. You are being overly jealous and manipulative, and I can't even take it any longer. You stalk me around town just to find dirt to fight me with."

The girl stood there wide-eyed and in utter disbelief staring at the guy as he burst out. She was supposed to be the mad one here, but he always finds a way to turn the table and make her beg. When he was done speaking, he walked away, leaving her there, staring at him in utter shock. When he was out of sight, she blinked twice, adjusted her headlight, and started to walk, but her eyes caught something farther down the cave. It glowed in the darkness of the cave.

It was afternoon, but the cave was dark as night. She started walking toward the glow slowly, an eerie feeling washing over her suddenly and she took out her knife, in case something goes wrong. She thought of calling her partner, but the anger built up in her won't let her. She stubbornly went alone.

When she got to the place where the glow was coming from, a light blue oval stone was glowing lowly. It was fixed into the rock, held in a golden ring, and had small chains across it, making it impossible to take. Looking around and finding no one around the very quiet cave, she reached for the stone but couldn't take it, then she took her knife and tried to pry it out, but it was too hard and well-fixed in the rock.

What could it be? She thought to herself, it was a very strange stone, one she has never seen before.

Glancing around in frustration, for something that could help her, but finding nothing. She sighed and took out her drilling machine. She didn't want her crew to know what she has found. Mr. Fergus would take all the glory while she did all the work. She wanted to find out what it was first before exposing it.

Her drilling machine would make noise and her partner was going to come there and he would take all the glory because he was the man. She was going to be a little selfish this time. She ran her finger over the stone again and hit her palm on the rock surrounding it thrice and to her surprise, the rocks around the stone gave way and the stone was left there unlocked. She almost didn't believe her eyes, a wide smile spread out on her face, and she did a little jump of joy, then reached for it and took it out.

A wave of triumph hit her, and she kissed the stone. The stone stopped glowing when it was in her hand. She quickly took out her scarf, wrapped the stone with it, and put it inside her pants pocket. A sudden loud howl rang throughout the whole cave. She looked around her in fright.

Every one of them heard it and stopped, looking around in shock and wonder. Then there was a loud growl like that of a wild animal, and then running footsteps and rock particles began to fall as the whole cave began to shake.

She heard shouts and screams of people as heavy rocks began to fall. She heard her partner's voice calling out to her. The growl of the animal became louder. She began to run towards the entrance. There was chaos. But she almost froze up when she looked back and saw a large shadow of something she couldn't even make out what it was. It looked like an animal, but it was standing upright like a man, it has the ears and face of an animal. It was coming towards her.

The scenes from all the horror movies she has watched flashed in her eyes. Somehow, she knew it was because of what she now possessed. She must have awoken something, but she wasn't willing to let go of her discovery.

She ran, dodging the rocks that were falling faster now. The angry growl of the animal came louder and closer. Luckily, she got toward the entrance of the cave. She could see her crew members already outside the cave waiting for her, screaming for her to come faster. That was when she realized she was the only one still left in the cave. She almost made it out, but a hard rock fell on her head, knocking her to the ground. Stars hovered above her head and splinting pain shot through her. She tried to scream, but she black out instead.