Van Helsing and Bloodgood sat side by side in front of a large screen, watching Lilith recieve her fans after exiting the arena. The giant television cast a glow over them both.
Bloodgood hadn't made a single noise since Draculaura's story had begun. She couldn't find any words to say-not any that she could say around the humans, at least.
She was afraid, Intrigued, but afraid.
The administrator was murmuring with one of the guards, keeping his eyes on his neice as she smiled that signature van Helsing smile. "There's no sign of her?"
The guard shook his head. "No, sir."
"Hmph." The administrator sat back in his chair, his expression unreadable. "I don't buy the vampire disappearing, but this is unprecedented."
"We're ready to act when you are, sir."
"No, don't act yet. It'll arouse suspiscion. Just keep an eye out for the monster, but don't make it an ordeal just yet. We have to find out whether she was wiped or not before we cause mass hysteria."
The guard nodded, and left the viewing room as van Helsing dismissed him.
The corners of van Helsing's mouth were pointing down, and his brow was heavy set. He looked like he didn't know whether to be outraged or worried. "What do you think, Bloodgood?"
"I don't know what to think, administrator."
On screen, Lilith accepted a medal after setting her bag on the ground. Bloodgood didn't call attention to how gently Lilith seemed to be handling her belongings.
Back in the holding area below the arena, the other monsters were still waiting. Some of them had fallen asleep, huddling as close together as they could without getting reprimanded.
It couldn't have been more than two hours after Draculaura was taken that they guards began walking around the monsters again to reach the next target: a sleeping mummy who had a single hand clutching the gorgon kid's.
Cleo was jolted awake when she was pulled up by two gaurds. She didn't even have time to properly wake up as they ripped her and Deuce's hands apart and tugged her up. She reflexively tried tightening her hand's grip, but she was too slow; her fingers closed around empty air as her brain adjusted itself to what was happening.
After a moment, she put the pieces of the situation together, and didn't struggle. She couldn't bear to look back at the others at all, and tried to ignore any sound coming from them. Instead, her eyes turned to the guard on her left. "You don't have to be so rough, you know."
The guard sarcastically grinned at her and jostled her by the arm. She bit her tongue and resisted the urge to do or say anything she would regret.
Before she knew it, they were behind the same door that Draculaura had entered earlier, and Cleo was trying to put Deuce's voice out of her head, but it was hard when she had heard it telling the guards to be "cool" just moments ago.
They gave her the same procedure as Draculaura, and she winced when the needle entered her arm, but nearly gasped when they put the blindfold on her. "Wait, what? What are you doing?"
The blindfold made it dark all around her. No matter where she looked, it was a void. Her breathing became shallow despite the injection's oncoming effect, and she felt the dark collapsing in on her. Now she wanted to struggle, but she couldn't move her limbs.
The only thing she could do was try to breathe as she passed out in the guard's hold.
When she woke up, the blindfold was gone, but the pitch black darkness was still there. Her heart seized up again as if she had never been injected with sedative.
Trying to move, she found she was covered head to toe in wraps – not her usual ones, but scratchy ones that had an odd scent, sort of like old paper. Something heavy was pulling at her neck, and her arms were crossed over her chest. When she tried lifting them, she couldn't stretch them out very far before they bumped into a barrier.
Oh, Ra, she thought. Of course. This is a sarcophagus. I am trapped inside.
Her first impulse was to begin screaming, but she tried composing herself like she had practiced. She began to think. How would she get out of this thing? She wasn't about to wait around for some second-rate "hero" to come excavate her.
She tried moving a little bit, and noticed the sarcophagus wasn't on an entirely flat surface; the floor was likely rough and uneven. Maybe she could tip the thing over?
Rocking side to side did, in fact, make the thing wobble back and forth. It startled Cleo when it came close to falling over, but she reminded herself that this was the goal, and began rocking again.
Sure enough, the heavy casket fell and the breath was knocked out of her. It was louder than the mummy had braced herself for, but when she reached out, her hand was able to stretch farther this time. The force must have knocked the top open.
Cleo crawled her way out of the coffin. She was out now, but there were still wraps covering her face, so the dark wasn't gone quite yet. Resisting the urge to panic, she pawed at her head with her wrapped hands (it was like she was wearing mittens) and found a loose end to pull at.
