Benjamin

“Ben, we found it.” Carol shouted from the other side of the camp.

Benjamin emerged from his nap with a dry mouth. It had been three days since they arrived at El Pilar, and the cryptozoologist was tired. They had found the right place. Tomorrow they would be there when the dragon eggs “burst from the ground of the honourable nation of the South”. He took a huge sip of his coke. The cool beverage was refreshing and gave him a boost. He took more than a sip in the end, giving himself a brain freeze. He was still jet-lagged, but everything was on track, leaving no stress to dampen the excitement of his discovery.

Outside, the oppressive heat clung to him like a thick, suffocating blanket, the air heavy with moisture. Surprised by the evening sun, Ben grabbed his archaeologist hat, the same as Indiana Jones, but a different colour. One of the workers saluted him while his comrades were putting the shovels, saws and machetes back into the tents. Thanks to them, the ritual site had been cleared since yesterday. Benjamin barely recognised the camp. The workers were diligent and respectful. All those men were recruited in El Pilar and nearby villages by Dr Alberto Martinez, their contact in Venezuela, their local man of the operations.

The Doctor was not a full-time member of the University, more a consultant. His expertise in survivalism, physics and in rocks reading was crucial. After just one conversation, Benjamin knew he was sharp and well-informed. Speaking of knowledge, Carol arrived with her brand-new camera. She was a colleague from the Open Sciences University of Kansas, but a friend too. Needless to say, that was not their first jig together. As a historian and medieval and aeonian civilisations specialist, she was more than helpful during the research. He couldn’t imagine not having her for the expedition. She looked at him with her big eyes. She was happy.

Most of the excavated dirt and rocks had been piled into a large brown and grey hill. But the principal attraction here was the great boulder the size of a tall man. It was perfectly horizontal, rectangle-ish and had a kind of gutter. That was the table, or more precisely the altar, that Benjamin discovered during their exploration the day before yesterday. Now it was clean for the first time in centuries, seeing the light of the dying day once again. Benjamin was already proud and excited by that, but Carol wasn’t taking a photo of the altar itself. Arranged on the top of it were three concave stones with the thickness of one and a half phalanges. One of them presented burn marks on half of it. The smell told Benjamin that it was recent. That was what Carol was taking pictures of. The cryptozoologist wasn’t sure of what it was, yet. He looked at his colleague to get some explanations.

“Eggshell pieces! Dragon one!” She nearly screamed. It was part excitement part Carol.

“And the burned part?” Ben questioned while examining it more closely.

“Dr Alberto ran some tests to verify our theory. Look—see how it didn’t burn? These are definitely fossilised dragon eggshells.”

She took the stone from Benjamin’s hands and pointed to the edges of the burned part. Then a section where the burn part was scrubbed to show the irregular shapes on the bottom. There were tiny waves or triangles in the textures of the rock.

“See the shell is not burned here. But when you look here, the fire revealed the fossilised scales of the eggshell.” She explained calmly but still loudly. “Alberto confirmed there were definitely not ordinary rocks. Probably something quantically resistant to fire. He thinks that with more time, he will be able to estimate its age and confirm your theory.”

It was more than he was expecting. He had assembled a good team. They were able to find proof in such a short time. Ben underwent a quantum realignment treatment to improve his chances of success before the expedition. It was definitely worth it. The proofs were here but it wasn’t all of it. They would need to clear the piece further, delicately removing excess stone. But already under his fingers, Ben was able to feel the small scales on multiple locations on the eggshell’s pieces.

“With this kind of proof and Dr Alberto’s expertise, nobody with common sense would be able to deny the truth.” Ben approved, charmed by this amazing discovery. “Speaking of him, where is he?” He asked Carol while she was inspecting the pictures on the small screen of the camera with her huge round glasses barely stable on her forehead.

“He is ‘managing’ with the local authorities for the excavation permit.” The historian responded in a low voice for her.

Ben immediately understood what she meant by this ‘managing’. They didn’t want the government or even worse the shadow government to know about their discovery. Otherwise, they would have stolen everything and tried to hide it once again. So, they had a solution. Part of the budget was given to Dr Alberto specifically to ‘manage’ the authorities. Those kinds of practices weren’t a problem when you were working to expose the Truth. It was only a few Venezuelan Bolívars, no more.

