The trip was already off to a rocky start.

The second the trio had laid eyes on the rickety plane that would transport them to Costa Rica, Jack and Chris had both turned around without a word, only being stopped by the hand grabbing the backs of their shirts as Nick pulled them forward.

"Not getting cold feet now, are you?" Nick laughed as he dragged them toward the open door, only dropping them when he started to put their bags in.

"Last time I was on an airplane I died." Chris responded, and Nick faltered for a second before stowing the last bag and climbing in.

"They say the best way of getting over your fear is by facing it head on." Nick threw back at them as he took his seat, the other two deciding to sit opposite him in the small space.

"Oh? Do they say that? Who's they?" Chris asked, voice going through several octaves.

"You know…" Nick gestured vaguely, "psychologists, or something."

"Phycologists or something." Chris echoed, deadpan.

"Yeah, maybe stick to treasure hunting, Nick. It's what you do best." Her brother only shrugged his shoulder at her, and she laughed before settling more comfortably into her seat. It would be a long ride, and Jack had plans to be sleeping for at least three-quarters of it. It wouldn't be bearable otherwise. "Now if you don't mind, or even if you do, I'm going to catch up on sleep. I'd suggest you two do the same." The boys exchanged looks before nodding. No matter how close of friends they were, spending that much time in such close quarters with anyone will start to drive anyone a little close to the edge.

The pilot cleared the wings before setting up in the cockpit, and Jack was just putting her headphones in as the co-pilot climbed in, giving them the 'all clear'. From there all she heard was the muffled whine of the engines and the rumble of the airplane as it began taking off. The sounds of soft music pulling at her eyelids, Jack tilted her head back into the chair and let sleep take her.

OOOOO

Jack stood at the entrance to a room.

All around her the walls and floor were made of heavy looking tanned stone, smooth and clean. The walls held paintings, or maybe carvings, depicting stories alongside hieroglyphics. The only light in the room came from small fires lit in braziers along the walls, and one near the middle of the room on the floor, casting long shadows along the walls and ceiling in the dim light. In front of the brazier on the floor there was a small raised platform that held a bent figure.

She was knocked from her stupor by the expanse of exposed skin on the back of the figure, a woman by the looks of it, and Jack was struck with a strange sense of déjà vu. Her feet moved without her consciously telling them to, taking a few slow steps into the room. She wasn't making much noise at all, her bare feet feeling lighter than normal on the cool stone, but the back of the woman on the platform tensed anyway, curving further into herself.

Sound from above her drew her gaze up as she continued forward, and Jack's eyes passed over the strung-up birds, either ravens or crows, that hung from the ceiling. They cawed and flapped their wings, many of which looked broken in several places or missing feathers, and still the woman didn't move. She only arched forward further, placing her forehead on the platform she kneeled on, her muscles trembling as Jack closed in.

She knew she should be more confused or concerned, but all Jack felt was a foreign cold that spread through her chest, numbing her to anything but a strange muted satisfaction.

She closed the distance between her and the woman, coming up right behind her. She was within touching distance, and when Jack reached her hand out towards the woman, for a moment she thought that was her goal. It wasn't until she stopped moving, and the woman's shivering back started to straighten out, that she realized she'd stopped quite a bit shy, and that her hand wasn't empty. She looked down at her own hand, gripped loosely around the Dagger of Set that she still stored in the bottom of her backpack, and saw that it somehow still held the blood red gem on the end. It was uncracked, perfectly restored from where it had shattered into so many red particles of dust when she'd pulled it from her own body.

Her eyes were so focused on the dagger, she didn't register the hand that reached so slowly up toward her until it nearly touched the dagger, hesitating for a moment. In that second of pause, Jack glimpsed the side of the woman's face, slightly upturned to see the dagger, but not enough to look back at Jack, and the familiar line of a sharp jaw and high, aristocratic cheekbones had her gripping the handle in a sudden bout of intensity that had her knuckles turning white just in time for Ahmanet to wrap her fingers around the space between Jack's and the blade.

The woman let out a sharp cry, rearing back in what looked like pain before falling forward. Her back arched, shoulder blades bunching together before releasing again as small designs started to cover her body, filling up the space on her warm skin with black ink. Jack felt a deeper chill growing in her chest that left her in a rush, and she regained control of her body, taking a step back with a gasp.

