Deep in the bowels of the the Cairo Museum of Antiquities, rows upon rows of towering bookshelves were filled with literature Standing at the top of a tall ladder between two of these rows and leaning against one of the bookshelves, is a young woman named Evelyn Carnahan.
"Sacred stones… sculpture and aesthetics…" Evelyn spoke to herself as she pulls a book out from a stack under her arm, blows the dust off it, then places it on a shelf with other books whose titles all begin with the letter "O". "Socrates, Seth, volume one, volume two, and volume three, and…" She pauses for a moment when she grabs another book out from under her arm and reads the title. "Tuthmosis... what are you doing here?" She finishes looking at the book and turns around. "T. T, t, t…"
Suddenly, two figures arrive inside the library. Their names were Stefan Salvatore and Alexia Branson, who often calls herself Lexi.
"Hello?" Lexi called across the library.
Evelyn heard her voice and responded. "Uh, ju-just a moment a please!"
Carefully, so as not to lose her balance, she looks over her shoulder to the bookshelf behind her, where all the titles begin with the letter 'TO. She briefly looks down, and saw that it was a long way to the bottom. Evelyn gently sets the other books down on the top shelf, then turns and gingerly starts to reach across the aisle with the Tuthmosis book. Since it was a little too far, she stretches and reaches as she held the top of the ladder with her fingertips.
Suddenly, the ladder pulls away from the shelf, causing Evelyn to yelp and flings the Tuthmosis book and grabs the top of the ladder, which stands straight up. Evelyn holds her breath, swaying precariously until she loses her balance, and the ladder swings around and Evelyn starts stiltwalking down the aisle.
The ladder crosses the aisle, does an about face and heads back the way it came. Evelyn clings to the top, struggling for balance. The ladder teeters out into the main aisle and picks up speed. Evelyn screams as it does a 180, spins into another aisle and finally crashes to a stop at the top of a bookshelf. Evelyn holds her breath, then sighs heavily in relief.
That was when the bookshelf falls away from her and CRASHES into the next bookshelf. Evelyn falls down the ladder and nearly plops to the floor until she lands on someone's arms. She saw that it was Stefan Salvatore who saved her from falling, but it wasn't too late to prevent all the bookshelves from crashing into the next. All the volumes were flinging off the shelves and scattering across the floor. As it finally ends, the last shelf crashes into a wall.
"Oops." Evelyn whispered in shock.
"Are you alright?" Stefan asked.
"No, I'm not." Evelyn replied quietly with her eyes widened in shock. "The Curator is not going to be happy when he sees all this."
"I'm afraid he is." Lexi smiled slightly and moved her eyes towards the Egyptian Curator who had stormed in when he heard the noise.
"WHAT… how…" The Curator exclaimed and looked around in the sight of horror and anger when he saw that his entire library was a complete disaster. He turns his angry face at Evelyn and slowly comes to her. "OH, look at this! Sons of the Pharaohs. Give me frogs, flies, locusts, Anything but this! Anything but you! Compared to you, the other plagues were a joy!"
Evelyn quickly gets up and starts gathering books. "Well, uh…" She paused and didn't know what to say to herself for what she did.
"Look, whatever this was, it was an accident, a terrible accident, and we be delighted to pay for all this." Lexi said calmly to the Curator.
"You would risk in paying for this damage?" The Curator snapped loudly in anger and sighed. "I think not. My girl have you heard about Rameses?"
"Only a little bit." Lexi smiled.
"When Rameses destroyed Syria, that was an accident." The Curator said and turned to Evelyn and yelled again. "And as for you! You are a catastrophe! Look at my library! Why do I put up with you?"
"Well, put up with me, because I can… I can read and write ancient Egyptian." Evelyn grinned as she explained. "And I can decipher hieroglyphics and hieratic… and, well, I'm the only person within a thousand miles who knows how to properly code and catalogue this library, that's why."
"I put up with you because your father and mother were one of the most finest patrons. That's why!" The Curator insulted angrily, but returned to his calm and faithful manner. "I don't want to fire you for this, Evelyn. Ever since your parents died in a tragic accident when you just a child, I was only one to look after you and your brother. But right now, I want you to continue your work while I… contact the people to clean this whole meshiver."
As the Curator storms out, Evelyn, Stefan, and Lexi just stand there, steaming.
"Well… kinda harsh." Stefan replied.
"So what can I do for you two?" Evelyn asked in a pleasant grin.
"We're just here to rent a book around here." Stefan smiled.
"And I'm sure we'll have it once we pay for all the damage you just caused here." Lexi assured her.
Before Evelyn was about to say anything else, she suddenly heard a noise and quickly turns around. The noise came from the Ramesseum.
Filled with treasures and plunder from the Middle Kingdom, the Ramesseum was very dark and quiet in there, the only light came from the flickering torches at either end of the spooky gallery.
Hearing the noise again from the far side of the room, Evelyn grabs a torch and looks around from a statue of Anubis, another of Horus. Evelyn was starting to get scared now when the statues were looking down at her. She quietly walks down the aisle, and moves closer to a sarcophagus.
As she passes the closed sarcophagus, including the artifacts around it, she walks over to another sarcophagus that was wide open. Evelyn freezes, swallows hard, and nervously looks around to see who was responsible of opening it. She slowly leans forward with the torch, and peers inside.
Seconds soon, a hideous rotted Mummy sits up and screeches at her. Evelyn screamed when she dropped the torch and backed away in the sight of horror away. That was when she heard the sight of drunken laughter. Evelyn sighed in relief, but was quite angry that the person who scared her was her brother Jonathan.
"Have you no respect for the dead?" Evelyn shouted in disapproval.
"Of course I do." Jonathan grinned drunkenly. "But sometimes… I'd rather like to join them."