For Benjamin, this wasn’t just another expedition—it was his life’s work, a chance to validate years of research and prove the existence of creatures long thought mythical. It was his milestone torn out of the shadows of mainstream narrative and brought to the light of the day. It was his accomplishment.

It all started with a single idea—the right one! Three years ago, he had been playing GeoGuessr, a game where players guess locations using Google Street View. During one of his many sessions, he noticed Barcelona, but not in Spain, the one in Venezuela. That was the trigger as he remembered that, two months prior, he had watched an old video about Saint Matthew, and his fight against dragons. It was a short one but the speaker was clear about the fact that everything happened near Barcelona, according to some old documents she had read. Remembering that, Benjamin tracked the speaker and engaged in conversation about the possibility of which Barcelona. They argued, for weeks. The speakers explained every detail, how St Matthew fought and tamed the dragon, definitely near the city. One sentence came back often “burst from the ground of the honourable nation of the south”. So, there were dragons there, that took refuge in an island or place south to Barcelona, according to her. She found Dragonera Island as a perfect candidate but they faced refusal after refusal to search the island. They didn’t allow it. Even when she was able to make it to the island the speaker was not able to find any eggs. Benjamin proceeded to do some research on his own and came back with a solution. The island was a legendary flying one. That made sense for dragons to take refuge in some places difficult for humans to reach. And Dragonera was just a piece of it that would have fallen on earth at some point. If you align the Dragonera and the closest geological plate delimitation, you can follow it and find the passage on the flying island. There were a lot of small islands linked to dragons or stories about them along this line. All those islands were proof of the passage of the flying island. Centuries ago, the flying island must have been near Venezuela. Interestingly, Barcelona’s name—both in Spain and Venezuela—originates from Barchinona, derived from words meaning ‘breath’ or ‘vapour’, like a dragon’s breath. The dragons in legends are different in Europe and South America due to the fact the island was there long ago. That could even explain the common language of the two countries.

So, a place near Barcelona should be hiding the Dragon nest because they are predators, like eagles they stay in the same area for generations. They have high loyalty to locations. So, dragons lived nearby. And if an island was a good place to find their nest, the ones close to Barcelona lack of vitality and space to hide them. So, for dragons, it was probably more a forest and mountain place. And if you look near Barcelona in Venezuela and move according to geological movements, you end just a few kilometres south to El Pilar. When looking online for information on the region, Ben found that an old ceremony where people had “large birds” costumes, dragons, was popular in the region in the middle of the 18^th century. And the place of origin of the founder of that festival was El Pilar. He was an anonymous rich sorcerer or spiritual person, that fell in love with “the local wildlife and what burst from the ground”. His name was probably erased to hide the truth, but Ben had found what he wanted. He had found a ceremonial birth place of dragons.

It all started with a single idea—the right one! 

But a good idea needed funds to become reality. Two years ago, Carol had introduced him to the Open Sciences University of Kansas. She had always been the one with the contacts since they had met a few months before that, during Benjamin’s research.
He had been more than doubtful at first. The smell of incense and the new age music had not been engaging. He hadn’t wanted to end up with delusional people who thought they could read the future in crystal balls or coffee grounds. He was a scientist, not a charlatan.

He had started his YouTube channel that had taken most of his time already anyway. But with time, coming back to the University had become more and more pleasant. Some people there had appeared to be competent and lucid colleagues he could collaborate with.
They had helped with his research, theory, solutions. They had helped each other with videos, conferences, and sales.

Then, it was time for field investigation. But an expedition cost more than document research. Benjamin had sold some books about dragons and other creatures, but still it was not enough. So naturally, he had asked the University to fund the expedition to El Pilar.

And they had refused. Benjamin had been furious. He had threatened to quit, leading to numerous quarrels with Carol.

But miraculously, the University had called him back after receiving a generous donation and finally had decided to invest in Ben’s expedition.

That had been the miracle he was looking for.

This was three weeks ago.

“So, … this is it,” Dr Alberto surprised Carol and Benjamin.

“Yes, we found it,” Benjamin confirmed.

“It was time,” Carol mumbled.

“It’s for tomorrow?” Their local man of operations asked.