Before she could put any kind of real space between her and the mummy that had hunted her, a hand wrapped around her wrist so tight she knew it would bruise, yanking her forward that step that she'd retreated.

Jack looked up from the stone floor and into those doubled amber eyes, reminding her so much of a spider, before they switched to a deep brown - so dark it was nearly black - and back to amber once again.

"They are watching you now, my chosen."

OOOOO

Jack woke up to the feeling of the plane rolling onto the landing strip, clutching at her chest as her heart tried to escape from her ribcage. Her brother sat across from her, his eyes glued to the window, but a quick glance to her left showed her that she'd caught Chris's attention.

She gave him a weak grin, "Still better than the last time I fell asleep on an airplane."

He snorted once before nodding, a look of understanding on his face as he, too, turned to the window. He knew better than to ask.

There was a little bit of a welcoming party waiting for them on the tarmac. By welcoming party, Jack meant a shady looking guy in hand-me-down suit that eyed her brother's watch as they shook hands. His slicked back hair was, Jack thought, meant to be charming, but instead it gave him a greasy look that only made her warier.

"Come, come." The man spoke in heavily accented English, though she couldn't place the accent. He gestured toward a decent looking van, making his own way over and opening the doors for them. Jack just gave him a look before turning to Nick.

"This is Mr. Keshin. He's the one that sent me the tip. He's going to take us to the boat we've chartered." Her brother explained.

"His van has no windows." Chris pointed out. "I was always told not to get into windowless vans with strangers."

"Shut up, Vail." Her brother responded without looking at him, hopping into the front seat of the van and swinging his bag onto his lap. Jack followed his example with a sigh, settling into the back of the van with a grumbling Chris.

The ride was spent with Mr. Greasy giving them a brief history of the island, as well as not-so-subtly advertising his own services, should they need a guide. Jack just barely managed not to roll her eyes. Before too long they were at the dock where a rusty looking fishing boat was waiting for them.

"That's a safety hazard." Jack muttered, hearing Chris snort in response.

"That's our ride to the next island." Nick came up behind them as he finished talking to Mr. Greasy, who was walking back to his windowless van with a heavier pocket. "The actual treasure was long suspected to not have been on the mainland of Costa Rica." His voice dropped a bit as he hopped into the boat, dropping his bag on the floor before he started the process of getting the boat going. "An island close by, albeit a small one that hardly counts as an 'island', has a cave. Mr. Keshin was informed of some incident regarding fireworks in an enclosed area starting a small cave-in."

"Mr. Keshin?" Chris asked her.

"Van guy." She responded.

Chris nodded, recognition in his eyes. "Right, forgot. That wasn't what I was calling him in my head."

Nick continued without minding their conversation, only barely hiding his eyeroll from Chris. Jack saw it though, and she threw her bag at him as she hopped down into the boat, followed by Chris.

"Apparently, the cave-in also revealed a sort of underwater entrance in the cave. That's where we'll be going." Nick opened a hatch in the bottom of the boat to reveal a storage area holding a few sets of scuba diving gear. He grinned up at them once he noticed their grimaces.

"We're swimming." Jack phrased it as a statement, and yet there was an implied question of her brother's sanity if he thought she was going scuba diving again.

Her brother had gotten the boat started and was pushing them away from the dock before he jumped behind the wheel, starting the engine.

"Nick." He turned the wheel to the left, steering the boat out onto open waters. "Nick, don't ignore me."

He sighed, turning to look at her, "It'll just be a quick swim, Jack. We go in, see if anything's down there, come back out. I'll check the gear." She stared at him for a moment, narrowing her eyes before she huffed and looked out at the water. Apart from the wake of their boat, the waters were calm and clear.

It was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky.

OOOOOO

She was going to kill her brother.

Jack swam as fast as she could as large chunks of rock fell down around her. A pillar on her right was collapsing in her path, and she just barely managed to swim under it before it blocked her line of sight on her brother and Chris, swimming at full speed ahead of her.

