Archaeology summer practice was, admittedly, not Ashton’s favorite part of the curriculum.

He would have much rather spent his days reading, helping out with the garden and enjoying his mother’s fruit pies, but his educational options were limited enough that he didn’t get a choice. So, he was a lot dirtier and a lot more tired than he would have liked, and it didn’t even amount to much. The rocks and sand of the scenery were nice, but they hardly made up for the trouble.

At least being at the southern coast allowed his classmates to enjoy themselves once the work was done. Swimming, building sand castles – not activities Ashton wanted to join in, but he had fun watching others have fun.

“Oi!” Jed called out. “Ash, what’re you doing all the way over there? Come on, the water is nice!”

Jed was rather sweet and had the best intentions, but Ashton liked being dry, thank you very much. Besides, he would probably get salt water on his glasses, not to mention that the lenses would cost a fortune to replace if they cracked among all the roughhousing. He politely waved towards the waterfront and remained exactly where he was, looking over that day’s finds and finishing the cataloging.

“You can go with them, you know,” Professor Winston, an impossibly tall twig of a woman came up to him. “This can wait till later. You’re, what, seventeen? Have some fun while you can. Trust me, you’ll turn twenty-five and your knees will never be the same.”

“It’s okay,” Ashton chuckled. “I like this better, actually.”

Professor Winston clicked her tongue disapprovingly, “If you say so. Huh, what’s this one?..”

She picked an item from one of the trays, something that looked like a trick box you could find in souvenir shops. Ashton quickly checked his notes and the tag on it, “Uh, something from that last dig? I’m not sure about this one, the style is vastly different from anything you’d expect to find here.”

“We end up with junk all the time,” she shrugged and turned the box over. Something rattled “But this doesn’t look modern, either. Interesting… have you tried opening it? If there’s anything inside, it could give us more of a clue.”

Ashton shook his head and sneaked a glance towards the others, apprehension pooling in his gut. They were busy working on a giant sand castle, complete with two tall towers that someone was dripping water on to add more detail.

“Maybe we should wait until we’re back?” Ashton asked, and Professor Winston raised a brow.

“Why so apprehensive?” she genuinely didn’t understand and Ashton wondered if it was his overactive imagination playing tricks on him again. “We’ll wait till we have proper tools if it’s too damaged to open, but it doesn’t look to be…”

Ashton forced himself to take the box and inspected it again. There were ornaments cleverly disguising the moving parts, but it really wasn’t damaged, despite supposedly having been in the ground for decades. He ran his fingers over the surface of wood, counting the dark and light pieces, pressed and slid them when he felt less resistance, and eventually, could slide the lid open.

Inside was a small golden brooch, shaped like some kind of beetle.

For a moment, apprehension was replaced by curiosity, “Look, Professor! This looks… intricate. Have you seen anything like it before?”

Ashton reached into the box and carefully fished the brooch out with two fingers.

…something was wrong.

This thing he was holding was wrong, and dangerous, and he never should have taken it in his hands.

Images assaulted his mind, images of blood and death and mutilation, and he’d had similar episodes before, but they’d never been so brutal.

Ashton dropped the brooch.

“Ashton!” Professor Winston chided, completely oblivious to his turmoil. “Be careful, what if you damage it?”

“Don’t touch it!” Ashton choked out, panicked. “Don’t, just leave it…”

“What are you talking about?” she crouched and picked up the brooch, blew sand off of it. “Are you okay, have you been in the sun too long?”

And then the brooch came to life.

The wings fluttered, startling them both. Then, before either could do anything else, it bit into Professor Winston’s arm and started burrowing into her flesh.

She screamed. Fruitlessly, she clawed at her arm to try and get if off, but the beetle was slippery and tiny. Ashton rushed to try and help, but got elbowed in the gut as she trashed, the back of his head meeting something hard.

“Professor?! Ash!” sounded terribly far away. Ashton’s vision went dark. He barely saw as Professor Winston fell onto her knees, a large bloody spot forming on her chest. The beetle fell in front of her, lifeless and shiny.

Ashton closed his eyes.

When he opened them next, the first thing he saw was a single sand tower, the once majestic castle tramped over as someone hurried over the sand. The next thing he saw was a large heavy boot, and then its owner leaned down to look at Ashton’s face.

“Huh,” the owner of the boot said, scrunching up his eyebrows. “You’re alive, kid?”

“Uh.” Ashton blinked. “Yeah.”