“Yes, yes, according to my calculations, yes,” Carol responds. “You see, the stars are aligned in the exact same way they were at the aeonian era of Saint Matthew when the flying island passed by, if you slide by the solstice.” Joining her gesture to her words, she pointed at the sky, but nobody followed.

“It definitely looks like an altar or a ritual table,” Dr Alberto reaffirmed while running around. He stopped in front of the gutter part. He looked on top of it, then below it, then the top part again. He was doing squats like nothing. He had more energy than Ben, even after having run all previous days to other villages for people and tools. It was impressive. The man was tall, but thin, so thin he looked like a skeleton, a skeleton plugged to a quantum battery.

“This is a gutter for pouring something.”

“Yes, yes. I tried with water. It works well. Look at this,” Carol said while showing a short video of it on the screen of her camera.

“Could it be for blood?” The doctor questioned.

“I don’t think so. More for ambrosia, to boost the strength of a creature,” the dragon specialist affirmed.

“It makes sense or the blood would have tinted the stone over time,” the rock expert noted. “When we arrested the men of Cisneros in their ranches, I saw it. I can tell you that blood definitely tints stone, even after a few months. Bloody capitalists. Damnit, we stopped them at that time but they managed to kill our beloved president. Rest in peace, general!”

Benjamin ignored the doctor rambling.

“What are the dimensions of the altar?” Benjamin asked while opening his arms to reach both ends.

“It’s 3’ large and 7’3’’ long. The size of a long bed,” Carol answered.

“Or the one of a tall humanoid,” Benjamin noticed amused.

“Like an aeonian,” his colleague understood immediately. “It’s definitely the place,” she nearly screamed.

“And you found the eggshells there,” Benjamin noticed while looking at the area of the camp that was already two or three feet deep.

“Yes, we found them, there, there and here,” Dr Alberto explained while jumping from one location to the other.

“So, the eggs bursting area should be there tomorrow,” Benjamin said while grabbing some small flag on a steel rod. “Let’s mark some delimitation and we will celebrate after.”

*****

“Ho! Come on lady!” Ben shouted out at the annoying woman in the plaid shirt that picked on him while they were hanging out on their own.

“Bullshit is bullshit,” she repeated without looking up from her glass still at the bar. “It can make good stories, at best.”

“It will be better than stories. It will be History!”

Carla looked at him, amused by the situation. It was not the first time he had to defend their cause. His YouTube channel was full of responses to those zeteticians and other pseudo-debunkers that were not able to see what was in front of them. Carla took a huge sip of her rearranged non-tomato-but-orange-juice-with-cranberry-and-peach-schnapps Bloody Mary.

“Let it go, Doctor De Tavera. She visibly can’t handle the true big picture. She doesn’t have the capabilities to do so.”

“But if it’s so great and you’re so clever, maybe you can explain how it’s not bullshit,” she said finally looking at the group and playfully pointing her cocktail stick at Benjamin.

“It’s not. But I won’t lose more time with someone who already thinks that my proofs are bullshit.”

“You’re right. I’m here for some big news, not junk. And even if my evening is free, I clearly don’t have time for lunatics.”

It got to Benjamin—deep, feral. She wanted to play like that.
Dr Alberto tried to stop Ben. But it was too late as the cryptozoologist was already up. He tried to contain himself as much as he could. His associate grabbed his arm. He had a look in his eye saying that they didn’t have to make a fuzz here. Plus, the University guy was coming later. But the look of Benjamin was clear, he was going to crush her, with words.

“A lot of time but you have enough to eavesdrop and judge?” he attacked.

“Ho! Come on man!” she mocked him, mimicking a caricature of a buffed man. “You were so loud that they heard you up to the other side of Barcelona. And it’s not even judging at this point, it’s common sense. You’re talking about dragons as if they were real and roaming the world.”

“They are real or at least were! And we have proof of that. We are here to reveal what was hidden from us for centuries.”

“You don’t have proof,” she simply replied.

“We have documents, eggshells and ceremonial altars!”

“Charlatan tricks, nothing more,” she condescendingly moaned while readjusting her ponytail.

“Let’s not insult each other,” Benjamin argued getting closer to her at the bar. “That’s always the same with people like you. You think that you know the truth so don’t even bother to listen to the other side of the arguments and just choose ignorance. Then you easily antagonising us. We did our research but you dismiss it because it’s not the way you do it.”

