PROMPT:  By @SecretTreasures   You are the night guard at a museum. One night, the moonlight falls on a statue as if pointing at it. You touch the hand and the statue moves, revealing a doorway inside. Will you go inside?

The slight jingle of my keys and squeak of my shoes on the polished floor are the only sounds as I walk the nighttime-dark museum corridors.

Thieves be warned! I take my guardianship of this hallowed institution with the utmost seriousness. So, I walk each room thoroughly, stopping to contemplate different pieces every time to vary the timing of my rounds.

I walk a bit faster because tonight I plan to contemplate my favourite piece. It's an ancient statue excavated a few years ago from a Bronze-age site. No one knows its purpose or what it is supposed to be, other than it resembles the rough figure of a person.

Moonlight is streaming through an upper window directly on it. No, the moonlight is almost pointing at the statue's hand. Highlighting it.

I walk closer. Does the moonlight make it feel warmer? I shake my head at the stupidity of the thought.

The silver stream does make it appear irresistible.

I'm the night guard. My whole job is based around not allowing harm to come to the pieces. Harm including touching.

But even believing strongly in all that, I watch my hand reaching out and touching one finger to the moonlit palm.

I gasp and jump back at a cracking sound. The front section of the statue swings forward, grating along the granite base it appeared to be fused to. A pitch black interior opens up.

"Whoa," I say.

When I shine my flashlight in, it's like the dark swallows the light. Not that it's deep. That the light is actually consumed somehow.

Would it do that to my hand? Feel warm? Cold?

My mom always said I was too daring for my own good.

Because I do things like climb on the dias and stick my hand into the black.

I don't feel anything.

So I follow along. For a moment, I have the sensation of being squeezed. Mild claustrophobia starts setting in, but before it gets worse, the black recedes.

Before me an ancient town materializes comprised of round wattle and daub huts topped with thatch roofs. People in long, roughly woven tunics are backing away with fear stamped on their faces. Women are picking up small children and gathering older ones behind them. Glancing over my shoulder reveals more terrified people pointing at me, the man who just materialised in front of them. A few people are looking at me with wonder, though.

From the research I did about the statue that brought me here, I recognize where I am. No, when I am. The Bronze Age.

"This is a problem." I smile and wave at the men edging closer with spears.

The statue is nowhere in sight.

If there isn't an artist here, I'll have to try making it myself. It'll be ugly, but I can't go home without the statue's magical doorway. I just hope I'm up to the task.