Once her head was free, her hair fell around her shoulders and she gasped in relief as she looked around. The room she was in was the most beautiful one she had ever seen; there was more gold and lapis lazuli lining the room than she could have imagined existing, and hieroglyphics ran across the walls. Even the exterior of the sarcophagus behind her looked shinier than anything she had ever seen.
Looking closer at the thing around her neck, she saw it was a pendant of some kind. There was a medallion with a large blue stone in the middle, and Cleo swore she could hear the faintest humming coming from it.
Despite the beauty of the place where she woke up, her heart was still pounding a mile a minute. There was no visible exit, and there was nothing for her to work with besides the glistening treasure that was scattered around, and the box where she woke up. In any other circumstance, she would have been over the moon at all her new things, but she would have time for them later; for now, she needed to focus on the situation. She scoured the walls, pounding on them and shouting for help, looking for any possible opening she could find.
This went on for quite a while, yielding no results. She sat on the steps that led up to where the sarcophagus was previously standing upright and tried to control her breathing, which was getting rapid and shallow again. There was no escape in sight.
She spent the next thirty or so minutes in this state of helplessness, and she was about to begin screaming just to hear some kind of noise when the room interrupted her.
The entire tomb seemed to groan as the walls trembled and slowly began to split open at the spot across from where Cleo's sarcophagus was supposed to be standing. Cleo backed up a few steps, but she had nowhere to hide. Except for the thing she had woken up in, but it was too heavy for her to stand back up in time.
She straightened her back. Whoever her hero was must have been the one to open it; it probably opened from the outside.
She could feel the sound reverberating in her bones as the walls parted enough for her to see that there was, in fact, someone else here.
It was a boy, about her age, dressed in a beige button-down shirt that was unbuttoned at the top and that was probably white in hue before this all started. He had a hat on for some reason (though it seemed incredibly impractical), a knife on his belt, and a torch raised in his left hand. He had a stone cold expression, like he was trying to look intimidating.
His eyes scanned the room, widening a bit at the shimmering treasure, until they landed on Cleo, whose hands were on her hips. Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Cleo said, "Well, you took long enough." She thought maybe if she acted like she hadn't just been calming down from a panic attack, she would seem less pathetic.
The boy looked bewildered, and Cleo noticed he was eyeballing the amulet. The dots connected in her head. "What, is this what you need?"
"Uh…"
She took it off and tossed it at his feet. "There you go. I don't want it. It keeps humming."
He took a step back, obviously suspicious. "Didn't expect you to be able to talk. Or to have skin that isn't turning to dust."
"I didn't expect you to be so boring, so it looks like we're both exceeding expectations today."
The boy gripped the torch like a weapon. "Why should I believe you would just give me the Medallion without defending it?"
"Why would I defend it?"
His eyes narrowed. "You're bluffing. This is the fake one. The real one is around here somewhere. You must have riddles and clues to tell me where it is, if you're not going to attack me."
Cleo rolled her eyes. "Look, I just want out of here. Believe it or not, I have friends to check on, and you're not exactly speeding things along."
"Hah! Now I know you're trying to trick me." He sidestepped the amulet and approached her. "Just tell me where the real Medallion is."
The torch getting closer made her more conscious of her wraps. "Be careful with where you hold that thing! I told you that's the real one, I gave it to you, now take the Ra-damn thing and we'll be on our separate ways!"
She ducked on the opposite side of the torch hand and grabbed the amulet from the floor, holding it up to his ear. "Listen! It's been doing this the entire time I've been here!"
He stood for a moment before turning to face her, looking like he was concentrating on the humming. "It's like my textbook said. So… you weren't lying."
Cleo groaned. "Is it truly that hard to believe?"
"That's not what you're supposed to do."
"Oh well. We're both still in one piece. Now, it's been divine, but I'm going to find my way out. It should be an easy trail to follow, if you desecrated the rest of the tomb like you did with that wall."
He took the amulet from her hand and stared at it, like he was expecting something to happen when he made contact with it. "Yeah. Uh, okay."
Cleo didn't look back as she slipped through the newly formed door.