Kai could not help but smile as he speed walked down the smooth carved alabaster stone steps the led down into the Earth. It was dark, but his flashlight brought up vibrant murals and hieroglyphics on the walls.
Finally reaching the bottoms of the long stair, he found himself in a huge room with a high ceiling. The tiles on the floor where decorated brightly with different kinds of stone with intricate carvings in them. Pillars held up the ceiling and decorated the walls as well. Already, statues stood guarding each corner of the room.
Kai gasped when he saw the center of the room, an enormous gushing fountain on a platform. On its outward sides, there was a colorful mural, showing people in a joyous mood and worshipping towards a throne. Kai frowned when he saw that the person sitting in the throne was not there. It almost looked like the rock was smoldered. This ment that the face of the tomb's owner was thus hidden.
"Looks like we found a winner Hiwatari." Tala smiled, jumping off the last step and walking over to the nearest pillar to read the hieroglyphics on it. "Well it's a tomb al right, I don't need hieroglyphics to tell me that. But that fountain is new."
"I've never even heard of a fountain like this one," Kai gestured at the flowing water coming out of the mouths of lions and what appeared to be some type of Egyptian bird, "and I wouldn't expect it to still be working and be in such good condition."
Tala cocked his head to the side with a perplexed look on his pale face, "Does rock burn?"
"No." Kai raised an eyebrow at the stupid question, he had known Tala was a moron, but this was pushing it.
"Why is that mural smoking?" Tala pointed at it questionably, looking at the mural where the person on the throne was gone.
"If I knew I would have told you already." Kai said rolling his eyes before kneeling down before it as Tala stuck out his tongue and went back to reading the pillar. Kai put a hand gently on the stone before pulling out his digital camera and focusing it on the throne scene. A quick click and the evidence were saved. In his squatted position, Kai quickly surveyed the room, "Well there are three more corridors leading down farther into the tomb, so we'll need to check all of them to find the burial tomb where the sarcophagus is." He pointed to one such corridor all the way on the left, "Well send groups of five down each one. Tala, you, and I should be in different ones."
"Mmmhhmm…" Tala was not listening; he was too busy running his pale finger over the stone, following the hieroglyphics as he read it.
Kai rolled his eyes and stood up, snapping another photo of the magnificent fountain. "Just you wait pharaoh." He whispered, "I'm taking you out of here and into a museum where you belong."
xXxXxXxXx
(4 days have now passed)
Kai stormed out of the tomb, throwing his notepad into the sand with a frustrated yell. "Arrrgh!"
Tala walked out behind him, "Hiwatari calm down. So it's been 4 days big deal."
"Yes but its 4 days that we've found absolutely nothing! We're no closer to finding that tomb then when we started!" Kai stomped around, kicking sand around as he went. "Just go back in. I'll be back in a moment after I calm down…"
Tala nodded, knowing better than to pester him and went back into the tomb where excavations teams where looking for anything to lead them closer to the burial chamber.
"You cannot find the chamber?" An amused voice asked from behind Kai.
Kai whipped around and looked to see an Egyptian boy sitting on the edge of the entrance to the tomb. Wearing a simple white Egyptian garb, he looked perfectly at ease. His eyes where vibrant and filled with mischievous emotions that twirled and sparkled across his irises.
"I am not surprised that you can't." He smiled smugly, "It was made especially that the pharaoh couldn't be found."
"How do you know about this tomb and this excavation?" Kai asked heatedly, stomping over to the sitting figure. "Are you with Brooklyn's excavation team or something?" Kai seethed at the thought of the orange haired man, who had always followed in the hopes of stealing Kai's finds.
The boy cocked his head to the side and blinked in confusion, "Who is Brooklyn? I am by myself."
What Kai found disgusting was that it seemed that the young tan boy was telling the truth. He seemed too oblivious about it, and he would have probably come up with some sneaky lie or tale to explain why he was here if he really was with Brooklyn's group. He crossed his arms and squeezes his biceps a bit to relieve some stress, "How do you know about his excavation?"
"I know because you found the stair." The boy said with a lazy stretch.
