With wavering hands in the dark, tiny wooden box, in which he had been left to rot, the man used the palm-sized gold coin that he had pulled out from his back pocket to engrave his final testament on the inner lid:
Some chains can never be broken. You have left me rotting in this hell hole; buried alive, erased, and you never looked back. But you can't outrun the past, and when it catches up, when all your lies collapse around you, I'll be there sifting through the wreckage. You owe me.
-5 Years Later—
"What is this, a joke?" asked Elena, impatiently.
"No, no."
"Nate, you promised me an archaeological find and here we are standing in front of the Taj Mahal!"
"Ha, ha. You'll see," Nathan chuckled under his breath, as he proceeded to the towering citadel that was the famous Taj Mahal. Once they had advanced to Yamuna, Nathan spoke again, "Just North of here is the Moonlight Garden. Follow me." He led Elena through to the garden and checked to see if anyone was around. He handed Elena one of the shovels which had been laid down by the grass.
"What are we doing?" she asked anxiously.
"We're digging up an old 'friend'... The coffin should be just over here," he walked over to where he had been pointing and began to dig. "Hurry! We have to be discrete!"
After swiftly digging up piles of dirt and hauling them over their shoulders, the pair pulled up the wooden coffin by the metal handles on the side. Nathan wedged his shovel in place and utilized it ad though it was a crowbar, in order to remove the lid. Nathan turned up the lid and ran his fingers along the almost illegible inscription. He read out loud and then gently put down the lid, "Yep... I owe you one..."
He knelt on one knee and leant over the side of the coffin. For a moment, he stared at the body and then turned to Elena.
"You see this mask on his face?" he asked her. She nodded. "It's the Mask of Agamemnon. This artefact is a funeral mask crafted in gold, and was found over the face of a body located in a burial shaft. This body." Slowly, he removed the mask. "Poor Dante, I left him alone in a caved in chamber. From there he found his way through to the burial site, where he took a poison which didn't quite kill him. However, the excavators at the site thought he was dead and placed him in a coffin."
"But how did he wind up here?"
Although Nathan could answer her question, he remained silent. "That doesn't matter," he replied after a short while. "What matters is this."
He turned over the mask, to find another engraving. It was a series of drawings. He pulled out some paper and began to make charcoal rubbings of them all. When he was finished, he collected what he needed and grabbed Elena's hand. "Now we run!"