Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Mummy franchise but this plot and my OC.
THEBES - 2,134 B.C
In Thebes, the City of the Living; the Crown jewel of Pharaoh Seti the First. A beautiful Arabian horse-drawn Chariot comes barrelling through an elegant pathway, driven by Pharaoh Seti I; an aristocratic, virile older man.
On Anck-su-namun's balcony window in the palace at dusk. Glaring out over the city at the setting sun is a handsome, muscular man with intense, sinful eyes. This is the home of Imhotep, High Priest of Osiris, Keeper of the Dead.
A gorgeous, olive-skinned goddess strolls through the outer foyer. Her entire body is naked though it has been painted in curved lines and scale like pattens. She's a stunning sight to behold. The birthplace of Anck-su-namun. The Pharaoh's mistress. No other man was allowed to touch her. She makes her way through the ornate statuary walkway. There stands the Priest of Osiris; Imhotep's followers. Their eyes watch Anck-su-namun vanish through the silken bedroom curtains. She embraces Imhotep, as they kiss passionately, feverishly; Imhotep's hands roam over her perfect body, smearing the paint.
But for their love, they were willing to risk life itself. On the other-side of the curtains, the Priest rush over and close the doors. But just as they do, the doors suddenly burst open. The Pharaoh angrily strides in, looking at the Priest.
"What are you doing here?" Seti sharply bellows.
The Priest back away, scared beyond belief, his arrival was unexpected. The Pharaoh strides for the silk curtains throwing them back. He sees Anck-su-namun standing alone. She gives him a sultry smile. Seti sees that her body paint has been smeared and points his finger.
"WHO HAS TOUCHED YOU?!" He sharply roars.
From behind him, his sword is ripped out of its scabbard. The Pharaoh reels around: It's Imhotep. Seti is astounded.
"Imhotep?... My priest." In a weak voice the Pharaoh gasped.
Behind him, Anck-su-namun lifts a dagger and plunges it into his back, the Pharaoh screams, Imhotep raises Pharaoh's sword. The hideous Priest slam the doors and bolt them tight. Through the curtains, they see the shadows of Anck-su-namun and Imhotep stab away at Pharaoh. Suddenly, the doors are rammed from the other side, WHAM! Imhotep and Anck-su-namun turn and look. WHAM! The doors are rammed again. The two lovers share desperate looks. WHAM! The bald Priest run up past the curtain and grab Imhotep trying to pull him towards the balcony.
"Pharaoh's bodyguards!" The Priest hiss.
Imhotep tries to break free, but Anck-su-namun rips Pharaoh's sword out of his hand and pushes him towards the balcony.
"You must go. Save yourself. Only you can resurrect me." She tenderly reassures him.
Imhotep's face fills with despair as the doors explode open. Men with blue-tinted skin and strange puzzle like tattoos all over their bodies stride in, armed to the teeth; these are the Medjai. The Priest hustle Imhotep out onto the dark balcony just as the Medjai rip through the curtains. Anck-su-namun points at Pharaoh and hisses "My body is no longer his temple!" As she plunges the sword into her own heart. Out on the balcony, Imhotep's mouth opens into a horrible silent scream. Feeling the pain of losing yet another love to early death.
As Imhotep raced deep into the desert taking Anck-su-namun's corpse to Hamunaptra, the city of the dead; an ancient burial site for the sons of Pharaohs and resting place for the wealth of Egypt. Although Anck-su-namun was not Imhotep's first love, he still dared the Gods' anger by going deep into the city where he took the black Book Of The Dead from its holy resting place. Anck-su-namun's soul had been sent to the dark underworld her vital organs removed and placed in five sacred canopic jars.
As Imhotep begins to read from The Book of The Dead, a large swirling hole starts to open in the detritus bog. Several Priest look over at it, frightened, then quickly look back down and to resume chanting. A strange mist wafts up out of the swirling hole and over to the jars, it passes through them and into Anck-su-namun's body. One of the jars shudders, the heart inside it begins to beat again. The chanting Priest, swirling hole, wafting mist, beating heart and Imhotep's readings reach a crescendo. Anck-su-namun's eyes suddenly fly open.
Anck-su-namun soul had come back from the dead! As Imhotep lifts a sacrificial knife above Anck-su-namun's breast, about to plunge it down. As the chanting, swirling and beating heart reached there climax. The Pharaoh's bodyguards that had followed Imhotep, burst in and storm through the startled Priest, stop Imhotep before the ritual could be completed. The mist instantly sucks back out of Anck-su-namun's body and implodes back into the swirling hole. Anck-su-namun's eyes close. Dying once again, Imhotep screams in rage. The Medjai grab him and his Priest.