The water was dark, but the lights built into her gear lit up the path ahead, crumbling around her as it was. She watched Chris get caught on a falling rock, this one looking big enough to drag him down, and she shot over toward him, grabbing his hand and pulling him away from the weight of it.

The trio sped forward, and the water slowly started to turn to a lighter blue as they ducked under the collapsing ceiling of the tunnels to discover that the only way to go was up. Jack pushed upward, Chris making his way ahead of her and her brother was far in front of him when she got caught, her body jerking against her gear. Looking down, she saw part of her tank was crushed under the rocks and the air inside was leaking steadily into the water. With frustrated movements, Jack unclipped herself from the harness, shoving off the rocks and toward the light without the burden of her tank.

She was moving faster, but her lungs were complaining by the time she caught up with Nick, and the tunnel was ending right in front of them. She touched rock, and the trio discovered that the light had come from a hole the size of a small animal that had broken open. Jack scrambled at the rocks, her fingertips finding purchase along cracks.

Her vision was going dark around her. She could feel her brother pulling at her shoulder, but she ignored him.

She needed to get out.

Jack let out a scream of frustration that was muffled by the water that swallowed up what little air she had left as she dug her fingers into the rocks. With a strength she didn't know she had, Jack pulled at either side of the small hole, tearing through rocks like butter and making a space large enough for her to fit through.

With fading vision, Jack shot through the opening, reaching for the light that filled her vision, and she breached the surface.

Her harsh, heaving breath was the only sound in the chamber she emerged into. Dark spots filled her vision as she pulled herself up onto the solid stone in front of her. Two splashes from behind indicated the arrival of the others.

She couldn't bring herself to acknowledge them as she flipped onto her back, panting, with her arms limp at her sides. Chris flopped down beside her, her brother following suit on the other side. She turned her head, glaring directly into the eyes that were already focused on her.

"Hey, don't look at me like that." He held his hands up placatingly. "I checked the gear. How was I supposed to predict this?"

"You're right." She spoke as deadpan as she could in her condition. "How could we possibly have considered that there might be a cave-in at the location of a recent cave-in."

"Hey guys?" She heard Chris get up from his spot beside her.

"This is just as much your fault as it is mine. You could've thought about the cave-in, too."

"My fault?" Her voice raised in pitch. "I didn't want to do this in the first place!"

"Guys?"

"And what was that, back there?" Her brother asked, his eyes more concerned than angry. "Your eyes changed! And the rocks? That wasn't normal, Jack."

"Hate to break it to you, Nick, but nothing about any of us is normal anymore." She joked, not managing to wipe the concern off his face.

"Guys!" Chris yelled, gaining their attention.

As Jack turned to her friend, she let out a gasp as she took in what he was looking at. From the ground to where the wall meets the ceiling, images covered the stone. Enormous paintings of menacing creatures surrounded by smaller figures stretched from one end of a long stone wall to the other. They each held some kind of weapon pointed at a monster – some wielding spears, others swords or even slings in a couple cases – and some held manacles or books in their spare hands.

Jack leapt up. She may look entirely scholarly, more borderline ragged, but it was her near insatiable curiosity that drove her into this line of work. That and her persuasive and danger-prone brother.

The wall was one side of a long hallway that they'd broken through the floor of and it continued in both directions further than her eyes could see in the dark. Like he'd read her mind, Nick came up beside her with a cracked glow stick – the heavy-duty kind that she knew were much more expensive but lasted longer.

She let out a whistle, "Don't know what kinda luck this is, but I'm hoping it's not bad."

"When's it ever good?" Chris snorted. "Take one look around and tell me this place isn't going to be booby-trapped."

She sighed, rubbing her hand down her face, "It's always booby-trapped."

"Just walk slow." Nick led the charge, picking a direction – seemingly at random – and stalking forward. Jack kept her eyes on the walls as they walked, hoping her brother would warn her before he triggered whatever spring trap or rolling ball that chased them down this hallway.

"Pretty common theme." She mused tracing over another battle scene with her finger before wiping the heavy layer of dust on her drying pants. "Big monster, lots of little dudes tryin' to kill it."

"Any monster in specific we should be wary of?" Chris asked, and a year earlier she would've laughed. This time she studied the paintings closely.