“But your research is not done consciously, with the right protocols,” she retorted, agitating her arms in the air as this conversation was getting on her nerves. “You’re biased all the way while doing your research and experimentations, making them unreliable. I’m not even sure you know what the scientific method is?”

“It slows down everything and doesn’t trust what it can’t prove.”

“That’s the point! It helps to present reliable facts,” she screamed.

“When we show you facts, you don’t believe them.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe them, because most of the time they are not facts. What you’re presenting are feelings or imagination, fallacy, or… or… or correlation, at best.”

“It’s not rocket science we have dragon eggshell pieces. Sites where dragon ceremonies took place. What do you want? A implies B, it’s simple. Fossilised dragon eggs mean dragons!”

“You don’t have eggshells. You think you have them. I can bet they are rocks, at best.”

“They don’t burn.”

“Yes! Like real rocks!” the lady responds with a palm facing the sky.

“I’m a specialist, I know what I said,” he firmly responded.

“And I’m a journalist. With my own show Always for the Truth by Cindy Allzy. I saw my fair share of pretenders, cons and conspiracy theorists,” she said while getting up her chair, obliging Benjamin to take a step back. “And then you will talk about how you didn’t know, how it wasn’t what you thought, about UFOs and flat earth.”

Benjamin stepped in, making her take a step back.

“I don’t think earth is flat, hollow or a simulation. I don’t think UFO stories are all real. I don’t think Nixon faked the moon landing. You put thoughts in my mind without knowing.”

“But you trust in fire-breathing dragons!” she yelled as it was her only argument.

“And you believe a lot of stuff that you have never seen or experienced directly. That can be false or challenged too. But you learned them. You do your research and discover that what people think is not always true. I’m a civil engineer, you know?!”

“With a degree?” she asked, surprised.

“Yes, sadly I don’t have my diploma with me now to prove it to you, so it’s fake, probably.”

“No, I can trust you on that,” she admitted. “But you don’t have a diploma in cryptozoology.”

“And you don’t have any diploma for journalism if I’m not wrong,” Benjamin replied already knowing that was a fact.

She was angry and unsettled by the situation. Benjamin was just angry that she didn’t want to listen and believe him. But she came back after just a short breath, standing in her position.

“You will moan for ages until you find something else to sell or corrupt with stolen money, at best.”

“At best, at best,” he mocked her, “At best, you hear us but you don’t listen. Especially you journalists. You only come to find us to mock us and make your crowd of followers grow. But when we try to convince people, we are gurus and lunatics.”

“Because you are spreading lies!” she yelled again.

“Because everything that journalists say is plain unbiased truth maybe?!”

“Always the same argument of everybody lying.”

“Always the same argument of it’s too crazy to be true so you are a crazy man.”

There was a blank in the conversation. It was clear that it was getting nowhere. The energy was gone. So gone that even the other customers had lost interest in the altercation. They had nothing more to say. There was nothing more to say.

That was the moment Dr Alberto chose to reach Benjamin. He was avoiding the lady’s gaze. In his hand Benjamin recognised his own phone. Before he could read the message popping on the screen, Carla told him.

“The professor arrives in half an hour. He expects a quick visit to the site tonight.”

They had to go. Benjamin looked at the time. In half an hour, it would be 2 a.m. It was late for a surprise visit but they had already planned to stay awake to not miss a second of the eggs bursting out of the ground. The cryptozoologist glanced at the journalist one last time; she was already back on her phone. Ben felt more disappointed than angry.

“If I had known you would be so closed-minded, I would never have invited you,” Benjamin finally admitted getting away.

“You were right, it was a waste of time for everybody,” she conceded. “I should have known better after checking your videos.”

Dr Alberto stared confusedly at his colleagues.

“Wait! You invited her? You told a journalist what we were doing here?” he questioned.

Carla gathered their stuff on the sofa. She was not surprised at all.

“Yes, she has strong personality and we needed to announce it to the world. Plus, she was at Caracas for a congress or something, so I just sent her an email.” Ben simply responded while he was grabbing his superb hat.

“But you should have known about me and my show, so why did you invite me?” the journalist asked. “I debunk lies and make people confront their contradictions. I was probably the worst journalist for your cause.”

