Kazumi: All right, first chapter. With two more coming immediately after this one. Please don't hate me for not putting up my other ones yet, I am somehow having a hard time getting back into them; so don't give up hope just yet. Onto the DISCLAIMER! - Like, dude, I sooo don't, like, own Yu-Gi-Oh! Whaat? Ya'll think I'm, like, stupid or something? Nooooo way man, not in a billion years!

'Text'- Thoughts

Text/Text/Text - Word emphasis

Priceless

It's dark. Extremely dark. Dark dark.

The kind of dark where you could think, for a fleeting moment, that you could possibly be stuck in some earth-bound black-hole – completely and utterly endless. The kind of dark where you will stare straight out at your hands, know for certain that they're there millimeters out in front of your damn nose because you're holding them there yourself, and not even see an outline, but just to make sure you're not dreaming about knowing that a hand might be there, you go ahead and smack yourself in the face with it. The kind of dark where you would sit there for at least a good five minutes and then say to yourself, "Holy shit, it's fucking dark in here!" like a complete dumb-ass, as if you had just noticed it.

Welcome to my world.

My name is Jack Kavanagh. I am eighteen years old, female if the name fooled you, American, a departed high school senior, the eldest child of an Archeologist… and I have just been buried alive. I am now alone, fifty feet below the sandy surface in the middle of God only knows where Egypt, and badly injured.

Yeah, I know, sounds like a really bad joke, right? Like one of those things that you would only see on the news after some horrible natural disaster; a mining accident for example. Well, something along those lines. Excavating ancient tombs that haven't been touched in over a couple of millennia could be called "mining" if put into the right context.

We're "mining" for dead people, how's that? Oh, and we can't forget the nice, shiny things buried with them now can we? Of course not. Talk about invasion of one's personal privacy, not like they're going to need them anytime soon. It's just the principal of the thing, you know. I wouldn't want any strange people coming into my room when I'm sleeping and rummage through my things… preferably not my underwear drawer.

Odd comparison, but I think it fits.

Personally, I'd like to dedicate this likely fatal experience to a Pharaoh's Curse. … What? I believe in that kind of stuff, so sue me. It's not like you're going to do yourself any good by getting into legal matters with a girl in a hopeless situation. So there.

Now I bet you're wondering how I got myself into this fantastic mess. I can tell you that I got distracted. I can tell you that there was an earthquake. I can tell you that the people working on this particular project, my father and myself NOT included, probably deserved to have the dig-site recovered for what they were doing with it; I mean, for Christ's sake, can't you leave the ancient civilization leaders alone in their coffins?

Anyway, I think that it would be better if I went back to the beginning and thoroughly retold the tale word-for-word up until this point so you could understand the situation fully.

It all started five days ago, a little while after the Fourth of July. I get a call from my dad telling me that he's going to make a quick pit-stop in the U.S. from his current site in Thera before heading back out to one of the one's in Egypt. Apparently he received a call from a buddy at that certain site that they were uncovering some pretty interesting stuff and wanted him in on the fun.

So why call me? He wanted me to come of course. My dad doesn't get to see the family or I very often from all of the traveling. So he hopes that before I head off to college, he and I get to spend some real father/daughter time together.

I've been on some of his sites before, when I was still just a kid and only twice; once when I was six, and another one when I was eleven. First time I got to go to Machu Pichu. Very cool… but WAY too high for me at that age. Never again I tell you, being that high up on a rocky mountain platform is a once-only thing for sure. The second time was to Pompeii and my first time to an island in Europe. It was nice, but a little creepy knowing that the people that once lived here burned to death and suffocated under the ash that rained from the sky.

Anyway… being the nice, dependable daughter I was raised to be, that and the fact that I had my whole summer ahead of me and had nothing to do except be a couch potato and gain weight on fruit roll-ups and cheddar and sour-cream chips, I complied with the request of to the two week stay at the desert excavation.

Much fun. I get to deal with at least a hundred degree heat during the day, and freezing temperatures at night, scorpions, and sand getting into my eyes every other God awful second. Can anyone say skin cancer? Well, at least I'll have a natural tan, not like some people who stick themselves into a human toaster oven.

I'm really trying not to be pessimistic, but after watching the Discovery channel for years, you tend to notice those types of things more often.

