The good lord God

Stone, not pearls.

They all stared down their rifles, at the ancient machine, in intense silence, a long line of terrified soldiers, rumors of these machines dancing in their heads, stories of mutants and demons screaming out of them, as it belched black smoke, and dripped greasy ooze.
the rattle of equipment and the faint ghostly howling as the wind blew, it was the only sounds inside the ancient ruins hidden deep in a valley atop a hill amongst the Appalachian Mountain line, the artifacts found within, dated so far back, you can't wrap your head around it. A massive megalithic structure and this huge citadel isn't even the center of it, but it's one of many Samuel has found since joining this project, a project started by his late wife. A whisper and a faint cough reminded Sam of the other men and women, mostly soldiers, the others were government brass and scientists. Sam wasn't alone that night, though he felt like it, he had since the last time he fired up one of these evil things. the sky, visible through the missing ceiling, was black as the coal that littered the ground, not a single light twinkling, full dark and no stars, and ominously deep was the night, and all the while the portal made that damn soft wubwubwubwub sound these portals have become known for, the light distortion, making the wall beyond it wave like heat off the asphalt in an LA summer. Samuel didn't dare take either hand off his rifle to wipe the many beads of sweat off his face, cold salty sweat pooling at the areas where his skin touched his glasses, the fog making the world appear gray, but he still didn't dare take his hands off his rifle, because at any second something might pass through the portal and kill us all.

The huge stone circle boomed, atop its pedestal and the watchmen jumped, the shockwave tore through the ruins "Goddamn it" Samuel uttered and nearly fired his rifle, the others in the room exclaimed and some turned and ran, his muscle memory stayed his finger, many months of training, tears, and suicidal looks at his pistol on long lonely nights, but he still held on. Sam trained on his own and took classes and a wide range of clubs,
Sam mastered every course he took, many nights spent running courses with young soldiers and police, his accuracy is perfect, his poise, perfect, his mental state is wanting, very few hours of sleep a night, and when, if ever he does manage to drift off, the sight of his lovers face dances out at him, spinning in the sunlight, her smile driving away his demons, but the blood on her face, is always black.
as the light in the portal danced, his mind as it always did settled on his beautiful wife, her hair blowing in the wind, sunlight silhouettes her figure through her sundress as she stepped into the slivers of sunlight passing through the tree as she glanced back at him, 14 months 12 days he looked down at his watch 6 hours and 11 minutes 44 seconds, he can't help but count the days, the days since the strange incident that took her life, a wall, and a golden liquid, was all he could recall from the fatal crash, her gasp, and the impact, played over in his mind like a horrible recording.
He looked down into the "pit" an area sunken into the floor like a surgeon's theater, the portal sat on an impossibly huge foundation as if a Roman theater or something dreadful took place. The soldiers stood about, not taking their eyes off the portal, per Samuel's recommendations they treated the portal like a coiled snake, waiting to blow up and kill everything within 3 miles. it was mesmerizing but the memory of the witch hill portal complex, made him dread this beautiful sight, they activated the "gate" at witch hill, by simply cleaning it and essentially jump-starting the oily organic oil, the electrical engineers couldn't believe their eyes at this marvel, it was like a statue-man-robot, once it was activated it would flex and subtract like a set of lungs, the black blood oozed into the opening and filled the gateway, the liquid started whirling like a witches brew, a drip the size of a boulder fell away from the portal, floated in slow motion outward like a levitating orb, the entire room fell silent, and stepped away, afraid the orb would absorb them, Sam nearly fell over a coworker he steadied himself and watched in complete awe, not a sound as it began to "sink" back into the gate, once it remarried with the rest of the portal a sonic boom blasted out every piece of glass on the mountain, but oddly the eardrums of every man and woman was unharmed, the portal started clicking like a television with bad reception and every image Samuel seen was hellish. They all stood around raising glasses and patting each