Liam O'Connor's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Liam O'Connor had spent twelve years trying to prove a myth was real, and now a stranger wanted to turn his life's work into a joke. He stood in his office at the University of Emain, maps of the lost isle of Emain Ablach pinned across every wall. His coffee had gone cold an hour ago. Across the desk sat Emilia Jones, the reporter from the Sentinel, press badge still clipped to her trench coat. She tapped her pen against her notebook and smiled. "Professor, this is a gift," Emilia said. "A hidden island. Ancient stone. Readers will eat it up. Give me the quotes and I run it Sunday." Liam leaned forward. He knew what Sunday would bring. A splashy headline. A cartoon map. His name beside the word "treasure." His colleagues already thought he chased fairy tales. One sensational story and he would never fund an expedition. He would be the crank in the mythology department who believed in a drowned island. "No," Liam said. "Not yet." Emilia's smile flattened. "You called me, Professor." "I called because you cover science, not ghost stories." He pulled out a folder and slid it across. Inside were photographs of a stone core sample. Gray rock with strange striations, lines no geologist had explained. "I don't want a headline. I want a witness. Come to the dig site with me. Film it. Print nothing until we have proof my peers can't laugh off." She studied the photos. Her sharp eyes moved from image to image. He watched her weigh the story she wanted against the story he was offering. "If I sit on this and someone else prints first, I lose everything," she said. "And if you print now, I lose everything," Liam answered. "But if you wait, you get the whole thing. The discovery, start to finish. Not a rumor. A record." Emilia closed the folder. She stood, tucked her notebook into her coat, and offered her hand. "One condition," she said. "I come with you. I see it myself. If it's nothing, I write that too." Liam shook her hand. "Agreed." Two weeks later they knelt at the site together, rain spotting the exposed stone. Liam ran his fingers along the striations. "Look at these," he said. "This isn't limestone. It isn't volcanic." "Liam, the barometer is plummeting," Emilia called. She held the instrument up. "Met Eireann issued a storm warning. We need to secure the site." "Five minutes, Emilia." He pressed his palm flat to the stone's center. "This stone is humming. It moved." The moment he touched it, history, time, and blood converged. His vision split open. "I can't shut it out," he gasped. "Two thousand years of blood, iron, and rage." Then shapes rose from the rain. Armed men in black closed around them. Hands seized Emilia and dragged her back. The proof he needed had just become the reason someone wanted them gone.