Kai's eye twitched, the boy was good. He answered he questions and dodged them at the same time. It was beginning to unnerve him that this strange boy found his explanations so simply, even though they seemed impossible. "How the hell did you know that we couldn't find the burial chamber?"
"You're not very observant are you?" It was more of a statement rather than a question as the boy spoke it with a raised eyebrow. "I already told you; it's hidden."
"Yes I know it's hidden but how do you know that it's hidden when we just uncovered this tomb 4 days ago!" Kai glared, pointing a finger at the stairs that lead down into the tomb. He waved it slightly for more emphasis and narrowed his eyes.
The boy hopped up from his sitting position and walked a few steps over and grabbed Kai's pointing hand. "Come, we have a far way to walk." He stared down the stairs at a quick pace, reaching the main room with the fountain in a short moment. He looked over at Tala and raised an eyebrow, "Your companion should be more careful, the pillars here are quite dangerous."
At that moment, as Tala ran a finger of the hieroglyphics he was reading, one block sank into a pillar with a loud click!
"Tala get back it's a booby trap!" Kai yelled running over and pulling Tala back by the scruff of his neck as several pikes fell from the ceiling. They hit the ground hard, their deadly points cracking the stone beneath on impact.
"The pillars are dangerous ok?" Kai panted, loosing his breath over the shock. His mind screamed 'The Mummy Returns!' and other such Egyptian mummy movies where everyone died in the tomb. Shaking it off quickly, he looked warily at the other pillars.
Tala nodded with a shaky gasp, getting over almost dieing, "I'm going to go get a drink…" He said quietly. He looked around cautiously as he walked out to the stairs.
Kai turned to the boy once Tala had left to find him sitting on the rim of the fountain in a lazy position. "How the hell did you know that?!" Kai snarled, storming over with his eyes ablaze.
The boy pointed to the stone wall with a slender, tan, finger, "There was a warning you know."
Kai followed his gaze across the finger to the wall, which had a short line of hieroglyphics on it. He translated it quickly and raised an eyebrow. It read literally –
Thee who intrudes will be brought to their knees onto the ground by the mighty spears of Osiris.
"Stop wasting time will you? Like I said earlier, we have a long way to walk." The boy said as he walked to corridor to the far right of the large room.
Kai was bewildered but followed closely, grabbing the boy's shoulder and whipping him around so that they where facing each other. Nose to nose. "Who are you?" Kai spat out slowly, with a hint of a threat.
"I am Rei." The boy said, not affected at all by Kai's outburst. "Stop asking pointless questions will you?" He asked with a raised eyebrow then walked farther down into the corridor, weaving in-between the other workers that where translating figures on the wall on little pads of paper.
Bryan walked up to Kai, "Have you seen Tala? I asked him to help me with this translation…"
"He almost had an accident with some weird booby trap. He's outside calming down." Kai said jutting his finger towards the exit.
Bryan's eyes widened, "Thanks, I'll go talk to him." With that, he skittered out past Rei and Kai in a quick pace, obviously worried.
"It is good to have friends that worry for each other so much." Rei said with a small smile, then it faded and he walked on, past the last of the workers and into the darkness of the part of the corridor without lighting.
Kai flipped on his flashlight and walked after him, "There's nothing down this way I hope you know, there's a dead end a small mural, but there's nothing behind the wall. Dead end." He groaned softly, "That's why we've been here for 4 days with no luck on finding that burial chamber. Nevertheless, we will find it soon. And then we'll take this Pharaoh to a museum and get rich."
Rei ignored his comments and continued on, "The problem with your men is that they don't read the clues. They are too literal."
"Too literal? They're going from the text book and are getting these translations flawlessly." Kai asked, almost insulted at the comment.
"If you can read, and you read a text but cannot get the emotion and an actual underlying point, your petty translations will not get you far." He smiled slightly, "That is why you haven't found anything, not that there is nothing."
How did he know so much and why did he feel like he was in the position to criticize his crew and methods of translations? Kai snorted, it was some poor Egyptian boy trying to get his kicks. That was all.
