Alex brought himself back to the present—no use getting ahead of the situation just yet. There were plenty more problems to be dealt with right now. He found himself in another large chamber and soon realised that what he had at first taken to be debris littering the floor was actually thousands of skeletal bone fragments. Given what they had already been through, Alex didn’t think a few bones were going to make anyone squeamish anymore. He couldn’t detect any imminent danger so called Aimee, Matt and Monica through.

The four of them looked at the sea of bones covering the floor in all directions. Aimee and Matt crouched down and were quickly sifting through them.

“Perfectly preserved; definitely human. Maybe it’s some sort of burial chamber that was used because the ground had become too frozen for them to bury their dead?” Aimee said as she held a broken skull and jawbone in her hand while looking at the teeth. Most of them were missing and huge abscesses in the bone were plainly visible. She turned the skull over and could see a crack running right down the cranium area that had never healed. “Looks like this is what killed him or her though—some sort of accident.” Aimee turned the small yellow skull over in her hands.

“I don’t think so.” Matt was holding some longer bones in his hands. “Look at this.” He held out the bones for Aimee, Monica and Alex to see. “Notice those grooves on the thigh bone and again here on the rib? I’ve seen these marks before on bones recovered from mass graves during the great European famine of 1316. They’re teeth marks, human teeth marks. These people were eating each other.”

“Cannibals? They turned into cannibals? This is a nightmare; what would make them eat each other?” Monica was clearly shaken, her mouth trembling in both horror and disgust. Matt put his arm around her shoulders.

“Aztlan, the superpower of its time at the height of its scientific, architectural and artistic life cycle, perhaps the cradle of all civilisations, returns to barbarism within a few years. Maybe they were right; maybe their gods did abandon them. By now, even their harbours would have been iced over, making it impossible for any of the Aztlan fleet to return even if they wanted to. Forced below ground to escape the freezing conditions, running out of food to eat and wood to burn. Poor hygiene, malnutrition, did I forget anything? Oh yeah, a giant carnivorous beast was running amok in the caves below them. Man, I will never complain about having a bad day again, ever.” Matt was surveying the room as he spoke. “Do you think the eaters are here among the eaten?”