With Noah's headlamp brightening the path ahead of him, he stilled himself and exhaled a calming breath. He took his time and let his gaze comb over the interior of the cave. To his amazement, the tunnel appeared to have been chiseled into a perfect semi-circle passage. It was staggering to consider the possibility that men over three thousand years ago had lowered themselves into this deep hole and burrowed their way through the heart of the earth with such precision. He wondered where they put all the dirt and rocks they excavated.

A thought tore through his mind.

No. There was no way a god of any kind did such a thing. There had to be another explanation.

Then the pyramids came to mind. Men had always seemed to accomplish the unbelievable.

Another thought came to him. No. That's stupid. Aliens didn't do this.

Noah shook his head with a light chuckle and pressed on, his hands grazing over the smooth rock. He supposed he'd traveled two hundred feet when the tunnel ended. He stared in stunned disbelief at a flat dirt wall. This couldn't be the end of the road...all this way for nothing. His heart sank. Frustration set in, and then anger began to brew under his furrowed brows. He huffed and slung his hands to his side, bringing them to rest on his hips.

All this way for nothing.

Before he could catch himself, he started pounding on the dead end like he was banging on someone's door, someone that he knew to be home, but wouldn't answer or let him in.

After a series of blows that hurt him more than it hurt the earthen wall, he finally gave up hope. Almost. It was in that moment that one last ember of resilience burst from within him, and he struck the dirt once more.

Something was odd about the way his fist impacted the wall. The thud of his knuckles echoed like nothing was on the other side but a hollow void. It had a strange give to it that suggested it wasn't solid.

Noah rapped on the wall several more times. Something was up. This was not a dead end.

He used the pointed claw of a hammer to beat the surface. At first, it ricocheted off with little effect, but after a few more thunderous blows, the hardened steel cracked the dry dirt like he'd fractured a thick piece of glass. A smile creased the corners of his mouth.

Noah broke out a six-inch knife from his utility belt and jabbed the tip into the jagged lines, prying away loose chunks of dried mud. After clearing away a two foot square section, a thin layer of sediment still persisted on the surface. He scraped away the remaining debris with a chisel, and to finish the job, he brushed off the area, removing the left over dust.

He paused in retrospect, studying what he'd uncovered with a careful eye. His first impression was that he'd exposed a slab of granite. But the more he cleared away, the more a realization set in, confirming his suspicions...this was not a natural deposit. Not by a long shot. It appeared to be an enclosure that blocked a potential passageway.

Another round of brush strokes revealed a foreign writing on the stone. Not the peculiar symbols and shapes of hieroglyphics, but an actual written language. It didn't take long to identify the text as Hebrew.

Noah traced a finger over the flow of words, drawing from his college minor in archeology to translate. He wished now more than ever that he'd majored in the subject, and spent a little more time studying Hebrew.

"Land...of...promise...he." Noah laughed so loud it reverberated off the tunnel walls. "Land of promise...he will see..."

He frowned. "Land of promise...he will see...at the..."

"...resurrection." Upon reading the last word in the sentence, he felt his face flush white or red, he didn't know which, but it was a surreal feeling of awe.

The inscription spurred him on. With raw determination, he worked, prying, clawing, and brushing away the rest of the enclosure. His efforts revealed a four foot high by six foot wide stone panel, about six inches off the ground. Once the excavation was complete, he poked the sharp point of his claw hammer into the crack above his head. To begin with, the stone didn't budge. But after several furious tugs on the end of the hammer, the granite eked out an inch. Digging in deeper and yanking down harder, he gained enough leverage to create a gap for his fingers.

He froze.

What was on the other side? Could it be a tomb?

Sweat and dust clung to his forehead. He rasped in a breath.

He was about to find out.

With a firm pull on the stone, he broke the enclosure's seal and dropped it to the tunnel floor with a resounding crash, skipping out of the way so it wouldn't land on his toes. Gingerly, and with a sudden reverence of the moment tightening his chest, he stepped into the newly opened passage. On the other side, the tunnel continued for another twenty feet before it widened into a large chamber. Illuminated by his headlamp, the ceiling rose two stories high. He had the strange impression that he was standing at the entrance of a cathedral of sorts. But the carved out chamber itself wasn't what intrigued him the most. What sent a shudder through his bones was the large rectangle object resting on a raised platform in the center of the room...a sarcophagus. Or in layman's terms...an ancient coffin.