The Gravity of Tomorrow
Copyright© 2026 by Sci-FiTy1972
Chapter 3: The Necklace No One Wanted
Some objects carried history.
Others carried intention.
Ty didn’t know which one the necklace belonged to—only that it had never felt like something that simply existed. From the moment he’d picked it up in the desert, it had felt like something that had been waiting.
He remembered the heat first.
Not the oppressive, suffocating kind that wrapped itself around you like a second uniform, but the strange stillness of it—the way the sun pressed down so hard it seemed to flatten the world into silence. His unit had been moving through a stretch of land that didn’t register on most maps. Not because it was secret. Because no one cared enough to name it.
A forgotten place in a region full of forgotten places.
They weren’t on a mission that day. Not really. Just moving from one location to another, watching the horizon, keeping their heads down. Ty walked point for a while, his eyes doing what they always did—scanning not for threats, but for patterns.
That was when he noticed the stones.
They weren’t impressive at first glance. No towering walls. No grand arches. Just a low outcrop half-buried in sand, its edges softened by centuries of wind. But something about the way the rocks lined up bothered him.
Not danger.
Deliberateness.
He crouched, brushing sand away with his gloved hand. Beneath the dust, he found lines that didn’t belong to nature—angles too precise, spacing too intentional.
“Hey,” he called back to his squad leader. “You see this?”
They gathered around, curious but unconcerned. One of the guys joked about ancient aliens. Another shrugged and said it was probably just an old wall.
Ty didn’t argue.
But he kept looking.
Inside a shallow hollow near the base of the stone formation, he found it.
The necklace.
It lay coiled like something sleeping—thin chain, simple T-shaped pendant, a black jewel set at its center. It didn’t glint in the sun the way metal should have. Instead, the light around it seemed ... thinner. As if the brightness itself avoided the stone.
Ty picked it up carefully.
The weight surprised him—not heavy, not light. Balanced. Like it belonged in a hand.
A man from a nearby village had been watching him from a distance. Older, thin, wrapped in robes that looked as if they’d lived more life than most people ever did. When Ty showed him the necklace, the man leaned in, squinting.
He said something in a language Ty didn’t know.
The translator repeated it in English. “Worthless. Decoration from before memory.”
Ty thanked the man anyway.
But he kept the necklace.
For the rest of his deployment, it stayed in his footlocker.
Not as a talisman. Not as a trophy.
Just ... there.
Sometimes, late at night, he would take it out and hold it in his palm. It never felt warm or cold. Never pulsed or glowed. Never did anything remarkable.
And yet, Ty always had the odd sense that if he put it down somewhere and walked away, it would still be watching him leave.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.