The Assignment

Written for Sunday Whirl Wordle. Our host is
Brenda Warren; her prompt words for this week are
shown below. Here’s where the prompts took me.

shroud, symbols, water, rock, sun, tracks,
spear, stolen, cross, promise, moon, and trail

The museum was silent when Jackson DeWitt slipped past the last security guard. A priceless artifact had been stolen …. an ancient ceremonial spear that had rested in the Egyptian wing for decades. His assignment was to recover it before dawn. He never failed a mission or broke a promise and he wasn’t about to start now.

His flashlight swept across the marble floor, catching tracks in a thin layer of dust. Someone had moved quickly. He followed the trail deeper into the ancient civilizations exhibit, passing towering displays carved with mysterious symbols that cast bizarre shadows in the shifting beam of his light.

A giant obsidian rock marked the entrance to the restricted archive. Jackson squeezed past it, his senses on high alert. A cross-shaped corridor split before him. He chose left.

Through a high skylight, the moon cast a silver shroud over a magnificent tapestry depicting a blazing sun rising over a desert river. Beneath it, a fountain shaped like cascading water filled the silence with a gentle murmur.

And there, propped against the fountain’s edge, was the spear.

An easy win …. perhaps a little too easy. Jackson scanned the area for traps, but even with his trained eye, they were undetectable. He exhaled slowly and took a step. The adventure, it seemed, was just beginning.

This is “Push It To The Limit” by Paul Engemann

Wordle 745

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