It was a good thing, she thought, that she’d picked a profession where you set your own hours. You couldn’t really come in at 3am because your mind wouldn’t shut off if you were a secretary or a chef. Here, in the dead quiet of the empty museum, shrouded in the timeless space between early morning and late night, was when Amy Aine found she did her best work. Especially on difficult projects, like the one she was currently turning over slowly in her gloved hands, peering at the artifact through an illuminated magnifying glass.
She wasn’t the first expert in ancient languages to examine it, and she felt about as stumped as those before. It was such a small thing, an oval lump of rock, worn down by centuries but clearly showing the marks of primitive writing. The last examiner had contacted her after deciding they were vaguely similar to Ogham stones, lines so simplistic most wouldn’t even see them as a language. These, though, were certainly not Ogham, nor any other ancient language she yet knew.
The clatter of something falling over echoed through the still room, causing her to jump, eyes wide as she peered into the darkness. “Hello?” Another colleague, perhaps? Come, like her, to continue their work when it refused to leave their mind? Insomnia rates seemed to rise the further into academia you went. Surely that was it. Nothing to fear in this dusty old place, even the ghosts, if you believed in them, seemed tame. Yet, the hairs on the back of her neck rose, something in her whispering Danger. So of course, rather than leave, she turned back to her workspace and began gathering her notes, the artifact still clutched in one hand.