other on the back, like on many occasions when they discovered something significant they would pop some corks, Sam and Joanie would watch their coworkers act foolish and flirt a little, but the next morning the complex was a hole in the ground, with no way to explain the devastation, it was ruled an explosion but none of the corpses were burnt, and after the sonic boom startup, precautions were put in place to prevent explosions at least complete devastation, Samuel could remember something wiping out the front of his car on a dreadful night but he just couldn't remember what he saw, it was a flash, maybe a chunk of the ancient standing stone, but he just didn't know. the man next to him whimpered, he didn't dare look, but he knew it was Mark, his mind undoubtedly on his brother, who was stationed at the WHPC labs, the young man had been split in half by some very large blade, or some other means but a metal not from earth. No video survived the encounter, and neither did any witnesses, and being the only survivor Sam couldn't tell you. It took 2 weeks to dig up the bodies and they appeared to have been eaten by large animals or cut up like a medieval battle took place, one man was folded in half, another was crushed, and the coroner said the poor soul was smashed as one would smash a beer can on the table, it was as if something fell from above and crushed him, smashed like an accordion. Even those could be explained away with an explosion, but the other deaths were even more bizarre, 34 more to be exact they all died in ways only a military historian could explain, most were cut in twos threes and sometimes in half, or down the middle, something came out of the portal with enough power to slice a man from forehead to knee, and Sam was going to find out, was it Aliens? Maybe, a time portal, and the Men and women of the WHPC were killed by 13th-century Mongols, Samuel didn't give a damn he was getting his fucking revenge, with a clip full of Personal great walls.
WUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUB
The sound was intensifying by the minute, And on several occasions, it was suggested that the gateway powered up, malfunctioned, and then exploded as a result, Samuel was sweating profusely, thinking about this but, deep down he knew better, something came out of this thing and covered up the gateway, and killed his wife. his hands were trembling uncontrollably, and he could hear his heartbeat, he could hear it well, even above the humming of the portal, it had been a day and nothing had happened, the sound started an hour ago and now the men were on edge.
After hours of standing and watching like aboriginal fishermen, the soldiers got restless. The men looked to Samuel for advice. "Dr. Morgan, is this normal?" They would ask,
"What?" I asked, jumping to "I was a glorified assistant, my wife was a super-duper Archaeologist with a massive brain! She was so brilliant they let me tag along" Samuel went silent, "the flash" across the hood of his car, a flash of light coming off something silken, maybe. He looked back into the young people's eyes "Nothing about any of this is normal" he tried a weak smile "You should all go play house for as long as you can" Sam said "Find someone to hold at night, just go home" female soldier purse her lips like one does when they feel deep sympathy for another "I've seen the world, several times but nothing beats your first glimpse the one, it's like heaven in the morning" her lips got even more pouted now. Samuel was a 31-year-old man but tonight he felt even older telling these 20-year-olds to go home and live.
Samuel shuddered at the thought of them being massacred by a large tentacled alien.
"No we mean this portal, did the one you worked on, do this?" The soldier said unperturbed, pointing at the distortion in the gateway.
"Yes," Samuel said getting back on topic "the bending of space and time, causes the 'Frame drag' you are seeing, the bigger the objects and their speed will cause the time to bend, and that's what you are seeing here, we have only seen this type of time dilation near supermassive objects like planets and even the pyramids, but a simple mèn a tol megalith? unbelievable" he said with a child-like wonder that momentarily made him forget about the absolute devastation that this piece of ancient technology undoubtedly had a hand in at the WHPC, "this what we are seeing tells us that the old legends of the stone holes of the English isles, the passing through them and coming out being healthy and different"
The men all crowded around him as he explained the ancient piece of super high-tech equipment, the spinning gears the levels, and ancient mysterious liquids pumping through it.
