The hourglass

At the top of our narrow tunnel, dark clouds filled the view. Threatening to release their chill load at any moment, common sense pled that we return to the surface.
Yet we continued to dig.
A dark corner of my mind spoke of how this was our last chance. If we couldn't find the artifact here, then we were done.
"Are you sure it's here?" Joey asked as he shifted a shovelful of dirt.
"It has to be." Doctor Horace gritted his teeth as he shifted a large stone from the area of interest. Doctor Horace was the entire reason we were here. It was his map and its riddle that made us believe the hourglass was buried in the middle of nowhere.
But after three weeks of digging holes, I was beginning to doubt the doctor.
"Doctor, we've dug enough. The storm is going to break, so we need to leave." I tried to keep my tone friendly, but some of my impatience slipped through.
"Constance, can't you feel it? The hourglass is here." Doctor Horace shook his head, crouching to get a look at the congestion of stones he'd uncovered. "If you two want to climb up, very well. This still work for me here."
Glancing up at the looming storm, I turned to Joey and motioned to the ladder. "Climb on out and start packing up our supplies."
Joey hesitated for a moment. He was such a sweet boy, and had been a excellent assistant for the doctor. But I outranked him, so with one last look at doctor Horace, he scurried up the ladder.
"You could go with him." Doctor Horace said once Joey was out of earshot.
Kneeling beside the doctor, I shifted a rock. "Not if I want Jack to still speak to me when we get home." That was one of the cons of working for your fiancé's absentminded brother.
"He worries too much." Doctor Horace shook his head, moving yet another stone from the the pile.
"You don't worry enough." I replied, gripping one side of a particularly large rock while the doctor got the other side. Together, we heaved it out of the way.
Thunder boomed from above, and I felt something wet hit my head. "What is that?" I asked as doctor Horace peered into the cubby we'd uncovered.
"It appears to be a box." Doctor Horace studied the opening, while I glanced up as another raindrop hit me. "The entry is too small for my hands, but yours should be slender enough to reach in." I fought back a frown as I looked through the opening at the box within. More raindrops struck me, and I knew that the doctor wouldn't leave the find behind now that it was exposed to the elements.
Reaching in, I felt the side of the rectangular box and found a rough handle. Gripping it, I began to pull my hand out. It was a tighter fit now, and something scrapped my hand as I forced it free. The other end of the box snagged on something within the hole, and the box broke.
Doctor Horace reached out to catch the object that slipped out of the broken box. Landing in the cushioning of his hands, the tattered cloth covering the object slipped slightly to reveal the top of a golden hourglass.
Letting go of the box, I stood and offered the doctor a hand.
"Looks like you found it, doctor." I said as he took my hand.
"This does appear to be what I was seeking." Now standing, he carefully pulled away the tattered cloth as the rain began to steadily fall.
Placing a hand on his shoulder, I opened my mouth as he overturned the hourglass.
"Doctor, we should climb-"
A jerking feeling in my stomach silenced my as the grains of sand in the hourglass slid through bulb to the other. The rain vanished, and overwhelming nausea filled me. The world went dark, then a blinding flash of light burned my eyes.
The jerking feeling faded. Blinking rapidly, my vision slowly cleared.
But what I saw didn't seem to compute.
Doctor Horace and I were standing in the middle of a grassy field, and it wasn't raining.
No holes marred the landscape, and I saw no hint of where Joey and our jeep had gone.
"It actually works." Doctor Horace spoke softly, loosening his grip on the hourglass and gazing at it.
"What works?" I asked, my hand tightening around his shoulder. He started, and the hourglass slipped from his hands.
Doctor Horace fumbled to catch it, but it slipped from his fingered and the glass bulbs shattered against the ground.
Shaking beneath my grip, the doctor's voice was quiet when he spoke.
"That hourglass could manipulate the flow of time, and was our only way home."