Professor Perrin wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his shirt sleeve. It had grown warm, but he’d become far too distracted with what his students had discovered that morning to notice.
It wasn’t unusual to uncover Native American artifacts when digging in South Dakota, especially in the Badlands. And dinosaur bones weren’t all that uncommon in that part of the country, either.
But what he and his students had unearthed could be life altering for all of mankind. It could change how humans looked at the world and beyond.
He tried to process it all, but it still didn’t seem real. One of his students sat hunched over on her knees, carefully brushing dirt off the skull while another young man used a trowel to gently remove dirt from the artifact’s edges. It was tedious work, and they’d already been at it for hours. But the skull appeared close to being freed from its earthly grave.
It clearly wasn’t an ordinary skull. Instead, it appeared to be three times the size of a normal human skull. Its enormous mass was unlike anything that had ever been uncovered. The professor had heard rumors over the years about crackpots who claimed to have found the remains of giants, but they had never been able to provide concrete proof other than photographs, which could have easily been doctored. And actual skeletons had never been recovered. The bones allegedly ended up disappearing or were destroyed somehow.
He also knew that, on more than a few occasions, the people who discovered those so-called giants were known to mysteriously die within days of locating the bones. But the professor didn’t believe in curses—or fate. Or even destiny for that matter.
He believed in science and facts.
His grad students worked meticulously to unearth the gigantic artifact, but there was still a lot of digging and excavating to do. What he really hoped to find were skeletal remains along with the skull.
A find of that magnitude could shoot him and the school to fame.
A third grad student used a trowel farther down from where the skull rested and carefully scraped away dirt from a potential set of bones.
A young Native American boy stood nervously near the edge of the dig site, watching the three students continue their work. He was visibly uneasy about the find. Professor Perrin stood next to the young man and patted him on the back
“You okay, Sam?” asked the professor. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You shouldn’t be doing this. It’s a sign. You should leave that thing buried and leave,” replied Sam, wringing his fingers in front of him.
“It’s fine, son. This could be monumental in the world of science. We may have just discovered a whole new race of humans.”
“No. It’s not right. Cover it back up. It can only bring bad luck.”
“You’re just being superstitious. Nothing bad will happen. I promise.”
One of the male students suddenly jerked his head up and said excitedly, “Professor! You need to see this.”
Professor Perrin ambled through the maze of dirt and crouched down beside his student.
“What did you find, Kevin?” he asked.
“I...I don’t know,” Kevin replied.
The professor inspected the bones that Kevin pointed at nervously.
“It’s...not an arm. An arm doesn’t look like that.” Kevin’s hands shook as he motioned toward his find. He stood, started pacing with both hands on top of his head, and muttered something unintelligible under his breath.
The other two grad students had become curious about what their classmate had found. They halted their duties, joined their professor, and examined his find.
Both stared in disbelief.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
No one answered.
“What did you find? Someone tell me.” Sam didn’t move from his spot, seemingly too afraid to go near the bones.
“It...they...they look like the bones you’d find on a giant bird,” stuttered the professor. He allowed his fingers to gently trace the bones and whispered, “Wings?”
A loud noise echoed from the east, growing louder as the seconds ticked by.
Upon hearing the boom, Sam set off running toward the reservation as fast as his legs could carry him.
The professor and his students watched as what appeared to be a fireball race through the sky in their direction. They all glanced at one another in bewilderment, wondering exactly what they were seeing.
But by the time they realized what it was, it was already too late.