"Well, I'm not particularly fond of the idea of going up against that one." She pointed to the monster they passed. This one had two heads and more eyes than fingers. The six gaping mouths weren't especially inviting, either. Chris scanned it with a shudder.

"Body!"

Jack turned to her brother's shout, spotting him crouching close to a curled up heap of rags, which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be the withered skin of a man. He was propped up against the wall, the leather armor he wore so stiff it was keeping him upright. Skeletal hands, covered in skin that stretched too tight, clutched something between them.

"What's he got?" she asked as joined her brother.

"Seriously, you guys aren't even a little suspicious of mummies after all that?" Chris stayed back from the two, the knife strapped to his waist pulled from its sheath.

Nick yanked on the fingers, and a sickening snapping sound echoed down the hallway. "Some kind of journal, I think. Could be exactly what we need."

"That's so gross." Chris made heaving sounds as he turned away. Both siblings ignored him.

Nick held the small leather-bound journal in his hands, gently flipping through the pages. From her position, Jack saw mostly Spanish writing. She hoped that meant they were on the right track. The small frown on Nick's face told her otherwise. It grew more pronounced the further he got through the book.

"What is it?"

He glanced at her, "Mostly gibberish. The beginning was promising, mostly talk of the journey ahead. He seemed to be one of the crew of Mary Dear; he says here that he was told to stay behind by Thompson to guard the treasure, but it doesn't say where it is. Mostly there's vague talk about snakes – which I know you don't want to hear – and some kind of amulet." He pointed to a passage. "Right here, collar de locura."

"'Necklace of madness?' Sounds like the bad kind of promising." She examined the page. The necklace in question was illustrated in a crude manner as if someone knew they weren't an artist but gave it a shot anyway. It looked big and old, a necklace people wore once to show how much money they had then put in a safe somewhere. The design on it looked somewhat familiar as well. Jack scowled, trying to place it.

Something deep inside her flinched, and she whirled around, eyes scanning the darkness around them. Her heartbeat pounded, and her ears strained to hear over it. Something was watching them. She reached out a hand, placing it calmly on her brother's shoulder.

"Nick. We gotta move." Her voice came out surprisingly stable, but both boys stared at her with confusion. "Now."

"What?" Chris started looking around, eyes wide. "Why? What's happening? Is it giant spiders again because I really can't do that again."

"Jack." Her brother searched her face for answers she didn't have.

"Look, I just have a feeling—" She tried to explain, but a grinding sound interrupted her. Behind them, Chris looked up from where he'd just stepped onto a tile on the ground that was currently raising back into its original position.

He groaned, "Fucking booby—"

Both sections of the hallway behind them slammed together. The walls shook with the force, and the sound nearly deafened Jack.

"OH MY GOD!" Chris started sprinting down the hallway, away from the now-closed section they'd come from.

Jack jumped up, grabbing her bag off the floor. Nick's hand around her wrist jerked her forward, and all three of them were racing down the corridor. Behind them, loud thunderous slams followed. That, combined with the constant tremble in the walls, informed Jack that the trap was following them. She heard a distinct snapping sound as well, and doubted there was much left of their new friend besides dust.

She kidded around a quick corner, slamming into the wall and shoving back off of it to propel herself into the door that appeared in front of her. The boys both hit the wood hard – Nick immediately scrabbling at the handle, to no avail. She let her shoulder fall and bull rushed forward, throwing her weight hard against the wood. It buckled beneath her, and the whole thing lurched forward. The hinges made a harsh scraping sound as they busted, but Jack couldn't hear any more slamming. The walls were still shaking, and she leaned up on her shoulders from were they'd all hit the ground and looked the way they came. The walls were pulling back apart slowly, and the hallway revealed itself to them once more.

"Jesus," Nick panted.

"—traps," Chris mumbled.

"How about we watch where we step?" Nick glared at Chris.

"Don't pretend you would've magically avoided the trap, Nick," Jack sat up with a groan. Her shoulder would definitely be bruised by the morning. She rolled it experimentally, getting to her feet and taking stock of the room.