Imhotep's Priest were condemned to be mummified alive. Inside a torch-lit necropolis chamber, Imhotep is held by Anubis-headed embalmers. He cringes at the flickering, impressionistic glimpses of his Priest being embalmed and mummified alive. The horrid-looking Embalmers, using knives, needles and thread, calmly perform their ghastly surgery on the screaming Priest, who are going insane from the procedure. A red hot poker is pulled out of a pit of burning coals. A Priest's head is wedged between two strong boards. His eyes widen in terror as an Embalmer moves to insert the red hot poker up his nose, the Priest screams. All twenty-one of Imhotep's Priest squirm inside their wrappings.
As for Imhotep, he was condemned to endure the Hom-Dai. The worst of all ancient curses. One so horrible, it had never before been bestowed. Imhotep is forced to his knees. His arms are held back. His mouth is pried open. Using a pair of tongs, an Embalmer slowly pulls Imhotep's tongue out of his mouth, then places a very sharp knife on top of it. As his tongue is slowly cut out. Imhotep is wrapped up, he squirms. He's then laid in a stone coffin inside a stone Sarcophagus. An Embalmer with a bucket steps up and looks into the coffin. The Embalmer empties the bucket over Imhotep's chest: dozens of scarabs, disgusting dung beetles. They scurry across Imhotep's bandaged wrapped body. The lid to the coffin is slammed shut. Then, using a strange four-sided key, the Head Medjai locks the coffin lid tight. The heavy sarcophagus lid is shoved into place and with a loud WHOOSH seals itself airtight. Once again, the Head Medjai uses the strange key, locking the sarcophagus lid tight. He was to remain sealed inside his sarcophagus, the undead for all of eternity. The Medjai would never allow him to be released. For he would arise a walking disease, a plague upon mankind, an unholy flesh-eater, with the strength of ages, power over the sands, and the glory of invincibility.
Imhotep's horrifying tongue-less screams can be heard coming from inside his sarcophagus as grave diggers shovel dirt onto it. The heavily armed Medjai stand guard around Imhotep's grave. Looking down on the burial site is the huge statue of ANUBIS, the jackal-headed god of death.
Then begins to decay, aging 4159 years. The decrepit, half-buried statue of Anubis sitting out in the middle of the desert. As Imhotep's horrifying screams become the screams of the Tuareg horseman. Racing across the desert with two thousand of his warrior brethren as they are armed to the teeth.
In the Sahara desert in the year 1925, a mile across the scorching desert, two hundred French foreign legionnaires scurry through the ruins; preparing for the onslaught. O'Connell O'Connell is up on the wall with his Kepi as it sits at a jaunty angle. Dashing and handsome, he looks out at the massive screaming horde galloping at him.
"I knew this was gonna be a lousy day." He tensely declared. A doughy little Frenchman named Beni joins O'Connell as he makes his way across the top of the wall.
"Personally, I would like to surrender. Why can we not just surrender?" The french man stammered.
"Shut-up and gimme your bandolier." Beni pulls off his cartridge belt and hands it to O'Connell.
"Then let's run away. Right now. While we can still make it." O'Connell throws it on, crisscrossing his own bandolier. Ignoring Beni's feeble urging.
"Now gimme your revolver, you'll never use it anyway." Beni pulls out his pistol and chucks it to O'Connell.
"Then let's play dead, huh? Nobody ever does that anymore." O'Connell slides it into his belt, next to his own revolver.
"Now go find me a big stick." O'Connell harshly rebuked.
"In the desert? What for?" Beni naively questions. O'Connell turns and goes nose-to-nose with him.
"So I can tie it to your back, you appear to be without a spine." O'Connell fiercely sneered at Beni. The horde of warriors thunders forward now no more than half mile out. Scimitars rattling, O'Connell and Beni run through the ruins.
"How'd a guy like you end up in the Legion anyways?" He calmly asks.
"I got caught robbing a synagogue. Lots of good stuff in them holy places; churches, temples, mosques, and who's guarding them?" Beni questioned slyly. "Altar boys?" Answered O'Connell smoothly.
"Exactly! I speak seven languages, including Hebrew, so my speciality was synagogues. How about you? Kill somebody?" Beni asks while triping and accidentally tackles O'Connell to the ground. O'Connell gives him a nasty look.
"No, but I'm considering it." They get up and run out the gate and down the stone ramp
"What then? Robbery? Extortion? Kidnapping!" Beni lively exclaims.