“I like your show to be honest. But mainly, you said it: ‘You don’t believe it.’ You are looking Always for the Truth. Imagine the impact of someone like you once you would have had no other choice than to admit dragons’ existence. You debunk big companies lies and reveal their secrets. Let’s see what you can do with a world secret!”

She sighed, a long, loud sigh. Benjamin wasn’t sure at all if his speech had been convincing. He tried, really. They needed more views than his own channel. They needed to reach a more diverse and popular audience. He wanted to beat the system at its own game.

“I can ask you the same thing,” added Ben. “You saw my videos and still came, even though, I was expecting you tomorrow. Why?”

“Stupid curiosity,” she remarked, desperate at herself.

“It’s still curiosity,” he noticed.

He had the feeling that he could use that curiosity and reach her.

“That cost me an expensive hotel night at my own expenses,” she added, still tired.

“If you are so pissed why not come and see it by yourself, so it would have not been for nothing. And if you are not convinced by tomorrow burst, Miss Allzy, I will pay for your room myself.”

She took her time to think. Carla and Dr Alberto at the door of the bar already were pressing Benjamin. They really had to go. The journalist looked at her phone again. She sighted.

*****

Professor Hector, the inspector from the Open Sciences University of Kansas, was pleasantly surprised by the presence of the journalist. He believed it was important for the press to be present for the big reveal. It was good news as the group arrived late. Ben had took a wrong turn on the road that made them lose a good 10 to 20 minutes.

When they reached El Pillar, they found this tall guy waiting for them. Tall he was, taller than Dr Alberto by at least a head. In the light of the car, alone and static in his long trench coat, he looked ominous. But he quickly revealed a jovial face, smiling with a big beard covering a good chunk of his face. He removed his hat to politely salute everybody, then put it back, nearly hiding his eyes again. He had a kind of old British guy vibe. Polite, oldish, but jovial.

The inspector went straight to the point. He was waiting for them to visit the ritual site. He was deeply sorry to be there in the middle of the night but had important business next morning in France and was leaving the country in a few hours.

They travelled through the forest without real difficulties. They had torches and the numerous persons that went from El Pilar to the site in two days made the passage easy to follow. Only the inspector had to bend his knees or lower his head to pass under some branches. The man was old and rusty enough to turn those passages into true physical exercises.

In the camp, they skipped the tents and went straight for the main attraction. The Professor demonstrated a brilliant mind. He directly noticed the ritual altar and made the same assumption as the team about the gutter. Benjamin offered to give a brief overview of his research and what led them here, but Professor Hector knew it by heart already. He admitted being a huge fan of the cryptozoologist work.

Dr Alberto presented the eggshell pieces, where they found them and how they extract them. Carla showed the pictures taken earlier, about the place and the different experimentation they’ve conducted. The Professor and the journalist listened intently. But when the first one seemed to enjoy it, the second seemed less than convinced. Miss Allzy was taking notes, a few notes, so few that her pencil spent more time in her hair than her hand. Nonetheless, she asked for a copy of the video and some pictures.

It took them less than 30 minutes to give a decent overview of the ritual site and their discoveries so far. That’s when the old professor shivered and nearly fell. Fortunately, Benjamin was there to catch him. He grabbed Hector by the shoulder, revealing the professor’s comically small hands.

“You’re my saviour,” he thanked the cryptozoologist with his deep but still jovial voice. “It’s a colder night than I expected.”

“We should probably head back to the tent,” Carla suggested.

“Ho, I have the regret to abandon you here, madams and misters,” the inspector declared, as they all started to move. “Unfortunately, I have to go.”

“Do you want us to call you a taxi or you have your own car?” Dr Alberto asked.

“No, sir,” responded the professor while getting around a hole in his way, “I’ve already arranged everything.”

“If it’s sorted, I will go back inside as I’m shivering too,” Clara mentioned quite crudely.

“We can accompany you down to the village?” Benjamin suggested.

“No, please don’t. Enjoy a well-deserved rest before the burst. I can walk. No worries.”

“If you insist”

“I do.”

And as they reached the tent, some formal goodbyes were exchanged before the Professor Hector disappeared in the dark.