However, if that was true, how did he know about the trap? True there was a warning on the wall, but the tomb had been uncovered only a few days ago and was under tight security. There would have been no way for the boy to get into there and read that texts on the wall. Kai knew this because he was one of the men on watch. He was not about to let some other guy find the chamber and get credit for his find!
Rei broke the awkward silence, "I never thought this tomb would be found. I'm surprised that you unearthed it actually, I thought it would be left undisturbed."
Kai scoffed, "Tombs and crypts are ment to be found hun." He smirked, thousands of tombs and treasures… fame… all at his fingertips.
Kai stopped with his light hit the mural on the dead end of the corridor. "I told you it was a dead end. I've been looking at this thing for 4 days now alright, there's nothing back there or here." He ran his eyes over it once again, the pictures of what they presumed to be the pharaoh where all scorched just like the picture on the fountain in the main entrance. He frowned, wanting to know what the pharaoh looked like.
"This mural," Rei gestured to it quickly, "explains how the young prince was moved up to Pharaoh after his father died in an attack. You can imagine the stress on that hm?" He then pointed to a highly decorated man next to the scorched image of the Pharaoh. He seemed tense, or just plain annoyed. "That was the high priest. He was determined to have power of the young pharaoh so that he was actually in charge of all of Egypt and could bend things to his will."
"Why is it always the high priest who's the evil one in these stories?" Kai thought to himself as he listened, although he was not really paying attention. He wanted to watch this little boy get lost then kick him off the property and find that damn chamber.
"But the young Pharaoh escaped him every night because he had a tunnel that was under his chambers." Rei smirked and turned back to Kai. "So you see, the reason that your instruments couldn't pick anything up behind this wall is because there is nothing there. They way to go is down." Rei bent down so that he was on his knees and ran his hands across the cool stone floor. He found a particularly large crack in-between two large slabs of stone in the corner of the corridor and slowly lifted one slab up, "I could use your help." Rei said quietly.
Kai sighed and bent down, helping the smaller, less muscular boy lift up the heavy slab of alabaster.
Rei smiled his thanks, "Follow me alright?" With that, he jumped into the new dark hole in the floor.
Kai pondered his options for a second, and decided to follow because it seemed that Rei knew where he was going. That was a good enough reason for him, if he could get closer to that burial chamber and his prize, this was worth it.
He expected it to be a short 8 foot drop down into a lower tunnel – he was terribly wrong.
He was not sure how high the drop was, but it gave him enough time to think that he was going to die a horrible death in some bottomless pit along with the strange Egyptian boy. He flashed his light around wildly as he fell, catching short glimpses of color here and there – but he did not care.
Suddenly he was hit with a wave of cold as he landed in – water?
He sank down beneath the surface and gasped, but there was no air. He kicked his legs and sputtered up to the surface of the water couching and taking deep breaths. Once he was breathing semi-normally, he found that the water was surprisingly calm, with only a small current. He could hear water moving, and he flashed his light on the wall to find two small pipes with water gushing out.
"Come on, we're almost there." Rei said to his left. He started to swim off in some other direction.
Kai grit his teeth and swam after the boy, with the full intent of drowning him only to find that Rei had pulled himself into what seemed to be a boat.
Under closer inspection, Kai saw that it was of ancient Egyptian design. The type thought to carry the dead to the afterlife.
Rei stuck out a hand to help Kai in.
Kai snorted and began to pull himself in, finding that it was much harder than he thought it was. He lost his grip and fell back into the water several times. He glared and panted at the boat.
"You can't swim forever." Rei stuck out his hand away, which Kai accepted this time and allowed Rei to pull him into the boat.
Kai sat down the catch his breath and get over the shock of what just happened. "Why the hell didn't you tell me that there was water down here?" He snarled cruelly.
"Where do you think the water from the fountain comes from?" Rei asked while raising an eyebrow, although Kai could not see it in the extreme darkness. Rei pointed to one of four torches on the boat, "Light those please."
Kai grunted and got up while pulling out his lighter and simultaneously pulling out his lighter and praying that it still worked after being drenched. He lit the torch, and used the one to light the other three, which lit up the majority of the room.
