Totem Warrior

All of this started with the naughty moan of the woman I love in my bed. It was the night I should have celebrated my six years with her. However, I saw her on top of a man's body without a single piece of clothing. Her moans filled the room. She was moving up and down as if she was dancing on my shattered pride. I saw the man who was lying on my bed was her manager at work.

“Meredith!” I shouted.

Meredith only noticed me when I called her name. She frantically got off the damn man's body while covering her naked body with a blanket.

“Damn it!” I shouted as I landed a fist on the man's face.

“Ares! No!" Meredith shouted trying to separate us. She stood in the middle so I couldn't beat the bastard.

“Sam! Go now!” Meredith cried, holding me up so I couldn't throw another punch at the guy.

“Ares, calm down!” Meredith exclaimed.

“How can I calm down, Meredith? I'm waiting for your explanation!” I cried as I broke away from her embrace.

“Ares, it's over between us,” she said, looking me straight in the eye.

“W-what?”

I stuttered, barely believing what I was hearing. I never thought this would happen. Our relationship was fine.

“It’s over, Ares. I don't want to be with a man who doesn't have a future like you,” Meredith said again, trampling my pride like trash.

After that, she left my apartment and didn't look back. Remembering all that really pisses me off. I've never felt humiliated like that in my life.

“Still thinking about that bitch, eh?” asked my uncle, interrupting all my thoughts.

I was on the bus with my uncle, heading to a place that was very foreign to me. My uncle is a famous archaeologist, his name is Professor Arthur Jones. I don't know why I accepted his offer to come along to this ancient artifact excavation site. I was never interested in such things, but my uncle persuaded me to come along. Said it would give me a distraction so I could forget Meredith.

"Trust me, kid. This is no ordinary site, we will find a lot of interesting things, you will like it,” he said, patting me on the shoulder.

“Fingers crossed, old man,” I replied.

"Tell you what, I'm going to tell you a secret, Ares Jones," he said, lowering his voice as if he were about to tell me something very mysterious.

"What's that?" I asked at random.

I know my uncle was just trying to cheer me up, but I'm not a ten year old kid who can be fascinated by fairy tales anymore.

“This is no ordinary artifact excavation site. Some experts think it's the historical remains of an unknown civilization that had died out in history. Lots of faded pictures or paints of unknown totems could be found on walls and other items, including rocks and pots. Some findings are quite astonishing and the mysteries are yet to be solved," he said while moving his fingers with widened eyes, making it seem like he was telling a fairy tale.

“For example, in some graves, they've found skeletons of giants as tall as ten meters and fossils that contain huge animals. There’s a fossil of an unknown bird that's a meter long and –” 

“Alright, alright, uncle Arthur. I get it," I said carelessly.

Uncle Arthur stopped his story because I didn't want to listen anymore. He then reached into his pocket and handed me something.

“Take this, kid. As a memento,” he told me before he returned to his seat.

I accepted that from his hand. It was an amber fossil with a small golden tree about 1.2 centimeters long inside it. I smiled crookedly then put it in my pocket and didn't think about it anymore.

Within a few minutes, the bus suddenly stopped and that meant we had arrived at the site. Uncle Arthur told me to get off the bus and I did too.

"Ares, help me lift that boulder!" said my uncle, pointing to a large rock.

I went straight to the rock and tried to lift it. My mind wanders, thinking of Meredith probably having a good time with that man right now. That thought made me not realize that I was going in the wrong direction.

“Ares! No!"

My uncle's screams made me realize that I was even approaching the edge of the cliff. A second later I lost my balance and fell free. The next thing I know is pain is running through my body. Shortly before I lost my consciousness, I saw the fossil amber that my uncle gave me. My blood dripped onto it and dissolved into glowing particles. I thought I was dead, but it was only the beginning.