Remembering their parents' strict instructions to always stay in touch and keep the radio charged, Liam and William, as usual, set off at exactly nine in the morning. Stocked with provisions, ice, and water, the dusty but reliable official jeep plunged into the depths of the desert, heading towards the blinding, high sun.

  ?After spending half the day crossing the vast expanses of the silky Mojave, Liam, who was at the wheel, made a decision. They had long ago established standard routes, but today, driven by an indistinct premonition he privately called "the echo from beyond," he decided to turn onto a section they had never explored before. In the cabin, William checked the readings of a portable spectrometer and, nervously stroking the metal detector, looked out at the endless, sun-scorched Mojave.

  ?Suddenly, Liam, fixing his gaze on the horizon, slammed on the brakes.

  ?"I think I saw a fresh crater," he said.

  ?They climbed out of the jeep. Turning left, the youths headed toward a small, shallow, but clearly recent crater. The moment William brought the metal detector to the edge of the pit, the device emitted a signal. But it wasn't the clear, triumphant beep that always signified iron, nickel, and cosmic luck. It was a low, hesitant, but absolutely constant grinding sound they had never heard before. The youths exchanged tense glances. The grinding was coming from the sand.

  ?They dug quickly until the sun began to dip toward the horizon. William found it first. Not a stone. Not a fragment. It was a formless formation, covered in a brownish-black coating, about the size of a baseball. It lay in the sand without any signs of oxidation or erosion, looking as if it had just been left there.

  ?Liam tried to pick it up with one hand, but the fragment barely budged, as if it were a sixty-pound dumbbell. He used both hands, heavily hauling it out of the sand. That was the first shock: the object was incredibly heavy. The rough fragment was at room temperature. However, as soon as their fingers touched its abrasive surface, William felt something coarse and mysterious, as if he had touched something ancient and alien.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  ?Liam brought the portable spectrometer, designed to detect rare isotopes, closer to the find. The device instantly went haywire: the display filled with a scrolling track of incomprehensible symbols, as if trying to output data that its sensors were utterly incapable of identifying.

  ?Liam carried the fragment with both hands to the back of the jeep. He took a piece of coarse canvas lying in the rear and began to thoroughly rub the find. He noticed the brownish-black coating falling away like age-old dust. Before them appeared an unusual crystal of the purest, deepest dark blue color, translucent throughout—and even under the scorching sun, the fragment seemed to emit a shimmering, unfathomable glow. It was a crystal of extraterrestrial origin, whose structure defied all known physics.

  ?Liam, heavily shifting the fragment from hand to hand, turned to William:

  ?"It's incredibly heavy. I'm practically holding it in my palm, but it feels like I'm holding a thirty-kilogram kettlebell. Try lifting it."

  ?Taking part of the weight, William was suddenly struck: he felt just how incredibly heavy the shard was. Barely holding it, William exclaimed:

  ?"What the hell is this?!"

  ?Liam looked at William.

  ?"This isn't cosmic logic," he whispered, repeating a phrase he often heard from his father.

  ?William nodded. There were no sun glints on the surface of the dark blue object. It seemed to emit light itself—a soft but so bright a glow that it appeared to surpass the daylight, creating a field of intense energy around it.

  ?They both realized: they had found something unearthly.

  ?At the very same moment that realization dawned on them, the radio in the jeep came to life. Liam grabbed the receiver and shouted into it excitedly:

  ?"Dad! We found it! We found something incredible!"

  ?In response came the agitated but stern voice of Liam's father:

  ?"I think that's enough mysterious expeditions for today, boys. It's time to come home. The desert doesn't like long walks."