The Watchers of Time
an excerpt

The small troop of people continued up the mountain in silence, Lorena slowly got closer to Marcus as they got higher and the world got darker, to the point where they were mostly relying on the beams for light. The temple loomed above them, looking foreboding and scary at this time of night. Greg crossed the lines of yellow tape and held it up for the others, one by one walking under it, except for Lorena, who did a kooky little thing and pretended it was a limbo line.
“Hurry up.” Linda called, flashing her light around as she waved for them to catch up. “Where did you say your mother and Dr. Brotsky were going?”
Lorena looked around at the entrance. “Um, to the southeast part of the temple, where the clear murals are. You could probably see my chalk tracks if you look carefully. I started from where Mom was working today and made my way down there. There was an interesting room. That's where they'll be.” Lorena wasn't sure how much to tell Linda and Gregory, so she decided to only tell what was needed and to let her mother sort it out.
Linda nodded, and then shrugged. “Um, I dunno where that is. I haven't been up here much. I'm usually just running errands for people in town, and getting guides and stuff like that. Greg, could you... I mean, do you know where it is that she's talking about?”
The brown haired man nodded. “Yeah, sure. That was the big trumpeting earlier, wasn't it? Dr. Tackovilly got some of us to go down there and boy, the drawings on those walls. They were awesome. First class museum material, that's what my professor at the university would say.”
Linda turned to Marcus and finally told him a little of what was going on, and said they were trying to find the two missing people. Marcus replied that he had thought as much.
“Lead on, I will be here in the back to protect you.” Marcus smiled a little, and to Linda it seemed kind of grim.
Gregory took up the front, leading Lorena and Linda and followed by Marcus. It seemed forever in the long, cold temple, with just enough dust in the air from previous stirring to make people sneeze. They got through it to a less disturbed part of the complex, and Gregory looked back and pointed to the floor. “Here's Lorena's chalk. That's yours, right?” When she nodded, he went on. “But the pictures on the walls changed. I know this mark, with the little X to the left, the wall above it was of an black cat with a bird above it. It looked like a cow with a snake slithering towards it in the grass.”
Lorena blinked at it, and looked up and down the wall. With a shock, she realized indeed, that the wall murals had shifted just as he said, because she remembered making that mark and noting how the animals on this mural reflected the people on the opposite wall. It seemed fuzzy in her memory now, all of a sudden, as if time itself had erased her memory part way.
“Weird.” Linda mumbled.
That was certainly the topping word, Lorena thought, and she pushed past Gregory and examined the walls as they went, looking back and forth to see how they changed. Up ahead, she saw her familiar chalk mark pointing the direction she had gone, but to her eyes, the walls, the hallway, and the corridor off shooting it, she had never been there before. She started walking a little bit faster, worried more and more about her mother and Brotsky, and wondered what happened to cause this change in the temple. Had they discovered something that changed the walls? Had they gone back in time and as a result, had strange things change in the present?
“Hey, slow down, Lorena!” Linda called, jogging to catch up with the others as Lorena stopped and waited for them.
Lorena had stopped by the next turn, the one that led down the blank hallway and to the device room. The walls weren't blank anymore, not by a long shot. Lorena gasped and nearly dropped her flashlight, for there, halfway between the party and the room, lay Dr. Brotsky, unconscious and wearing chain mail armor