Cairo, 1872

“Quit faffing about with the horses, I’ll buy you enough horses to fill a cricket pitch when this is over!”

“Yes.”

Samir didn’t really understand what he had said and despite the moon being nearly full, Dr. Alan Quimby’s face was obscured in the deep darkness of the shadowed north side of the immense pyramid. But the dancing torch light from the one Dr. Quimby was carrying revealed in those bloodshot eyes a look of desperation bordering on madness more befitting of a rabid camel than a distinguished Dr. of Ancient Studies from Cambridge. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“I’m on the precipice of greatness! Once I have the scepter, I’ll be untouchable! Immeasurable! Queen Victoria herself will come calling!”

“Yes.”

The last thing Samir wanted to be doing is going into the depths of the monstrous Pyramid of Khufu, for a variety of reasons. For one, everyone knew there was a curse on the King’s Chamber. Apparently everyone who had ever stepped foot in it had either disappeared or died mysteriously within a few months of doing so. For two he had to cancel his plans with his love, Yasmin. ‘Well.. two reasons’, he consolidated. But those were damn good reasons. The thing was, he had already been paid enough Ottoman kurushes to leave his meager life behind and start a new one somewhere far away with Yasmin. He just had to get through this one night..

As they approached the roped off robber’s entrance, the shadow of the rope whipped wildly across the 3 meter black void of the makeshift tunnel’s entrance, almost like a desperate warning to turn back. A chill ran the length of Samir’s spine as he gazed into the crude black entryway. Sometime in the 7th century, bandits had carved this second entrance into the pyramid to pillage its treasures. Legend has it they never made it out..

Samir could hear Dr. Quimby muttering to himself as he ducked under the rope, his pith helmet slipping off and onto the ground, revealing a wild nest of sparse hair wrapping his liver-spotted bald patch like a fuzzy noose. Samir felt a little bit like that bald patch as he nervously went to pick up the hat. Dr. Quimby waved him off-

“Leave it, I can’t bloody well see in that confounded apparatus!”

Samir ducked the rope and was offered the torch by a much more deranged face than the one he sat across from at the coffeehouse the day before. He knew what they were about to do was highly illegal, but what he didn’t know is that Dr. Quimby’s archaeological team had a sanctioned excavation scheduled for the following day. The reflected flames danced in the beads of sweat forming on his forehead and on his wide, wild eyes.

“You first lad! Pip pip now, no time to dawdle..”

He took the torch and held it up to the entrance. The darkness of the downward sloped passage seemed to swallow up the light whole. He tried to think of Yasmin to calm his nerves but he couldn’t stop his hand from trembling. He held the torch out as far as he could to provide as much light as possible on the uneven floor as he took his first steps down into the passage. The light from the torch ringed the rough walls in a halo that would surely do nothing to protect him from the depths as the old air became gradually danker. He could hear Dr. Quimby muttering in fits a pace behind him. They proceeded ever deeper, ever darker, ever closer to the underworld of Osiris.

After several long minutes, the floor leveled off and the passage opened up to a wide, high ceilinged chamber, 50 meters long. The dusty air was much cooler down here. Dr. Quimby seized the torch and holding it high, started running around frantically scanning the walls.

“…Horus…Ankh… yes, yes… well if… must be Hathor’s sistrum… Ra… Nemes… could be… Ah! Hmmm curious… now this… it must be… Yes!! Yes yes yes yes… Samir! Quit your quockerwodgering and come here!”

Samir hurried across the vast, dark chamber toward the orange glow of the torch. As he approached the respectable-archaeologist-turned-crazed-criminal, Quimby thrust the torch into Samir’s hand and rifled through his pack, producing a notebook which he in turn rifled through, muttering as frantically as ever. Now Samir could see the focus of these rantings; dazzling hieroglyphs of animals and pharaohs and gods, etched into the stone, towered over them spanning the chamber wall. The glyph directly in front of them was of a pharaoh holding up a jeweled scepter. The jewel almost looked like a diamond.. The focus of the pharaoh’s gaze was missing; a section had been carved out by deep, crisscrossing chisel marks. The only thing visible was what looked like a shepherd’s hook pointing at the pharaoh from beneath the gouges. Quimby tossed the notebook back in his pack and grabbed the torch.

“Come now, quickly! We’re close… yes very close.. I can almost.. feel… I…”

He trailed of as he began walking to the far end of the chamber, Samir keeping close behind; as close to the torch as he could manage. He was feeling a growing sense of doom and regret and could feel the darkness closing in behind him, almost penetrating his skin. Maybe this wasn’t worth it after all.. maybe all he needed was Yasmin’s love and a simple life. But he had no choice, it was continue on or be lost in the suffocating darkness.. so on he went, using Quimby’s dancing orange silhouette as a north star.