"This liquid acts as a fuel, much like oil in our vehicles, but unlike oil, we have no clue what it is, it's black and biological but it's most certainly not oil," Sam said as the soldiers milled about checked their equipment all while hanging on Sams every word, he went on to tell them about his department at the witch hill labs, a high tech facility in the Ozarks built around an enormous stone-age temple deep in a cave, Sam tried to avoid mentioning his wife but being the world-famous scientists who found the portal, using 5.000 years of writing and the once in a generation mind she possessed.
he turned and glanced towards the machine, a handsome face peered at him through the soldiers, he double-glanced, and then it was gone, why did that get his attention? He continued his lecture.
"The Witch Hill team was my friends, some of you had family there, and I haven't taken that lightly, what happened there? I'll never rest until-"
He saw it again! It was a very oddly handsome face, very large, looking through the cracks between the soldiers! "Lookout," Sam said pushing through the men. Was the face coming from the portal?!
He stood and stared, not daring to blink
No one spoke, but safety was being switched off.
"I-uh I will never rest until I find out what happened in Arkansas, I swear, I know theories are being thrown around but I'm sure it was just a very clean explosion" Samuel's legs were twitching "We are dealing with technology, yet very different but still very advanced" Sam wiped his brow, certainly he was seeing things, a human face? Really!? He was losing it and he knew it- "I was gone before it exploded, I was maybe a mile away when we wrecked, I can remember it but I'm sure it was connected, we saw gold, we smashed into something gilded"
A face floated to the surface of the portal, and Sam was looking directly at it as if a drowning man floated to the surface of a lake! Sams's chest exploded in fear.
Giant face blinked and then looked at Samuel! "Ha-Holy shit" Samuel couldn't believe what he was seeing, he didn't dare blink, let alone move, what was this? Is some joke made in very bad taste? He's dedicated the last 3 years to this phenomenon and now it's a joke? Now the face turned to look directly at him, he shouldn't be there, any human who passed through was ground up by invisible means and spat back out. But here it was a face, perfectly human, and the size of a round kitchen table! And looking Samuel right into his eyes now. The soldier next to Sam followed his gaze and froze when he and the being locked eyes, the soldier shuddered and began to scream, in a second every eye was on the thing in the machine, the being Let out a battle cry, a sharp blast deeper than any human could ever utter, the shockwave sent several soldiers flying, the large glass work lights, shattered as the visible wave of sound reverberated several times across the sunken Roman-Greek-like amphitheater. The Alien smiled at the carnage he caused and proceeded to pull himself through the portal, he let out a sigh, and the ground shook under the base in this monster's voice alone, his massive arms came through, his hands bracing on the rim of the portal, his mouth spread into a smile again, as he lifted himself through, the huge mouth and the brick-sized teeth behind moved to form words, Sam couldn't read, but he knew it was something like "I'm coming" his flesh looked as if he was underwater, he pushed himself and floated outward, through the portal, the look of the action was as if he stepped into a pool and began slowly floating to the bottom, but he was moving into our world, and after a second he began to fall. The giant landed knees bent, and as he stood up, his huge blue eyes Shone like the sun under his beautiful cassa-Galia-style helmet, he looked as though he stepped out of a high-budget Roman-era movie, He was every bit a Roman legionary, the gasps and sounds of fear, and awe filled the room, Sam could hear the Roman giants body prepare to speak as if a massive bellow was breathing "suus 'been paulum quod Ego habebat mures inclusi situla" and without another word, the giant picked up and bashed the 3 nearest soldiers with a huge work light that rested near the portal like a horse swatting flies with its tail, 40 rifles were pulled up and trained on the being instantly, but no round was fired, every man and women in that room froze, no one could believe what was going on in front of them, a giant roman soldier just stepped out of an upturned pool and killed some guys with a light! the poor soldiers landed 20 feet away, in a heap of fatigues and groans, as the human-like creature stood still, the bellow sound got louder, Sam knew it was preparing to speak again "permisit vobis dominus maiestatem suam pro longinquo tempore pestis infestare" Sam recognized the word "Vermin" and "infested" this is not good.