It turned out to be a room with a much higher ceiling than Kai expected. It was highly decorated with the same pictures and styles as the fountain above them. The water was flowing slowly in some direction as well.
"This current is going to take us to the tomb." Rei said as he untied the boat from a wooden peg on the wall. The current pulled the boat foreword, towards a smaller tunnel, which was very dark. Once they had entered the mouth of the tunnel, Rei was satisfied with the currents ability to pull them on and set down the pole. A moment later, a mural was seen on the nearby wall of the tunnel.
"Obviously, the priest was upset that the pharaoh was always escaping him. So he found the passage one day and sealed it off, blocking the pharaohs escape." Rei said as he pointed out a small section of the mural where it showed slaves blocking up a tunnel with blocks of stone. "He thought of other ways to gain the control he craved, and became increasingly violent when none of them worked." He pointed to another section where the scorched picture of the pharaoh was being beaten or tortured by the priest.
Kai nodded a little, soaking in more of the story this time. He actually felt a twang of sympathy for the young Pharaoh. Abuse was not something anyone deserved.
"Over time, the priest realized that the young Pharaoh would never yield to him ever." Rei said as they came to another mural on the opposite wall of the tunnel. "He decided that marriage of himself and the Pharaoh was the only answer. So he went to the young Pharaoh's chamber and forced him into marriage garbs and took him to be wed outside the castle with many witnesses."
Kai nodded at Rei to continue the tale, vaguely wondering where he got all of this information and why.
The picture showed what seemed to be a great struggle between the scorched picture of the pharaoh and the priest. "But the priest never got the young pharaoh to the chosen temple for the ceremony." Rei said quietly. He pointed to another picture, "The young pharaoh escaped the priest and ran into the desert. But the priest sent the army out after him, and a day later he was brought back to the temple for the ceremony."
The picture showed legions of men, searching for the pharaoh, who stood atop a high sand dune. There was yet another struggle from the Pharaoh's scorched picture. In addition, the pleased face of the priest while sitting on the Pharaoh's throne was shown. The priest had convinced the people that the gods had ordered him to marry the young Pharaoh. And that it would bring prosperity to all Egypt if he ruled.
"But when the priest came to take the Pharaoh, the young pharaoh pulled an asp out of his robes. He had found it while in the desert and brought it back with him as a… last resort of sorts." He suddenly pointed up, where there was a huge picture of a grand black asp with poison dripping from it's fangs, while it had no evil look in it's eyes.
"The pharaoh swore that he would never yield to the priest." Rei continued, "And let the asp bite him. As the pharaoh was dieing, the priest put a curse on him in his anger."
"A curse?" Kai asked while raising an eyebrow, he could feel the price of the sarcophagus rising as they spoke of this grand tale.
Rei nodded solemnly, "The pharaoh could never leave Egypt or the valley he was buried in or, eve in death, he and the priest would be married automatically. This would give the priest control over the young Pharaoh's soul you see. This is why there are so many traps in this tomb."
Kai felt another twang, but this time of guilt. It seemed almost unfair that he would be damning this pharaoh when he took the sarcophagus from the burial chamber. After dieing like that, it just almost seemed… wrong.
"The pharaoh died crying while grieving over his misfortune." Rei said quietly. Rei finished. "And now he is buried here, where he is safe from the priest who still longs for power over him."
Kai dazed off, thinking about the Pharaoh's life, and how it was completely out of his control no matter what he did. It seemed that the only choice he made was in ending his own like with the asp. The priest even made his death miserable!
Kai was rocked back to reality with the boat bumped into a stone dock. The tunnel opened up into another large room, which kai guess was about 3/4th of a mile from where the entrance to the tomb was. Kai and Rei both jumped off the boat and walking deeper into the room, where Kai saw two huge statues of obsidian, carved into two asps. The where on the right and left sides of a large, mahogany door.
"Seeing that the asp freed the pharaoh from the priest, they are forever his protectors." Rei explained quickly.
Kai ran a hand over the black statue, marveling at its detail. Even scales where carved into it! The mouths where open as well, and Kai was about to run a hand over one of the fangs with Rei quickly told him not to.
"They're covered in real poison from the asp. It's still deadly after all of these years." He had said.
