Golden Lucidity

This piece is about an explorer traversing down a forgotten golden structure.

A ritualistic dance performed by primordial creatures were depicted on the walls and the pattern of psychic and mystic lucidity spun down the dark corridors. De Vega carefully and curiously further down with his torchlight. This golden structure was hidden down below, forgotten and gorgeous with spider web, dust and moss. He wanted it and could not curb his appreciation. Every sliver of configuration was intricate, to the point where De Vega could not even comprehend how a mind could craft such beauty which made him, of course, appreciate it even more. The largest question at hand was how to reap something tangible and lasting out of this desire to claim ownership of the structure. Deeper within the inner chambers, a golden city was revealed. In the dark there were four towering Mesoamerican pyramids aligned around a mandala which were covered in the primordial pattern. Every part, even the dust, was radiantly reciprocating the torchlight with a golden blink. The centre of the mandala was a lowered altar which was surrounded by a constellation of thirty golden sculptures of nude men, stuck in a pose of running away. The twinkling dust was floating above their terrified faces. Upon the altar stood a totemic statue decorated with four lunatic faces pointing in different directions. De Vega inspected the statue with a touch of his fingertip which swapped the external nature - the pyramids were now of stone and the sculptures were alive in flesh and blood. They were shouting in a proto-variant of the extinct language of Chicbcha, and although their idiosyncratic accent, De Vega got the syntax. They wanted him to fulfil a deed of beauty, to be integrated in all that he had seen in there. His fingertip was difficult to move and was emitting a golden radiance. His reactive flailing caused the surrounding to absorb the gold, almost like a cloth absorbing liquid. The fate was to be compounded into the structure and he had no longer than a day until the cycle would be complete, they told him. Terrified De Vega failed to notice how the air carried the gold-transmuting dust.
    He assumed that the statue he touched could somehow reverse this change and grabbed it was heading for the exit. The thirty natives were fearful of his torchlight, believing it possessed a Godlike quality and kept their distance. The transmutation followed his path, and so did the natives desperately shouting behind him. To him it seemed to signify that he was on the right track but as he turned around he could see their eyes filled with sadness and fear. The construct would crumble to pieces if he left, finally he heard them. De Vega did not know their God, but he did know divine beauty and asked himself if he had committed to selfish destruction. A sigh and a gulp, he turned and looked his worried followers in the eyes. His torchlight was shut and heard the darkness shriek. The heart was pounding and the silhouettes were approaching. Firms grasp reached his limbs. As he was transmuting he could only imagine how beautifully he was arranged there in the dark. The sculptures unitedly sang a song that incorporated the echo of the chambers as syncopation. Golden dust got to De Vega’s lungs and he solidified slowly coughing and choking. 


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