Miss Allzy was hesitant. She went through her notes using her phone light the best she could. Her face was clear on her disappointment. The highlight of the show was just a couple of hours away.

“In no time, you will have an article for the front pages,” Benjamin argued while holding the tent open for the journalist and the rest of the group.

“Promises. But nothing that remarkable yet,” she bitched while falling in one of the camping chairs.

Ben didn’t care about this grumpy journalist. Only a few hours left. He couldn’t even bring himself to sit.

To pass time Carla started to type on her laptop. With every hour of sleep taken from her, she was withdrawing more and more. Her eyes were only small green almonds now, focused on the screen. Next to her Dr Alberto was far gone in Morpheus’ world. Miss Allzy was on her phone, doing… something probably.

“I have to admit, I was kind of disappointed the University sent an inspector,” Ben started while realigning some papers on his improvised desk. “But the guy seemed lucid, so it was okay.”

“It’s not that they sent him. He asked for it,” explained Carla without looking away from her screen.

“But why?”

“I don’t know. Probably to have a look into his investment. I mean he is the guy behind all of this after all, our fortunate patron. He paid for it.”

“You’re kidding?” Benjamin nearly screamed.

“No,” Carla responded visibly annoyed by Benjamin’s realisation.

He felt dumb to not have done more for him. He should have driven him or given him an eggshell as a present. Maybe, it wasn’t too late. Benjamin could reach the professor before he arrived at El Pilar. When he aimed for the exit, his friend stopped him.

“What are you doing?” she interrogated him.

“I need to catch him and thank him. He made my dream come true, it’s a minimum,” Benjamin clarified.

“Don’t lose too much time, the sun rises in less than an hour. We will leave the tent in half an hour, max.”

She was not bored or tired enough to turn into a mini general.

“It shouldn’t be that long.”

Carla looked at him. She was so sure he would turn it into something long. It’s not like it was not his speciality.

“I’ll limit my monologuing,” he admitted disappointed but determined to be back on time. Ben grabbed a lamp torch and ran outside. It was still dark, but not for long. Far off, in the distance, the sun was already rising. They indeed had less than an hour.

He aimed for the way back to the village when a light caught the corner of his eye. It was coming from near the altar. It was a faint light. But Benjamin was sure, of it. Three little silhouettes were there around his altar! Nobody would mess with his discovery so close to the burst. He changed direction and went straight for the three individuals.

At first, he mistook them for apes or chimpanzees. Getting closer, he realised they were talking, or more whispering loudly. He thought they were children. Ben started running faster. Apes would look around; Children would destroy everything just for fun. Not all children were like that, maybe he would be lucky. But they were children in the middle of the night digging with a shovel and wearing pointy hats! When, finally, he was close enough, he finally recognised the voice of the Professor. The cryptozoologist was relieved. He hadn’t missed him. He still had time to thank him.

Ben started walking again, then the situation appeared to him even more disturbing than apes or children. Why was the Professor Hector still here? Why was he digging? Where was he? Was he trying to steal Benjamin’s work? Was it a kind of elaborate money laundry?

Benjamin was completely lost. He strained to listen more closely.

“You nearly made me fall,” the Professor’s voice grumbled without any trace of a British accent. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking nothing,” a younger voice responded between two shovels. “I nearly fell asleep. We listened to the same speech, Hector. That was an endless flow of boring nonsense.”

“Yes, but a useful nonsense that we need,” Hector responded, as it was apparently him.

“Still nonsense. Dragons, big flying lizard,” the youngest voice said, in the tone of the non-believers ready to call you a moron. “Not even scientifically plausible. Such small wings for such a big beast. Not really surprising when you see how they draw pixies. Plus, on top of that, it should be breathing fire, just how? We let them continue like this and they will prove that unicorns are real.”

“Hey! Unicorns ARE real Simon,” a fast third voice objected, aroused by his companion.

“Don’t start on that Regis,” the apparently named Simon praised.

“Just saying, Unicorns are real.  And on another subject, I really think we should have painted those big eggs.”
“Nah, they found stuff even before we arrived,” Simon scoffed. “They don’t need something colourful.”

“And you think that will work, Hector,” the speed voice asked.

“As Simon said, they found stuff before we arrived. Have you seen this beautiful table?” Hector scoffed too. “We are fine. Just put some dirt on top of it to make it more real.”

