The Zeitorrery

"Where are you taking me?" asked Hannah following Pater through a long underground passage that was accessed through another trap door beneath the flower field.

"Your family's heirloom," Pater Greggor answered.

Since the incident beneath the hospital, then the passage they went through to get themselves to the New Amal, she grew an inexplicable fear towards underground corridors. She hoped that this would be the last one, and nothing horrible would wait for her at the end of it, like for instance, harvesting her womb to activate some horrible machines. She clutched the resilience she learned all her life from her father, and hoped when the push came to shove, she would be able to run away.

The passage opened up to a large circular room. Pater lightened the torches along its wall one by one, slowly illuminated the room. When all of them were lighted, she could see that the room already crumbled, with large blocks of stone littered about the surface. Directly in front of them, there was a circular ornament that seemed to be sculptured directly into the wall. Some parts of the middle area of the sculpture were layered by different kinds of material plates. The air was cold and stale, regardless of how far they were under the earth's surface.

"What happened here?" she asked Pater.

"The mess?" Pater asked in return, "oh, this place was just crumbling on its own. Built centuries ago, nobody ever maintain it for a long time. Maybe multiple earthquakes, maybe just the dampness slowly threatened its integrity."

The thought of a sudden earthquake and seal her here without any hopes of ever see the surface made her knees weak. But she had to maintain her composure.

"But don't worry, my child," Pater assured her, "the destruction only happened to its outer layer, the ornaments, but its core construction is still perfectly intact. Your ancestor made sure of it."

"My ancestor built this? For what purpose?"

"You'll see. Come closer," he gestured her towards him, while he slowly waddled to the circular ornaments with various metals.

When she was close enough to the other material parts which were layered to the middle part of the ornament, she could see more details chiseled onto them. One made of gold, ornamented with an image of a sun, and a sword superimposed over it. The second one made of silvery material pictured a crescent moon, with what appeared to be a hand mirror over it. The third one was bronze, with an image of a deer wearing a mask. The fourth one was made of obsidian, with a picture of a skull wearing a pair of earrings. The last one was made of pale marble, without any ornaments chiseled onto it.

"The five Goddesses," Pater said.

"Five?" she asked, "there are only four."

"Yes, well... that's the story for another day," Pater smiled. Then he moved closer to those five ornaments, "now take a look at this." He pushed the gold one, and the room rumbled. She gasps as she saw the whole circular ornaments slowly turning to the left, making the silver ornaments now positioned at the top of the inner circle. Pater then pushed the silver one, then the whole rumble and turning happened again. He continued to push the bronze and the obsidian one after the other respectfully until the pale marble one was on top.

He didn't push the white marble, only touched it. He then slowly whispered, "Deas Sententia Liberatum."

The rumble was now greater, sending small quakes along its wall and floor. Small pebbles from its ceiling fell around them. She shrieked. She couldn't control her apprehension. Her fear of being buried underground when an earthquake happened maybe soon would be realized.

The great circular ornaments now rolled aside. It was not mere ornaments, it was a giant door. Mechanized door. Activated with buttons and voice commands. What is this technology? The small earthquake felt like forever before finally the great stone door completely vanished behind the walls, leaving a circular door that leads to a greater room beyond.

The room was breathtaking. She couldn't comprehend what exactly she was seeing when she stepped inside following Pater. They were inside some sort of a very giant stone ball, with five platforms jutted inward alongside its horizontal radius. They were standing on one of them, which like the other four, had a stone dais at the end of it. What made the room even weirder was the glass window on top of it, with the sun shining through. How could there be sunshine, when they were already kilometers underground? Was it artificial? But how come they got a massive source of power to produce such brilliant light.

What the light shone down, though, even more magnificent. In the middle of the room, there was a giant circular metal mechanism, created with the same materials that ornamented the door they were just gone through. It was so intricate, and the parts intertwined with one another. It was like a model of the solar system, or mayhaps, a galaxy, with various sizes of those orange globules littered throughout. She saw five huge circular platforms among its intertwining construction. She remembered the sculpture at the domed church's altar before they were headed down to the passage to the New Amal. It was almost like a stylized replica of this monstrosity. She held her breath out of admiration, she never saw anything like this before.

"Behold," Pater said, "The Zeitorrery."

"Wha... how... what even is this?" she lost her words, and couldn't keep her eyes from it.

"Centuries ago, your ancestor, Ogrario, made this... machine," Pater said.

"Machine?" that word snapped her out of her adoration, "are you trying to sacrifice me to activate it?" She swore if she was to be forced all over again to give up one or more of her organs to achieve some weird 'greater good' machine, she would shove this old guy to the dark pit underneath the platform.

The old man looked at him funny, "what? What are you talking about? No. What we needed are the five wooden plates to activate it."

"Oh," she composed herself, "what is this machine for?"

"To dance back," he said, "towards the past."

She couldn't believe what she heard, "what? Like a time machine?"

"Yes," Pater said, "that would be an oversimplification. But yes... a time machine,"

"You're planning to go to the past?" she asked, "well you have the plates... why haven't you do anything?"

"It is not me, or any of us that should go," Pater said, "it should be Adam."