My Scareuary 2024, Entry 4: Statue Horror Sprints

In this entry, I want to further develop the star seal story, so what I'm going to do as I write this is I'm going to set a timer for 10 minutes. In those 10 minutes, I'm going to start writing whatever comes to mind for this story, and hopefully come up with something good.

 

Before I do that, a quick reminder of what the first parts of the plot sequence are:

• The statue in the museum is of Ishtar, or so they think (there's this life-sized statue believed to be of Ishtar that I'm basing it on).
• At the base of the statue, there is a seal depicting Ishtar's symbol: the star within the circle.
• The star seal, the archaeologist learns, can be removed by turning it 90 degrees in one direction; a simple mechanism.
• Intrigued by his discovery, the archaeologist takes the star seal, the sides of which have some writing engraved, for further examination, leaving the statue behind in another room.

Ideally, I'd like to complete this part of the story during this writing session. With that in mind, I'm setting the timer now. Everything written below in another color is what I'm able to write in the first 10-minute sprint.

The statue was an oddity, as far as statues from the region went. Perhaps of Akkadian origins, it depicted what seemed to be an anthropomorphic creature, with the head of a woman, and the clawed legs of some kind of raptor - perhaps a vulture. The figure wore a robe, but there was something about it that seemed stiff, thick, not quite... fabric-like. There was what seemed to be a headdress, though the sculptor hadn't been particularly detailed, and it might have also been a pair of wings. While the position of the wings was strange, it was not unknown for the Akkadians to present Ishtar as a winged creature. For that reason alone, and the fact that the figure seemed evidently female, and that it had been dated to the Akkadian period, many scholars believed this to be a statue of Ishtar.

He wasn't so certain. Something about this statue was... off. He ran his fingers over its stone surface, taking note of every single ridge, bump, indent, and abnormality. In fact, the whole thing was rather a strange abnormality, when taking into consideration contemporary pieces of art which held a realism to them that this could not begin to replicate. 

Certainly, it was an unsettling piece, with its sunken eyes, staring darkly out at him, and its life-sized proportions, but so were many depictions of Ishtar. It was entirely possible that this was a nuanced and unique representation, but he simply couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else to it. 

The carriers had helped him move the statue, such that it lay upon a table, tilted slightly onto one side, so that he could investigate and study it more thoroughly. Were it not for them, the small, peculiar, circular figure at the bottom of the pedestal upon which the statue's clawed feet were clenched might have gone completely unnoticed.  

And that's 10 minutes! First sprint: 312 words. Not that the word count matters. It took me a little more time than usual to write this much simply because I had to pause a few times and Google something. This story doesn't have to be historically accurate, but I wanted to have a few relevant details align, at least loosely. 

We've gotten to the discovery of the star seal at the base of the statue. I think it's good progress in 10 minutes. Reading back over my writing, it does seem a bit clunky in some areas, but I'm not going to edit it right now; I just want to get the words out. Starting another 10 minutes now:

It was perhaps five inches in diameter, and seemed to jut out ever so slightly from the rest of the statue's base. The circular piece depicted a nine-pointed star with a circle around it. At first glance, he almost conceded. Clearly, if the very symbol of Ishtar was engraved in the bottom of the statue, his previous suppositions of false identity were wrong. But Ishtar's symbol was an eight-pointed star, not a nine-pointed star, and he generally speaking, people didn't make such mistakes when it came to these things. 

What did a nine-pointed star symbolize? He wracked his mind, but found nothing. Deep in thought, he reached out and traced the edges of the stone seal with his fingers. As he did, he felt it give slightly. To his astonishment, the seal turned in its place. Fascinated, he turned it little by little until he felt a significant cluck, and out the seal came, a cylindrical thing of perhaps seven inches in height. 

For a moment, it was all he could do to stare blankly at the stone cylinder in his hand, and stare again at the gaping hole where it had been hidden. A chill rushed up and down his spine, and he shook himself slightly, trying to regain his composure. This was new. This was a new discovery - nobody else knew of this, or it would have been in the notes! 

He glanced around, half-expecting his supervisor to step into the room and take the star seal from him, but of course that was nonsense. He was working late - that was the deal. If he wanted to do any research of his own, he'd have to stay after hours and do it. But, during work hours, all he worked on was his supervisor's research, his papers, even his darned blog posts. Any discoveries made during that time were his supervisor's discoveries, and any mention of his hard work or contributions almost never happened.  

He was thankful, of course, to have even that opportunity. It was like the old man to deny him all chances completely, but he'd been in a rather good mood of late, due to a terrible book of his getting a feature in some magazine or other, and of course he'd taken advantage of the situation immediately. 

So, this was his time. And this was his discovery - he was going to make sure of it. Nobody was going to take this away from him.

Another 10 minutes down! I used this chance to wedge a little character motivation in there. It could be edited for some more clarity, and I figure our protagonist will need a name at some point, but so far so good, on the whole. 

And that's all I'm going to work on for this story for now! Next time, I'll do another couple of sprints and try to get this story at least past the halfway point, if not completely done. 

If you're participating in Scareuary, how are your stories going? Let me know in the comments!