It looked almost like some kind of chapel. Rows of benches lined the large room facing an alter. Though the brownish-red stain that smeared across the top and dipped down the edges suggested the nature of it was less well-intentioned than she hoped. There were skeletons in this room, too. Two of them.

One sat on a bench and faced the alter, like he'd gone to church and just never left. The other sprawled across the floor near the base of the stone platform. That one had its own stain.

"Hey," Chris said, "last time you guys were in a church—"

"Give it a rest, Vail." Nick moved toward the body on the benches, so Jack headed to check the other one.

She kneeled down, pulling her gloves out of her bag and putting them on before she let herself touch anything on the body. You can never be too careful with that kind of thing. Now that she was looking, Jack estimated that the body was actually a bit newer than the one they'd seen in the hallway. There was still more flesh on the bones, not paper thin but well past the beginning stages of decomposition. Maybe a year old, at most, but she was willing to bet that Mr. Greasy only sent them in after having checked it out with his guys first. Maybe he lost one.

She searched through his clothes for any kind of identification, and Chris came up beside her.

"You ok?" He asked. She spared him a quick glance before she nodded and went continued rifling through the dead man's pockets. "It's just—how'd you know about the trap?"

"What?" She took her hands out of the empty jacket. There was nothing on the body. "I didn't."

"You were trying to warn us about something, Jack." Chris whispered, looking over his shoulder at Nick before leaning in closer to her and speaking under his breath. "I know Nick doesn't like talking about it, but I'm not willing to ignore when you get your, you know, feelings."

"My feelings."

"You know what I mean!" He whined a bit, but Jack could tell he wasn't about to let it go.

She sighed, "Yeah, ok. I didn't know about the trap, though. I just felt…watched."

Chris frowned, "From the skeleton?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't know what it was, but it didn't feel nice."

He hummed, "Alright. Just," he made eye contact with her, "keep me in the loop?" She nodded. "Cool, cool. Watched. Not worrying at all. Find anything on him?"

"Nothing useful." She stood again, stretching her legs. Her knees cracked when she fully straightened them. "He's not as old as skin and bones from the hallway, but he doesn't have much on him. Just from his clothes, I'd say he was a local that got paid to come check out the cave-in. Or maybe he caused the cave-in. One of the guys with fireworks? Did Nick say what happened to all of them?" Chris shook his head. "Whatever the case, he's got a pretty wicked cut across his throat."

Chris's eyebrows raised, and he started looking over the body more closely, but Jack focused on the alter. The same symbol, the one that had been drawn over the amulet in the journal, was impressed deeply into the top of the stone.

"Nick." She called him over, waving her hand to the alter. "Check this out."

He made his way over, "Oh. Wait—oh shit."

"Yep." She clicked her tongue. "I was right, then. Was hoping I wasn't."

"What?" Chris joined them. "What is it now?"

She waved a hand over the symbol, "Recognize it?"

"Uh." He rubbed his chin. "Yeah? Looks like the one from the journal, right?"

"Yeah, but apart from that." He gave her a blank stare. "Oh right, you were dead."

"'Oh right, you were dead.'" He mocked, "Did you forget? Cause I sure haven't. And what does that have to do with the sym—please tell me this isn't more ancient Egyptian mummy shit."

"Fortunately, no." Nick started looking over the sides of the alter, brushing his hands along the stone looking for some hidden catch. "Unfortunately, it may be worse."

"Ok," Jack huffed, "let's not be dramatic."

"They tried to kill me. When they thought I was you—or had what you had. You know what I mean!" Nick threw his hands in the air in frustration. "They're not better than Ahmanet."

"They didn't try to raise an evil god to rule the world with the intent of killing countless innocent people in the process."

"They were going to dissect me after they killed me."

"After."

"How about we let Chris know what's going on." Chris walked between them, and they moved to accommodate him. "'Cause I really hate it when you guys do this."

"It's not ancient Egyptian mummy shit. It's Prodigium shit."

"Oh." Chris looked vaguely sick. "Oh, that's bad. That's bad, right?"

OOOOO

Been a while. Not dead yet. I graduated and have been dealing with a lot of health problems recently, but this fic is almost cathartic to write, so I might keep up a bit with it. Let me know how you feel about it so far. There's a lot more to come.