“Why do you…”

The intruder named Regis stopped abruptly in the middle of his sentence.

Those three elves stared at the cryptozoologist as surprised to see him as the other way around. No sound could be heard, not even a distant nocturnal creature to break the silence. Benjamin had not realised that he had stepped into the light. Astounded, he didn’t even think about staying hidden.

They all looked weirdly human but not enough. They were little and too deformed to be people with dwarfism. Their feet were long, eyes surrealistically large and their ears pointy. The three of them wore a pointy hat nearly as tall as them, pink, red and green. The grumpy one with the pink hat looked like an old granny. He had a good chunk of dirt in his shovel ready to be dumped on top of two scaled eggs-shaped rocks of size matching the eggshell pieces they had found. He glanced at Regis, the energetic one with a green hat. This one was holding a strange tool resembling a steak hammer on one hand, and another smooth egg on the other. Finally, all the assembly turned to Hector. Nonchalantly sitting on the altar, near a trench coat now three times his size, the former professor was supervising everything while smoking an elaborate pipe. He took a long puff. The tobacco turned as red as his pointy hat. He blew a series of smoke rings that flew then disappeared in the last dark part of the sky.

“You can unfreeze, all three of you,” Hector said calmly. “Just drop the dirt, Simon. You look stupid.”

“But the human?” the pink hat protested.

“He saw everything, too late for discretion.”

“You stole our shovel?” Benjamin articulated confused.

“It’s the only problem you have with the situation?” the green hat sincerely asked. “OK, no colours needed indeed,” he added for himself while giving more scales to his egg.

Looking at those three individuals getting back to their tasks as if it was nothing, Ben snatched the strange hammer from the hand of Regis and in the same movement grabbed the little one’s arm firmly. They had to stop this.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the cryptozoologist screamed, menacing the small creature with the hammer.

“Calm down Benjamin. We are a bunch of civilised folks here, so no need to resort to violence,” Hector said with a moralist voice. “As you see we are burying eggs. What do you want to know? We can explain. Just drop the hammer.”

Benjamin had no intention of dropping the hammer. That was too much. Who did they think they were? No, the most important first.

“What are you? Elves?” Benjamin interrogates.

“Yes, we are from Chicago,” Hector answered as if it made sense.

“So, elves are real! And fairies?”

“Yes, and Yes.”

“Sirens, trolls, dragons, witches, unicorns?” Benjamin hallucinated.

“Yes, yes, sadly for you no, not anymore, and debatable,” Hector answered once again naturally without concerned for those revelations.

“Wait dragons are not real?!” the cryptozoologist grasped.

“As I said, no, sorry.”

“But all the traces. The flying island. The legends, the writing, the sculptures?”

“Human inventions.”

“I can’t believe you,” Benjamin tried to convince himself. But they were there. “You were making fake dragon eggs,” he realised looking at what he was holding.

“Hmmm, no?” tried Hector without a pinch of conviction.

He took another puff of his pipe. Simon dropped the shovel. Regis tried to take one step back, afraid of the possible reaction of Benjamin. But the cryptozoologist was holding his hostage, inflexibly, feeling the pulse of the elf under the sleeve.

“Nobody was making fake eggs if nobody knows about it.”

“You want to kill me?!” Benjamin shouted.

“No, no,” Hector immediately replied, horrified.

“You want to pay for my silence!”

“Nah, we don’t have any more money. We are not leprechauns! It was already hard to find the money to fund your little trip.”

“So, leprechauns are real too, but not dragons.”

“Exactly, and for your knowledge they looked exactly as you expect and are even stupider than in your stories.”

Benjamin needed to sit. But the ground was only fresh dirt and he didn’t want to get dirty. He raised his hand to his forehead, feeling the coldness of the imprinting tool he was still holding.

“It doesn’t make sense. If elves and sirens exist, why not dragons?”

“I don’t make rules,” Hector laughed.

“But why make all of those dragon eggs, fund my expedition, support my research?”

“Oh, it’s simple. Us, elves, fey peoples, and others, don’t want humans to find out we exist.”

“So, you make me find proofs of the existence of other non-existing creatures? That’s illogical! You want to hide the dragons’ existence too!”