Kai shook his head, as he thought of the huge sum of money these statues would get. He felt bad for thinking about ripping them away like this. The seemed… fitting here. He groaned, he was becoming too sentimental.
"Behind those mahogany doors is the burial chamber…" Rei murmured quietly, "The pharaoh's sarcophagus is in there as well."
Kai twitched in excitement but then turned back to Rei, "Why have you shown me all this? You could have gotten all of the fame and profits for yourself, seeing that you knew where this was. You would have gotten the credit for this."
"I have nothing to gain from this… except one thins that only you can grant me." Rei muttered. He shook off a look of sadness, "You want to enter don't you?"
Kai nodded enthusiastically. Then before Rei could warn him, he pushed on the dark wooden doors.
He heard Rei scream, "No!" and he felt the boy push him down the ground and land on top of him.
Kai's lip bashed into the floor and he winced, as he tasted its unique flavor in his mouth and on his tongue. He turned himself around so that he was lying on his back, which ended up with rei on top on him in-between his legs. "What happened?" He asked.
"You didn't give me the chance to tell you about the booby trap." Rei said while pointing to the statue on the right. When Kai had opened the door, the head swung to the side and the fangs would have hit Kai in the back, and poisoned him. "Let me show you how to get in safely." He got up, blushing at the close contact with Kai, and ran a hand over the head of the left asp. He firmly grabbed hold of one if its front fangs, and yanked it out. On the end was a small dial like contraption, which fit into the door. Rei turned it several times, and the two doors swung open.
Kai was in awe at the glittering dream before him as he shone his flashlight in to shatter the darkness. Gold and other Egyptian treasures lined the room. It sparkled almost eerily as Rei pulled a torch from the boat and lit the other torches in the room. Moreover, in the center of the room he saw it.
The black, glittering, obsidian sarcophagus of the young pharaoh.
It was sleek and lined with sparkling gold that was also used to make all the fine details on the sarcophagus. King Tut's very own solid gold sarcophagus would have shied away in shame from the sight. The black obsidian shown brightly in the firelight, casting rays across the room.
Kai picked up his foot to take another step into the room but stopped abruptly, finally learning to look before you leap – at least when entering a burial chamber when at least several other traps had gone off the day. "Are there any more surprises you want to tell me about before I walk in? I mean traps and stuff like that." Kai asked, turning back to face Rei with a cautious gaze. "I really don't want to get almost killed again. Once or twice is enough to last me a few lifetimes in my opinion."
Rei smiled and shook his head, "No, there are no more traps that you need to worry about. It's safe from now on as long as he you don't venture out of this room." He ran his eyes across the room lazily, with the same amount of enthusiasm that a child receiving the same gift might have on Christmas morning.
Kai grinned and walking into the room quickly, going straight to the sarcophagus, although the glittering artifacts surrounding him where next on his list. He got into his squatting position so that he was eye level with the sarcophagus, which was laid down on the floor. He put a hand on it as he read over a few of the gold characters on its black outer layer. Kai could feel his heart beating faster and his knees start to shake with excitement. "Rei this is amazing." He breathed finally and reached to his pocket to pull out his digital camera only to find that his pocket was damp.
That is when he remembered that he had plummeted into the water beneath the first mural. "It figures." He groaned with a looming sense of irony.
He shrugged it off quickly when he felt his fingers run over a jagged crevice in the smooth sarcophagus. He raised an eyebrow and looked to see that there were several short rows of hand carved symbols. These where not like the sparkling gold symbols that where ment to be on the sarcophagus to protect the pharaoh, but carved into it was a knife or some other object. Kai shivered as he could almost feel the hate radiating off the words.
"That priest wrote this didn't he?" Kai asked in a hushed voice, knowing for sure that he had real emotions towards the young pharaoh. "This is the curse isn't it?"
Rei nodded and walked over slowly, "Yes it is." He took a shaky breath, "Although I don't know why he put it on the outside of the sarcophagus as well." He bit his lip in an almost nervous manner.
Kai got up from his squatting position and scratched the side of his head, "I don't know if I can actually take this anymore." Kai put a hand on his hip, "I mean, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night anymore. I'd hate to regret anything."
