Frightening Discovery

The dust billowed up, at first just a thin band of silver grey glinting in the eerie light before becoming a thick cloudy storm that would burn your eyes and blind you if you looked at it for too long. At first no one noticed the small crags emerging from under the cover of a billion years of deposits.  Dust was blasted away, to reveal not only the rock projections but also the unmistakable features gradually appearing nearby. At first just a white brow, then large deep eye sockets until a near perfectly preserved human skull projected through the clearing mist. The cameras panned around the plain of Elysium Planitia to the skull that no one had expected to see. The crew began the necessary tests as they could hardly believe their eyes. They worked in awestruck silence recording and checking like they had been trained and had done a hundred times before. This time things seemed  more urgent and frightening. Suddenly the radio pierced the silence. "Mars Shuttle two seven eight, please confirm your safe landing."

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