So, after getting ready for my big trip on the last day before I had to leave, being the procrastinator I am, I also got little to no sleep that very same night. Pretty smart huh? Not really, it's just a reaction to stress. The next morning I met up with my father at the airport, seven a.m. sharp for the ride in the private plane borrowed from his contact in Egypt, along with some back-up…

---Four Days Ago---

"We're gonna miss you kiddo!" cried a girlish voice as I was sandwiched in-between four older women, at least a year or two older than I was. They were the friends that I had known since I started middle school who had come to see me off; not all that unusual. The one who cried out was a blonde with long, wavy hair in a low ponytail and gray-blue eyes.

Okay, it's starting to hurt now… "Sarah, that's my ear. … and those would be my ribs that are about to snap like small, feeble twigs." AIR! Blessed air! Oh thank you lord. "That would not have been fun; for me or for Jesse, you know? If I stopped breathing she would've had to perform CPR on me in front of the whooole airport."

"No thank you." Another of my buds muttered with a small smile, a tall strawberry blonde, the tallest out of all of us, with shoulder-length locks, in a ponytail as well, and hazel eyes. Correction – more green than hazel… I give up, they fluctuate. "Who knows where your lips have been."

"Oh the humanity!" I protested, leaning against Sarah with the back of my hand to my forehead in a damsel-in-distress manner while my comrades laughed. "Jesse, how could you! You're our medic, whatever would happen to me if you were not there to pull me from the darkness with your… kiss of life!" I over exaggerate, but it's funny.

"Ew!" Our party's third member, another girl with sleek black hair and purple eyes, contacts, groaned from beside Jesse. "Why'd you wanna kiss Jess?"

And if this was some geeked out anime, there would be my sweat-drop. "Dude, I don't wanna kiss her; I was kidding Tammy."

"Oh… okay!" I swear, I know she's messing with my head, but I can't help but think that it's not an act. My brain…

"Pansy." The last member of the group retorted jokingly as they prodded me in the chest, Carly, a red-head with a high pony-tail. "If you die there I'll never forgive you." She says in mock anger. "I mean it."

"Okay, sure." I laughed as I returned the gesture, ignoring the stares of our parents at the immaturity of our actions. Even though some of us are a little older than eighteen, and some are just at that age, our group's combined age of maturity would be… eleven. Being mature is just too overrated for some of us, ha-ha. "Just as long as I don't get eaten alive by scarabs or some ancient mummy of a cursed, and bald, High Priest tries to suck the life-force and bodily fluids out of me-"

"Nasty!" Ha, I just love grossing out Sarah, Miss I-hate-all-scary-movies. It's a shame; I always thought that The Mummy was classic AND funny. Zeesh.

"-I'll be all right." I grinned. It may sound selfish, but I like it when they all worry about me. I have experience in loneliness from my early years of my life. I'm over them now because of these people to which I owe the honor of putting up with me for so many years without trying to use me as a replacement for the stuffed sparring dummy that Jesse keeps in her basement closet for us. "Trust me all right?" I reassured again, oozing sticky-sweetness into the syllables. "I mean, seriously, what's the worst that Egypt could do?"

My friends looked at me with expressions that led me to believe that they thought otherwise as well as thinking about some situations that I might likely die in. Not surprising. I might as well be the spokesperson for Murphy's Law… I think there was a movie like that once, oh well. "Just be careful, you never know. Got it?" The red-head repeated.

I nodded, "Yeah, got it. No worries mate." Suddenly, my father announced that our flight had arrived – finally, that's all I can say. We got together for one last group hug before I had to grab my carry-on luggage and make my way to the boarding terminal, but not before quickly turning around to shout "I'll bring an undead mummy buddy back for you guys!" before running after my father. Down in the tunnel, I could hear the echo of Carly's voice, either cursing the day I was born or mocking me I bet.

"Interesting friends you have," my dad commented once I was strapped into my seat. Again, I nodded, remembering that he had only met them in person on only one other occasion before this – my high school graduation, when we had to act like adults. Ick.

"Yup, it's a nice click." I said as I stared out the window. Twenty or so minutes later and we were down the runway and into the wild blue yonder. There were no clouds so I could see everything, including my house, until we were so high up we could barely see anything at all. If I wasn't getting an adrenaline rush off of being so high, I probably would've noticed the slight twinge in my gut – my warning bells if you will.

It's too bad I didn't though, because if I did, I wouldn't have even set foot on the plane in the first place.

Kazumi: Wow, only four pages. Definitely not my shortest but still pretty short. Remember, there's going to be the first three chapters put up all at once, so be on the lookout if you so please. Ja ne minna-san!