"Then leave it." Rei said taking a step closer to Kai, "Don't take it and leave the pharaoh here, so that he isn't touched by the curse. Trust me, he's begging you."
"Usually I'd ask how you would know something like that, but I don't even want to know. You mapped this place out like the back of your hand somehow all in the 4 days that this tomb has been uncovered. You even knew where all the traps where. How that is possible I don't have the slightest clue, but I don't want to know anymore. I have the feeling that I wouldn't understand anyway." Kai got a determined look on his face, "I wanna make sure that no one else can get down here ever again."
Rei smiled and ran a hand over some of the fine Egyptian jewelry strewn about the chamber as he walked even closer to Kai. "All you need to do is seal off that first trap door, and you've accomplished that."
Kai scratched his chin while he was in deep thought, "I can do that. I'll need a large slab of stone or something."
Rei pointed over to a large block of stone in the back of the chamber. It was roughly the size of a cinder block, with slightly weathered edges. "Will that work?"
Kai smirked, "Yes…" He grinned, "That will be perfect." He walked over and picked up the slab of stone, being extremely careful not to drop it on his toes. He carried it over to the boat and set it down. "Let's go Rei, the crew must be wondering where I am by now, and I don't want them finding that trap door."
Rei smiled and got into the boat after Kai, picking up the pole to push them against the current.
Kai grabbed it away from Rei as he noticed how hard it was for Rei to propel them forward "I'm stronger, I got it." With long, confident pushes he made them move quickly through the tunnel, passing the murals in reverse order. "I never asked," Kai began between strokes, "Why is the pharaoh's image burned in all the murals?"
"It's the curse. It has many layers." Rei said quickly.
Soon the boat was back in the main water room, directly beneath the trap door, which Kai had somehow closed behind himself.
"How the hell do we get back up?" Kai asked.
"There's a stairway over there on the side." Rei said pointing to the side of the room where there was a spiraling staircase that leads to the trap door. "But you can really only use it when going up."
"So that's why we had to jump…" Kai grumbled as he moved the boat over to the stairs and jumped out, then turned to help Rei out after him. Kai then bent over and picked up the slab of stone, and slowly – painfully – carried it up with him. "By gods how did the slaves do it?" He gasped.
Rei climbed back up into the original corridor of their adventure, took the stone slab from Kai, and quickly put it down before he dropped it. "Give me your hand." Rei said stretching his own out to help Kai get up. Kai in turn took it, but Rei could not quite lift him up. And when Kai jumped and Rei pulled him back, Kai landed squarely on top of the tan Egyptian boy.
Rei's face flushed and his eyes widened, as Kai felt himself do the same. He went to get off Rei, "Sorry… Lemme get of."
"No…" Rei breathed, "I… I l-like it." He managed to say quietly.
Kai felt himself smirk and his brain went on autopilot. He leaned in quickly and pressed his lips to Rei's, with a strange attraction running between them. Slowly, it became more passionate, and Kai gasped when he felt Rei's hands briefly slide down from his lower back and onto his rear.
When they parted for air, the moment ended abruptly and Kai scrambled up and coughed, his face flushed. He turned around and closed the trap door, dropping the stone slab on top of it so that it couldn't be opened. "We better get back outside." Kai said gruffly.
Rei smiled and nodded and when Kai started walking out, he followed.
Kai told the translation crew that he had found nothing as he passed, "I swear, this so called 'tomb' is a bust. It has to be a fake and the real one is somewhere else."
They bought it, but insisted that they finished their translations.
Kai nodded, knowing that either way that they would never find the tomb. He walked out past the fountain and found Tala and Bryan sitting by the water Truck. "Well this was a pointless find now wasn't it?"
Bryan shook his head, "Tell me about it. I almost rather that Brooklyn found it. I was really looking forward to bringing a sarcophagus to some museum."
"I'm just happy to be alive okay?" Tala asked as he took a sip from his paper cup. "Although I agree, I was expecting more. Anyway, Kai, where'd you go by yourself like that? No one could find you."