Near the far end of the chamber, Quimby suddenly stopped abruptly causing Samir to collide with his back. Samir opened his mouth to utter an apology but realized he didn’t know the english word for one. Quimby didn’t seem to notice. His silhouette was trembling..

“Oh! ..I…well indeed I…secret ch-ch-chamber…they’re l-lost…time…the d-d-diamond…”

“…Yes?”

Samir was getting really concerned. Quimby was shaking now, more and more violently as if naked in a blizzard. Samir could feel the blood leaving his own face. Was this man losing his mind in real-time? This is madness, he had to get out of here. What had he even been thinking? Money? He didn’t want the money anymore, he just wanted out. This was all a mistake..

“D-d-diamond… d-d-diamond… d-d-d-d-die…mmm…”

Without warning Quimby leapt into the ascending passage and started running full-tilt up the slope and out of view. Startled and terrified, Samir ran too, now several paces behind, up the narrower but smooth stone passageway. The torch and shadow of a crazed man were bouncing chaotically back and forth across the limestone tunnel as Samir tried desperately to keep up; somehow falling more and more behind the sexagenarian when suddenly Samir tripped and crashed to the ground, slamming his knees and wrists onto the stone slab floor. A sense of hopeless dread filled his mind as he looked up, the dancing torchlight flying upward and away and then turning a corner, pitching Samir into a void of the deepest black. And then silence. Deafening silence but for his gasping breaths.

He got to his badly bruised knees, trying to recover and remain calm despite all the warning alarms going off in his amygdala. He felt around the floor of the narrow, sloped passage until his hand found the culprit of this tragic moment…a shoe? As he got to his feet, his breathing began to calm down. He was left in an abyss so absolute, his only connection with existence being the touch of the cold stone walls at his fingertips and under his feet; his only companion: his heart beating against his ribs and throat, thump, thump, thumping away…

He had to find the lunatic that had abandoned him. He quickly started hurrying up the passageway at a brisk walk, determined not to trip again. After several paces his foot kicked aside what had to be another shoe. Several more paces and his feet found a pile of fabric. And then another pile. Clothing..? Why he kept his eyes open he had no idea, but he stared desperately into nothing, barely daring to blink for fear of missing a source of light. He picked up the pace to a light jog, desperate to escape this infinity of absence.

The slope leveled off as his fingers were abandoned by the walls. He whipped his head to the right, seeing what he so desperately longed for in this moment – LIGHT!! The torch was lying on the stone chamber floor in a glowing sphere 20 paces away. He ran to it and snatched up a little hope along with the torch, squinting from the abrupt transition. Even the fluttering sound of the flame was healing his despair. Okay time to get out of here. He turned back around to where he came from, took one step and stopped. A pang of guilt jolted his chest. This man was a criminal and out of his aging mind, but… that darkness… He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. He paused for another moment, gathering courage, and turned back around. He quickly scanned the length of the smaller chamber, seeing a black rectangular doorway in the center of the far wall. Let’s just find him and get out of this miserable mountain tomb.

The passageway between the antechamber and the King’s chamber was short and the light from the torch reached down the passage and into the opening at the end and faintly illuminated a granite sarcophagus on the opposite wall.

“Ssssss…ssuh…”

The echoey voice was rough, almost a growl, but he could tell it was Quimby’s.

“Sssalaam…”

Samir vaguely wondered why the British archaeologist was speaking Arabic, but hurried to the end of the passage and saw a shadow in his periphery. He turned and raised the torch in that direction, revealing a naked and dusty Quimby crouched over, facing the wall and eating something.. crunchy..? Towering over him was a massive hieroglyph on the wall. It was that same hook, but this time connected to a staff who’s owner remained; Anubis, the wolf god of the dead, standing defiantly over a field of corpses, the hook staff raised high.

*Crunch* *crunch* *smack*

The nude old man turned his head noticing he had company. He whipped his pale body around and the the front of him was drenched in blood coming from his mouth and dripping off his hands, some of his fingers reduced to nubs or missing entirely. His twisted expression and crazed eyes were no longer human; he looked completely possessed. He opened his mouth wide revealing a mush of flesh and splintered bone, his teeth stained red.

“Sssalaamiiiii!!!”

He lunged at Samir who instinctively swung the torch with all his strength, spraying embers across the stone floor and knocking the creature down. Without a moment’s hesitation he turned and sprinted from the room as fast as he had ever run in his life. He could hear sick laughter echoing behind him and fading into the distance as he ran.

“heh heh…*hick* ..ahhh ahhh..he he he.. hahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

“SALAMIII!!!”