Hello all! This is my first real fanfiction that I have written and I hope I do it justice. It will seem slow or confusing for the first few chapters, BUT all questions will be answered by the end. I promise. And pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

:)

Disclaimer: I, unfortunately, do NOT own Night at the Museum. That belongs to Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant.

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated. They help me improve and continue writing!

Enjoy!

"Be careful with that!" shouted Rachel McPhee at the moving men, who had clumsily dropped a golden sarcophagus on the marble floor of the British Museum. "We need to make sure that these mummies get to the Museum of Natural History in one piece!" The curator sighed and ran a hand through her brunette hair. One of the best preserved female mummies was in that sarcophagus, and if it arrived at the museum in New York in pieces, her father would have her head.

She looked down at the floor where the coffin had dropped to see a large scuff mark in the marble where the corner had made impact. "Another thing to have fixed around here," she thought. The Egyptian Wing had been in total shambles for four months, ever since that mummy had arrived promptly after leaving her tomb in the Valley of the Queens. One day a pipe would burst; another day a crown would turn up missing, only to be found near the body of the person it was intended for the next morning. Artifacts were disappearing and reappearing left and right all over the Egyptian Gallery. Security had found nothing on the tapes, except for a strange blip in the video every time something strange happened. But recently, the tapes had caught a figure in the gift shop rummaging through the Egyptian replicas only to drop a Canopic Jar down on the counter and leave. The young woman had mulled over the image in her mind: a figure wrapped in ancient bandages and no face visible looking for something in the gift shop. But what exactly remained a mystery. The figure left behind no evidence. No fingerprints. Nothing. It unnerved Rachel that something was in her museum and she had not even known it. It had unnerved her so much that she called her father, who was the director of the Museum of Natural History in New York City, to see if he could find some logic in the situation. He had suggested that he take the exhibit off of her hands. She was ecstatic about the idea and agreed to it immediately.

The exhibit was scheduled to ship out the next morning. Rachel had overseen the packing the entire day and was looking forward to a good night's rest in her apartment. The young curator slowly climbed the steps to her apartment, the great fatigue from the day finally kicking in. She fumbled for her key, only to drop her purse and spill the majority of its contents out onto the floor. Rachel sighed as she pulled her key out of the pile and inserted it into the door. She finally got the lock to turn and she walked into her dimly lit apartment. Throwing her purse onto the middle of a nearby table, she turned and scooped up the contents that had just recently called the bag home and kicked the door closed. She leaned up against the door and closed her eyes. The day she had just experienced was complete chaos. The short silence was broken by a loud meow at her feet. Rachel opened her eyes and grinned down at the ginger tabby cat.

"Hello, Rumbleroar," she said as she placed the contents of her purse on the table. The cat meowed again. "Yes, I know you're hungry. It's been a long day."

The young woman stepped over the cat and made her way to the pantry, pulling out a box of cat food and filling up Rumbleroar's nearby food bowl. The cat purred in delight and went to work consuming the mound. Rachel went towards the kitchen to get herself something to eat, but decided against it due to her avid desire for sleep. So instead, she bypassed the kitchen and flopped down on the sofa. She reached for the remote and turned on the television. A documentary on Ancient Egypt appeared on the screen. The narrator was speaking on the Egyptian's ideas of the heavens. Rumbleroar, having finished his evening meal, jumped onto the sofa and seated himself beside his owner. Rachel stroked his back as she watched a bit of the program. Sleep soon began to win her over, however, and the last thing she heard was the narrator droning on about the alignment of the pyramids with the stars. Her mind slipped into a dream.

She was in the gift shop of the museum; it was evening. Rachel thought it strange to be in the gift shop at that time. There was a soft rapping on the glass door. Rachel turned around but saw no one. She turned to look back at some of the items in the gift shop, the random odds and ends that tourists would find quite appealing. The woman picked up a necklace modeled after an Egyptian cartouche and examined it. A sound of glass breaking filled the room. Rachel turned to see the figure breaking through the door. The alarms sounded. The noise kept getting louder and louder and then-.

Rachel woke up with a jolt. It was just a dream, she told herself. But the alarm kept ringing. She stood up and looked around for the source of the noise. Her cell phone was buzzing across the table. She quickly grabbed it up.

"Hello?" she answered sleepily.

"Miss Rachel?" said a man's voice. "This is Brandon from security. That mystery man has broken into your office and left you a message."

"Great," she sighed. "I'll see you in twenty."

I will reiterate that reviews are greatly appreciated. So review, please!

-rumbleroar's-apprentice