Chapter 5

The woman and the dog were now completely silent as they led Lara to her doom, only the chains and Lara's clanky footsteps could be heard, the woman seemed to make no sound at all with her steps, as though she was simply gliding across the floor.

Lara had never felt so powerless, she started questioning herself, she had always thought of herself as an incredibly powerful and strong woman who could get out of any sticky situation, but here she was, no guns, no freedom of movement, she was at the absolute mercy of the Tomb, and couldn't do anything about it. The idea that she could fight any sort of magical power, was all that an Illusion conjured by her athletic ability and heavy fire-arms collection. This was going to be a true test of what Lara could do.

The Egyptian woman pressed a panel on the wall, and a long, giant and grand staircase fell from the middle of the other side of the room. The sound of raging gigantic flames could be heard and Lara immediately became terrified. As she looked up at the staircase she saw that it led directly up through a gigantic fire pit, possibly the very same one she had crossed earlier.

"NO!" She yelled, pulling at her chains "You can't kill me that easily! I won't go there, I won't!"

But she had no choice, the dog and the woman seemed deaf to her protests and had complete control over her. She was yanked up the steps, her body started to heat up, and she started to panic.

Luckily when the Egyptian woman reached the midpoint, she signalled with her hands for the fire to split and it did. As they walked between the flames Lara's body became hotter and hotter, she felt like she was going to faint, her vision blurred hugely, and she felt herself slip into a deep dream.

I was praying, on my knees in the temple, when it happened.

Octavian was invading Egypt, my entire kingdom, my empire; it was crumbling before my very eyes. Children screaming and running through the sand, getting killed by blood thirsty roman warriors, it isn't right. Why did all this have to happen?

My husband, Antony, he is kind and gentle, he is lovely, he wouldn't hurt an innocent fly. But he can get angry, he has always been like that, hitting the servants, hitting me, he is just argumentative like that. But why did he have to provoke the Roman empire.

We always laughed at Octavian, he never seemed to be anything special, the only reason he really was ruler of Rome is because he is the descendant of Julius Ceaser. "You owe everything to your name" Antony used to tell him, and it was true, but it should have gone unsaid.

Egypt was going through hard times anyway, there was an extra large famine last year, our defences are incredibly weak. And Octavian, being the small little man he is, saw the opportunity.

Here I am sitting, safe, hidden in my monument, complaining about losing my heritage. Out there, I can practically hear the screams in my brain, my kingdom, it is being destroyed, ripped apart, Egypt is over, the Romans have won.

"Please my lord, Please" I said looking up at the towering Osiris statue "Why have you, the ruler of life and death, frowned upon us, why have you destroyed my... our, kingdom?"

After receiving no answer, I hung my head and looked at the floor. Was all of this temple stuff, was it all nonsense? Were the teachings, the gods; was it all fantasy stuff that wasn't real? The truth is, I had never felt any kind of supernatural experience, I had never felt blessed by the gods, and did they even exist?

My eyes began to tear up, but I didn't want to let them fall, so I gripped onto my tattered skirt, and closed them, trying to distract myself.

BOOM!

My shoulders jolted at this huge crashing sound that echoed through the room. I quickly jumped to my feet and turned around.

"NO!" I called out instinctively, thinking the Roman soldiers had found me. I backed into a wall scared to death, my heart going at a painfully fast pace, all the sweat I had left in my body seemed to be crying out of every inch of my skin, and all of my hairs on my arms stood up. I panted fast.

"My lady!"

I didn't recognize the voice, so I called out.

"Who?"

Four of my guards came rushing in the room, which I was immediately offended by as I had asked to be in private, then I realized they had a bloodied man on their back, this must be something urgent.

"What do you want of me? I can't do anything, find a doctor!" I said angrily.

They placed the man on the floor in front of me, he was impaled in the chest with a grand dagger.

"NO!" I screamed "NOOOO!"

My dearest husband, the love of my life, laid there twitching, his eyes barely open, half of his body seemed to be almost melting into the pool of blood.

"Antony! Nooo!" I wailed and then threw myself by his side, sobbing into my hands "It can't be! Please, don't! Don't!"