"None of the above, thank you"
"Then what the hell are you doing here!?" They both skid to a stop at the front line as they see the horde of warriors. The sound of charging horses is deafening. As O'Connell gives Beni a big cheesy smile. "I was just looking for a good time."
And that's when the cowardly Legionnaire Colonel suddenly panics, cuts and runs. O'Connell instantly stiffens. "Oh shit Steady!" O'Connell exclaimed. This gives the men around him courage. But onward comes the horde Hoofs pounding the sand and several more Legionnaires take off.
"STEADY!" He yells and then mutters to himself "What the hell am I sayin'?" The Tuaregs let loose with horrifying long screams. More Legionnaires haul-ass. Beni is one of them.
"STEADY!"He yells, and then mutters to himself once again."What the hell am I doin'?"
The Tuaregs set their rifles and take aim. O'Connell steels himself, cocks and locks. The cartridge in his mouth suddenly snaps, he spits it into the sand. A thunderous beat of his heart hammers through his chest. And then...
"Fire!"
The Legionnaires on the ground fire. The rifles report with a deafening crash. The blast blows dozens of Tuaregs clean off their mounts. The prone Legionnaires quickly begin to reload.
"Fire!"
The kneeling Legionnaires fire. More Tuaregs bite the sand as the remaining warriors open fire. Thunder and smoke rip through the hot air. A third of the Legionnaires are killed instantly.
"Fire!"
The remaining standing Legionnaires fire. Tuaregs spin off their mounts; crashing to the sand. And then the entire Tuareg force plows into the ruins and through the Legionnaires. O'Connell grabs the barrel of his rifle and starts clubbing riders off their steeds, fighting like a man possessed. Beni on the other hand, is belly crawling across the sand, whimpering in full retreat as Legionnaires fall dead all around him. He crawls through the front gate. O'Connell throws his rifle down and goes for his guns. He cross-draws, a gun in each hand, and starts blowing riders off their mounts. Beni crawls faster, and then he spots an open temple doorway amongst the rocks. He gets up and sprints for the door as the last of the Legionnaires are shot off their feet behind him and O'Connell's guns go empty.
"Son-of-a-bitch." He turns and runs like hell, right through the front gate. Four Tuareg warriors on massive Arabian horses haul-ass after him. O'Connell hurdles over a stone column and, hits the ground running. He spots Beni inside the Temple doorway, trying to close the heavy sandstone door.
"Hey! Beni! Wait up!" Though Beni has no intention of waiting up, he pushes harder.
"What are ya doing?! Wait up!" O'Connell runs faster and Beni pushes harder. The four Horsemen leap the big column and charge after him. Hoofs pounding.
"Don't you close that door! DON'T YOU CLOSE THAT DOOR!" Beni closes the door just as O'Connell reaches it. O'Connell slams his body into the door. It doesn't budge "I'm gonna get you for this!"
He turns and bolts off around the rocks. Running for his life, while weaving through the ruins. The Arabians getting closer and closer. The pounding hoofs getting louder and louder. O'Connell finally spins around and faces his attackers. The four massive horses crash to a stop in front of him. The vicious Tuaregs raise their rifles to finish him off. O'Connell just stands there, exhausted and beaten, then he slowly lifts his right hand and gives them the bird. And that's when the horses lose control. All four of them rear up, two of the Riders are thrown to the ground. The horses screech and bellow and snort in fear, then buck like fury and haul-ass away as if the devil himself had scared them. The thrown Riders get up and race off after their mounts. O'Connell just stands there, stunned, then he lifts his right hand and checks out his middle finger. And then he feels the evil himself, and turns around. The shattered, decrepit statue of Anubis stares back at him. Suddenly, the sand begins to shift under O'Connell's feet. He starts to back away, keeping his eyes on the transforming sand, it looks like huge snakes are wiggling and writhing beneath it, forming lines and shapes, drawing a picture. O'Connell quickly turns and runs off through the ruins. The sand stops moving, and the drawing in the sand, is a picture of Imhotep's screaming face.
Upon a ridge, a group of riders watch O'Connell stumble clear of the decrepit city. O'Connell feels their presence and looks up. They are very different from the Tuaregs, they have blue tinted skin and faces covered in strange puzzle-tattoos. The Medjai. Still watching Imhotep's grave after all this time. The Medjai leader is a huge, fierce man in black robes, with dual scimitars across his waist. His face is both handsome and horrible, blue and tattooed. Ardeth Bay. His dark eyes watch as O'Connell stagger off into the open desert...