He blinked some more. The baffled expression didn’t leave the stranger’s face, so Ashton added carefully, “Should I… not be?”

Memories of what had happened rushed to Ashton’s head and he sat down, far too quickly, almost falling over again as his vision swam. “Whoa,” the stranger said and held him upright. “Okay, slow down. Forget about all that for a minute. Would you mind coming with me? You’re bleeding, that should be looked at.”

Once his sight cleared, Ashton looked the man up and down again, carefully inspecting the jagged, puckered up scar on the side of his face, the dark, uneven skin of an old burn on the hand he had extended towards Ashton, the dagger peeking from his boot and the shape of another under his sleeve. Ashton looked at his clothes, loose and well-worn, hiding light flexible armor underneath. Ashton looked, and saw utility and skill and experience.

Ashton might have had reckless tendencies, but he wasn’t about to say no to a man looking like that. Still, he couldn’t just leave everyone behind – and where were they, anyway? He couldn’t hear any voices, and the man’s questions… Surely, it couldn’t mean?..

“What about my?..” Ashton tried to turn around, but the stranger stopped him.

“Don’t look,” he said somberly, and Ashton felt ice crawl through his veins. “You’re lucky you didn’t touch it.”

“But I…” Ashton swallowed. This had to be some kind of nightmare. “But I did touch it. I touched it first, I took it, and it felt weird, and I dropped it, and then…”

“Huh,” the stranger said. “Well that’s… unusual.”

“Unusual?!” Ashton laughed. Breathing suddenly became difficult, and all thoughts narrowed to a single memory of that moment, of the beetle and the screams and the blood. “It was metal, a decoration, a piece of jewelry, and then it… got animated or something, and it killed Professor, and, and… I shouldn’t be alive, should I? Why did it spare me? What’s going on?”

“I don’t have the answers, kid,” the man said eventually and let go of Ashton’s face. “But I can show you to the people who do if you’d come with me now.”

Two rough hands landed on the sides of his face, shocking him out of his panic. “Breathe,” the stranger said, unbelievably gently, as Ashton tried to gulp down the air. Guided by the man’s fingers and nods, Ashton breathed in and out, the panic shimmering down to quiet dread.

Having no strength to fight, Ashton nodded. “What… what about the others?” he asked quietly.

The man cast a quick look behind Ashton’s back and sighed. “They… will be taken care of. But you’re alive, and you take priority.”

“And…” Ashton swallowed uncomfortably. “And the brooch?”

The stranger took the familiar box out of a pouch on his belt, and Ashton violently lurched back.

“Don’t worry. It can’t do any harm if you don’t touch it,” the man reassured. “Can you ride a horse?”

Ashton nodded, and the man tucked the box back. “Wait here, I’ll bring the horse and we’ll go back to town. Do you have any things here? In a tavern somewhere?”

It was practical and calm, and that made it easier for Ashton to think about those things, too. “Just my backpack in the tent. Uh… second tent from the left, there are some shells and stuff on chains on the pack.”

Jed sometimes used to make fun of his tendency to collect useless things and making them into decorations, but at least that made his things easily recognizable.

Oh gods, Jed…

The stranger hummed and repeated, “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back.”

He went along the shore and barely made two steps when Ashton felt the urgent need to call out, “Wait!”

The man turned around and raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. Ashton swallowed, suddenly not knowing what to say, when the truth was, he was terribly afraid of being left alone with probably half a dozen dead bodies he wouldn’t dare look at. He ended up blurting out, “What’s your name?”

The man was quiet for a short while, and Ashton wondered if he’d crossed a line. He didn’t know anything about this man, after all – didn’t know if he was trustworthy or some kind of bandit. Eventually though, the man smiled with one corner of his mouth and replied, “It’s Matthias. And you?..”

“Oh. I’m Ashton.”

“Well met, Ashton,” the man gave a small bow. He paused for a little more, than sighed and muttered something under his breath that Ashton couldn’t make out. “Perhaps if you don’t feel like you’ll fall over, you could come with me. It will be faster that way.”

He offered a hand to Ashton, and Ashton accepted, slowly making his way to his feet. The man turned around and started walking, making Ashton hurry along.

One heavy boot crushed the last standing tower, and Ashton’s heart ached.

He never gathered the courage to look back.

—–

Oh boy, I’m exhausted and everything hurts. Anyway, have some Ashton backstory! He’s something around 17-18 here, I think. This one actually ended up being more angsty than I planned, which is first.