He looked up at me, his mouth was twitching but struggling to make a sound.

"C-c... Cleo... Cle"

"Antony, Please, I love you"

"I l-, love, v-, y-"

His eyes which were focused on me, dropped to the ground and deadened, his jaw which was previously struggling, now fell into a relaxed position. The hand that I was holding, lost all support of his arm, and slipped off me and onto the ground.

"I will... I will avenge you, Antony" I said, letting the tears stream down my face "I will avenge you."

The walls of the tomb collapsed, the floor disappeared, the whole scene was set alight, destroyed by fire.

Lara gasped as she was threw back into reality, she felt like she had just received a powerful punch to the gut. The black smoke surrounding her faded and brought her back to the flaming room with the Egyptian woman and the Dog.

What she had just seen... it was Cleopatra, during the Romans conquer of Egypt, and she was there, she was Cleopatra. Was it a vision of a past life? Lara waved away the idea as soon as it hit her mind, the woman she was a second ago was not her, it did not have her soul, her mind, she was much weaker willed.

But even still, somehow by walking through the fires she had been given a vision of the past, was it an important even somehow? I mean, of course it was, it was Rome's concuer of Egypt, but what did that have to do with the situation Lara was in now?

She thought for a bit and then realized something, the statue Cleopatra was praying to, and the Osiris statue, was the same one in the room she first entered in this tomb. The one that moved, the one that looked at her, the one with treasure at its feet, and the one with a mysterious keyhole in its throne.

As Lara began to put certain things together she was led out of the pit of fire room and into the dirty hallway she had previously came through.

And what about this woman, Lara thought. Was she Cleopatra? Was she a ghost? It wouldn't be surprising; she had seen stranger things in her lifetime, and Cleopatra certainly had reason to abstain from the afterlife.

With that thought, the group had made their way to the Osiris statue room, and just as Lara thought, the Egyptian woman pulled out a key from the pouch dangling around her waist, and inserted it into the keyhole.

At first, nothing happened. But then...

Creeeeaaaaak

Witha slow Creaking noise, Osiris lifted himself of his chair and stood upright, Lara now understood why the ceiling was so tall.

"Stand back" the Egyptian woman said, prodding Lara backwards.

Osiris used the hook her was carrying to grab the handle at the back of the chair, and then slided it to the left, covering up the Seth door they had just entered through, but also revealing another small door where Osiris was sitting. It looked a bit odd that such a small entrance way was hidden behind such a massive statue.

The hallway they entered was incredibly dark, it was only partially illuminated by very weak fires that lined the top of the corridor, Lara could only just see where she was going. As she looked around she noticed that she couldn't actually see the walls that should be surrounding her, she was actually in a prison hallway, walking past the cells. It was impossible for her to tell what was in them, because a great shadow lingered behind each set of bars, so nothing could be seen. Just as Lara was wondering if they were in fact empty she heard a voice.

"She is not one of usss"

A serprant like voice hissing from the shadows shot chills up her spine, as she closed her eyes she heard more voices from other cells.

"She is whole"

"She is in flames"

"She has disturbed him"

"She is lost in purgatory"

It was all too confusing, Lara gritted her teeth and carried on being pulled forward; absolutely sick of hearing this talk that didn't make any sense to her.

They continued to walk down the prison corridor for half an hour, by the end the hissing had gotten so loud Lara was on the verge of screaming.

The Egyptian woman opened the final door, and what lay beyond, would change the world forever.

AC: Hope you enjoyed it! And I'm sorry it took a while for this chapter! It took a long time to figure out exactly what was going to happen basically, there were so many different versions of this chapter it's unreal, but I'm happy with the final result.

Sorry if you think it was a little boring with all the descriptive writing, I know you feel like you don't really need a boring-ass tour of the entire tomb but you need to know that the tomb itself needs characterizing, remember everything you see, because it will make sense later and will help you figure out what is going to happen next.

Really excited to write Chapter 6, I've been building up to this and preparing for it since Chapter 2, it's going to be very action packed! =D

Thanks for reading