"I was just checking out the hieroglyphics on that mural." Kai lied, "I was having some trouble with them, that's why I was taking so long."
"But you know that I'm better at translations then you, why didn't you call me back?" Bryan asked, "It's stupid to do it by yourself."
"I wasn't alone." Kai said, "Rei was helping me. You know, the Egyptian boy that was following me around and stuff when I passed you and Tala earlier?"
Bryan and Tala gave each other confused looks and looked back at Kai, slightly worried. "We didn't see anyone."
"He was the one who told me about that booby trap Tala, he warned you." Kai said, "It couldn't have been more than an hour ago how could you not remember?"
"Kai I only saw you in that room, and you where the one that warned and saved me from those spears." Tala said, crushing the paper cup out of habit in his hands. "Are you feeling alright? Is the heat making you hallucinate?"
"Bryan! I passed you in the corridor with him! It was when you where asking about Tala…" Kai began.
"Kai didn't see anyone but you and the crew, what the hell are you talking about?" Bryan asked.
"He's right here!" Kai turned around to point at the Rei, only to find sand. Sand and rocks. "But… He followed me out, I know he did!"
"Kai there's no one there okay?" Tala said, now seriously worried, "Hey you better lay down…"
Kai was having none of it though, he ran back into the tomb. "Rei! Rei where are you!" There was no reply besides the confused gaze of the crew that was inside. Kai looked around frantically but it was no use, Rei was gone. He sat down on the edge of the fountain and buried his face in his hands, "Was it all a dream?" He muttered to himself in misery. Was he truly going crazy? He didn't want to believe that everything that happened that day was a lie, he wouldn't believe it.
But where was Rei?
He took his head out of his hands and looked at the mural next to him for guidance, was Rei's entire tale a fake? Kai then saw something that made him blink. He rubbed his eyes and looked again to find that it was real.
It was the same mural that he had seen with he had first entered the tomb. The joyous peasants and the pharaoh on the throne. Only this time, the pharaoh wasn't scorched. His picture was fine, and little embers or charcoal littered the floor around it. But it wasn't the fact of the mural's sudden revival that stunned him, it was the man in it.
It was Rei.
Kai could tell instantly. The same gold eyes and the tan figure. It even had his smile on it as well. Kai gasped for air like a fish out of water. R-rei was the pharaoh?
Tala and Bryan rushed in after Kai, "Kai what's wrong?" Tala asked with urgency.
Kai saw a few lines of symbols written right next to the pharaoh like Rei, they where set apart from the others. "Tala read this." He ordered.
Tala raised an eyebrow but looked at it and quickly translated it. "The pharaoh within shall only be freed when the man of many thefts finds him. Only he will see him and hear him, and when the pharaoh takes him down into his chambers, if the man does not take him from his rest in his tomb, only then shall the priest's curse be broken, and the pharaoh's soul shall be free to go to the after life, and forever bonding him to the man of many thefts."
"What the hell does that mean?" Bryan asked annoyed.
Kai did not answer them, he was too shocked. "Hey guys, I'm gonna go back to the tent and lay down." With that, he walked off out of the tomb. "Rei… that's why you showed me what you did. You knew that I could see you." Kai made his was back to the tent and flopped down on his cot face down. "Oh gods Rei, now I'm going to miss you…" He groaned and flipped over, but winced and rolled back when he felt something sharp poke into his rear. He reached back to his pocket and slowly, and pulled out something. Thinking it was safe, he rolled back onto his back and brought to item to his face.
It was black and obviously made of obsidian, although it seemed to be a bracelet. Lined with gold with extreme detail.
Kai smiled and slipped it on as he fingered its peculiar shape.
The pharaoh's asp.
xXxXxXxXx
Oh. My. GOD.
That is the longest one-shot I've ever written and probably ever will in a long – LONG time.
For those of you wondering about how Kai got the bracelet, think back to when they where in the burial chamber, and Rei ran his hand over the jewelry. Then, in the corridor when Rei's hand just happed to get on Kai's rear.
Yes. Rei planned it all. The smart 'lil sexy pharaoh he is.
Reviews on this one would be great! Remember, I wrote 11 pages all for you…!