"Well, I wish you would do it before you ruin my career the way you've ruined yours." Evelyn said angrily and gave her brother a slap in the face. "Now get out."
"My dear, sweet baby sister." Jonathan belched. "I'll have you know, that at this precise moment my career is on a high note."
"High note, ha!" Evelyn snapped and sat herself down beside the statue of Horus. "Oh Jonathan, please, I'm really not in the mood for you. I've just made a bit of a mess in the library, and the Bembridge scholars have rejected my application form again. They say I don't have enough experience in the field."
Jonathan kneels down to face her and holds both her hands. "You've always have me, old mum."
The two siblings started to laugh at each other a little.
"Besides I have just the thing to cheer you up." Jonathan said excitedly and scrounges around in his jacket.
"Oh no, Jonathan, not another worthless trinket." Evelyn sighed. "If I have to take one more piece of junk to the Curator to try and sell for you."
Jonathan pulls out a small, ancient BOX; the collapsed key to unlock something very ancient. Evelyn was instantly curious and gently grabs the box out of his hand. That was when Lexi and Stefan came inside Ramesseum.
"Everything, alright?" Lexi asked.
"We heard you scream." Stefan said.
"I'm perfectly fine." Evelyn said in dazed tone when she stared at the ancient key. "Jonathan, where did you get this?"
Jonathan gives her a mischievous smile. "On a dig, uh, down in Thebes."
"You were in Thebes?" Lexi asked with a grin.
"Of course, I've enjoyed digging and hanging a bout with the dead." Jonathan giggled. "Funny isn't it?"
"Would it be funny if I bite you?" Lexi smirked. "Hmm?"
"Oooh, now that's what I'm talking about." Jonathan nodded to her agreement, not even realizing that he was actually talking to a vampire.
Evelyn rolls the box around in her hands, mumbling to herself as she translates the hieratics and hieroglyphs covering it.
Jonathan licked his lips in anticipation. "My whole life I've never found anything, Evy. Tell me I've found something."
Evelyn continues to examine the key as she touches the various little slats on the box, shifting them this way and that way like a puzzle box. Then suddenly, it unfolds itself, almost-mechanically, turning itself into the key. Sitting inside the open key/box was a folded piece of golden Papyrus.
"Is that a map?" Lexi asked and came to look at it.
"Jonathan." Evelyn whispered in amusement.
"Yes?" Jonathan asked.
"I think you found something." Evelyn opened her mouth excitedly.
The Curator sits at his desk, staring through a jeweler's eyepiece at the key/box while Evelyn, Lexi, Stefan, and Jonathan sat inside his office.
"See the cartouche there?" Evelyn pointed at the map. "It's the official royal seal of Seti the First, I'm sure of it."
"Perhaps." The Curator assumed.
"Two questions; who was Seti the First and… was he rich?" Stefan asked.
"He was the second Pharaoh of the 19th dynasty, said to be the wealthiest Pharaoh of them all." Evelyn counted on the history of Seti.
"Good, I like this fellow." Jonathan grinned and looked quite please of hearing this. "I like him very much."
"I've already dated the map." Evelyn added. "It's almost 3,000 years old."
"Wow, 3,000." Stefan mouthed the words to Lexi.
"And if you look at the hieratic just here, well, it's Hamunaptra." Evelyn finished as she inhaled deeply.
The Curator froze a bit and felt nervous, but recovers.
"Hamunaptra?" Lexi asked, sounding quite confused. "I thought that place was a myth."
"And she is right." The Curator agreed to her words. "Unlike her, we are scholars, not treasure hunters. Hamunaptra is nothing but a myth, and it was told by a lot of ancient storytellers, especially the ancient Arabs to amuse Greek and Roman tourists."
"Yes, yes, I know all the blather about the city being protected by the curse of a mummy, but my research has led me to believe that the city itself may have actually existed." Evelyn explained truthfully.
"Are we talking about the Hamunaptra?" Stefan asked. "The City of the Dead?"
"Yes." Evelyn nodded. "Where the earliest pharaohs were said to have hidden the wealth of Egypt."
"And possibly buried in an ancient treasure chamber." Lexi stated. "Hmm, there are always been a lot of things that our ancestors may have been left behind. Ever since I came many miles from America to Egypt, I always fancied some of these mythological stories, especially the one that you mentioned right now."
"Heh!" The Curator coughed and spat.
"Oh, come on." Jonathan encouraged the Curator. "Everybody knows the story. The entire necropolis was rigged to sink into the sand. On Pharaoh's command, a flick of the switch! And the whole place could disappear beneath the dunes."
"All we know is that the city mysteriously vanished around 2,134 B.C." Evelyn claimed.
"As the Americans would say, it's all fairy tales and hokum." The Curator said, refusing to believe this nonsense when he held the map closer to the candle, but as that happened, the map caught on fire. "Oh my goodness! Look at that!"
The Curator throws it to the floor. Jonathan drops to his knees and quickly puts it out. He Lifts it up, and saw that the left third of the map was now missing.
"You burned it!" Lexi scoffed loudly. "I can't believe you burnt an ancient map that would've been valuable to this museum!"
"Say it again, he burnt the part with the lost city." Jonathan cried.
"I think its for the best, I'm sure." The Curator said.
"What do you mean?" Stefan asked, confused.
"Let me tell you something, Mr. Salvatore." The Curator began. "Many treasure hunters have wasted their lives in the foolish pursuit of Hamunaptra. No one's ever found it. Most… have never returned."
"I can't believe you killed my map." Jonathan said, sounding quite devastated.
"I'm sure it was a fake, anyway." The Curator believed. "I'm surprised at you, Miss Carnarvon, to be so fooled." He reached for the key/box. Evelyn quickly snatches it off the desk and gives him a very angry, suspicious look.