“No, we don’t. We just find that it’s particularly useful that you think they’re real. But then you look like a crazy man and so nobody believes you. And it’s indeed true as dragons are pure fantasy. Some human will think it’s true and the rest of the planet will marginalise them, making all those theories even more unbelievable. Because when you lose credibility, we are safer,” Hector explained looking deep into the eyes of Benjamin, trying to hypnotise or scare him.

“I know the truth now. You told me everything!” Benjamin laughed, losing it.

“That doesn’t change anything,” Hector retorted with curious frowned eyebrows.

“That changes everything,” Benjamin screamed to shut that all-knowing-smoky-jerk up. “Because now I have a living proof,” Benjamin argued proudly raising his little prisoner from the ground. They were trapped. Dragons were past, okay. But Benjamin was not. He would reveal the Truth even if it cost him his previous work.

But Hector smirked.

“Are you sure?”

Afraid by the confidence of his interlocutor Benjamin looked in his hand only to find the rock that the elf was scaling. Not a trace of the green hatted guy. He went back to Hector, but the only thing in front of him was the altar without elves or trench coat. In the dying night, Benjamin was alone.

Hector’s voice resonated in his head, like if the elf was far and in church at the same time.

“Thanks again, Benjamin,” he laughed crudely, “And don’t forget to smile at the camera.”

Benjamin was once again lost. Was it a prank, a human one? Or were the elves using modern technology. If they could just vanish, that was unfair.

But before the cryptozoologist had drifted too far into the reflection on what just happened, he heard the voice of his colleagues around the corner.

“You could have waited for us!”

She was judging him with her big eyes loaded with as big bags.

“You heard them, didn’t you?” Benjamin prayed, running to his saviours.

“We didn’t hear anybody, but we can see you,” the journalist crushed.

Dr Alberto and even Carla looked horrified. They should have seen or heard something. It couldn’t be only in Benjamin’s head. Nonetheless that was not the point. The journalist was filming. And as the sun finally raised nothing spectacular happened. The only thing the sun rose on was a cryptozoologist holding a strange tool and a visibly fake egg-rock in transformation.

“All of that for that,” the journalist remarked, disappointed.

*****

“That’s not me, it’s the elves! You have to believe me!” a visibly deranged Benjamin screamed at the camera, still holding a half-counterfeited dragon egg.

The camera fell into the dirt right after that, as Dr Alberto had knocked it from the journalist hands. The screen went grey. For a few more seconds, viewers could hear Miss Allzy protesting the brutality, Benjamin shouting about elves and sirens, Dr Alberto threatening the journalist, and Carla insulting both sides.

Benjamin waited for the documentary’s credits to roll before pausing the video. She made him look like the most foolish man on Earth. It had been months since his famous “That’s not me, it’s the elves!” became a meme. He had even seen some T-shirts with the sentence printed on them. Not to mention he didn’t receive a single cent from it.

He read the comments on the video. He had always tried to do that on his channel, but now there were too many to go through. Here, he was just curious about the top comments. He ignored the insults. A good chunk of them were directed at him, but the journalist wasn’t spared either. Still as his best ally, Carla told him not to read them. But at the moment, she was preparing their next show and he wasn’t a good listener anyways.

“He looks stupid.”

“All those crazy theorists are as dumb as him.”

“I was dead when he presented himself seriously as cryptozoologist specialist. But I’m totally supporting him as a quantum healer specialist myself! :smiling tear emoji:”

“Deplorable made-up hypothesis”

“They should be in jail.”

“Resort to creating fakes when nature does not provide pebbles anymore.

Caught red-handed all explanations are great to not lose face.”

The last one he read made him laugh. They were so wrong it was fantastic. Most of those people were delusional, but he could save them, all of them.

“So, as you can see on FireBen channel, now elves, sirens, trolls are real and they are the real deep state and they made him look crazy. :face-palm emoji:

Sadly, for fragile persons like FireBen and their followers, it seems impossible for them to face reality and every counter-argument to their fantasy has an explanation. A proof of possible existence is truth, and proof of inexistence are misunderstood proof of existence. :upside-down smiling emoji: ”  

He liked it without commenting back. Benjamin was fine. He was a star, with more viewers than ever, and now he knew the Truth!