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Struck with inspiration, I cleaned out the soup bowl and filled it with water, not the best mirror, but I could see a little something of myself. The helmet was difficult to get a good look at due to the angle, but seemed to be more of a casing with straps attached than an actual helmet. In any case, I could make out four straps that attached to the sides near my ears. Two of them must have been attached to the straight-jacket somehow. The other two formed a chin strap. Were I unable to see it, I'd probably have no hope of getting it off, but with the reflection in the water, I might have a chance. The chains on my wrists were too short to let me reach it. Fair enough, can't expect them to overlook that. I then looked around the room as best I could, maybe I could scrape the straps against something and break them.
The walls were too smooth, no plumbing to work with, the doorknob wasn't going to work either. The bed? I looked at the legs, if I flipped it over could I use the legs? Was hard to be sure, but maybe. But if I did and it didn't work, they'd chain me up even more. Still, what if it was now or never? I decided to give it a shot. Thankfully it wasn't bolted down, I was able to flip it with my hands and looked it over again, if I could get one leg under the strap, I could push with my feet against the other leg and maybe break the strap off. It was tricky getting the leg under it, but I managed eventually, but how much time would I have before they came back? Regardless, I started pushing. It felt like it was giving a little, I could hear the leather creaking. With nothing left to lose, I kept pushing harder and harder. My head and neck were beginning to hurt, but there might be no second change to get free. My leg muscles were starting to feel like they were on fire, but a pulled muscle would hardly matter if I stayed locked up forever.
And then the strap broke from the helmet. Strangely enough, the helmet proved my savior as I then fell against the wall. Getting up I shook my head to clear it and get the helmet off. As I did that I could hear the camera overhead whirring. They'd be here soon. I looked at my chains, nothing I could do to get them off any time soon. I looked at the door wishing I could kick it open or something and run before anyone got here. I checked the knob, hoping for the best and it crumbled to dust and grainy sand. I was puzzled, but not so much that I was going to stop to figure it out right now.
I stepped out and there were soldiers running at me. They were shouting in Greek. I figured they were yelling at me to stop even as I translated it in my head. Strangely enough they were yelling at me to “drop down and cover your eyes.” I looked at them, not really thinking about it and felt their “itches.” I felt a hunger for those itches and began staring at them intently. One of them fell to the ground like a puppet with it's strings cut and just lay there catatonicly. Another just sat down and started laughing. Still a third began screaming and clawed his eyes out, that one fell dead from shock and blood loose moments later. I remembered now. Their minds were becoming like stone, to never think again.
As I walked around, trying to find a way out, more and more fell to my gaze. I could feel the itches in their minds uncoiling like springs, the madness in them growing as they saw everything I'd learned from the sculpture. It was never meant to kill, but the makers knew that many would go mad from listening to it. But those minds that could grasp it's knowledge would pass it on and bring a new dawn to their people. The itch in my own mind was being fed to overflowing, all the things the minds I fed on ever thought, all they'd ever felt, loved, hated, or cared for. A few survived, understanding the knowledge I had to share. They would soon be like me and go out looking for others to share our knowledge with. Many would die. The human race as it was known would soon be gone, our minds thrust forward with millions of years of knowledge and things we'd never have learned on our own as well. Perhaps this wasn't the first time we'd ever been thrust forward. Not just thousands of years ago when the sculpture was buried and forgotten, but long before as well, when we first started crawling out of the dust, or maybe even as far back as the ooze we postulated upon.
It was confusing at first of course. We'd received the measuring equipment in a shipment, and used the lasers to measure down the shaft. It was at least several miles deep, but we couldn't measure any deeper with what we had. We also got equipment to build a listening post to pick up any sound coming from the sculpture. We got nothing for weeks, what ever had been speaking we first figured must be long dead or gone. We were wrong, it was only asleep...
It was on one of my shifts that we started hearing something. I'd meant to call the others but didn't. As I sat and listened, so many things began to make sense. I got frequent headaches, but I was able to translate the many languages I was receiving to go along with the images that were appearing in my mind. While it felt like a life time, it was probably only a matter of a few hours when I walked out of the cave. I walked to where they were eating dinner and as we looked at each other, some of them just fell over dead, laughed, or maybe even screamed. That was it for all those that were there with me.
As I looked around for what to do next, I noticed the radio and went to it and started taking. I don't remember what I first said, but they asked me if everything was all right. I said no, everyone is dead. They said to wait and they'd be right there. I waited. They came. They died. They called for help. They died too. I must have received a blow to the head from the Greek army. Who knows how much force they used, but a little short term memory loss from fighting an army doesn't seem so bad. Saved me the trouble of walking back to civilization anyway.
As the resistance of the soldiers died down, I thought to try the dust trick on my chains. Grasping them, they simply crumbled away. Thankfully I quickly figured out I could control that ability. Climbing to the roof of one building, I saw the lights of a city to the West. It seemed like as good a place as any to start sharing the secrets of the universe with the rest of the world...
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