The Watcher

Jake found the first marks on the second day.

They were cut into the cave wall at a depth of approximately two hundred meters — well beyond the Chinook artifacts, beyond any evidence of human habitation. The passage at this depth was natural, carved by water over millions of years, its walls smooth and featureless.

Except for the marks.

Sarah knelt before them, her headlamp casting stark shadows across the limestone. The marks were deliberate — not pictographs, not letters, but something between the two. Each one was roughly the size of a human hand, carved with a precision that suggested tools she couldn't identify.

But it was the depth of the carvings that disturbed her. They weren't scratched into the surface. They were gouged. Whatever had made them had pressed into solid limestone the way a finger presses into wet clay.

"What kind of tool does that?" Jake whispered.

Sarah ran her finger along the groove of the nearest mark. It was warm. Not room temperature — warm. As if something on the other side of the stone was pressing back.

"Not a tool," she said.