(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)
-Ravyne
Death Becomes Her
Chapter 10:
Kat isn't sure what was different about this time but when she was taken over by the curse, she remembers everything that happened. It was like she was floating outside of her body as she watched things transpire and she couldn't do anything to stop it.
She remembers everything—every light that went out. Apparently, the weapon didn't see humans who were under control of the creature as humans any longer. Each of their lights was snapped out of existence as if they were nothing more than simple candles.
Kat feels sick to her stomach just thinking back on it.
She faintly remembers fighting mind-controlled people left in right in one continuous mob down the street until sometime in the night the people came free from the spell and dropped unconsciously into the streets. After that, time seemed to blur over and it was hard to tell when from when. She remembers a lot of sand.
When her control over her body slowly began to return to her, toe by toe and finger by finger, Kat could feel herself sinking gradually back into her form. Her vision clears more and more until the poor state of her body hits her and she falls to the ground limply. For a long time she just lies there weakly as the winds of the desert whip over her and spray her with sand. It won't be long before it buries her alive; at this point in time, does she really care?
Kat tries not to remember the memories of the battle, all the deaths, but the recollections assault her without remorse.
Through the eyes of the weapon, all the lives she came across looked like simple forms of gray light that thrummed like heart beats. Each of those living lights turned red for a brief moment whenever the weapon struck them before dimming and going out as the physical body fell to the ground.
She curls in tighter around herself as her eyes begin to sting and tears spill from her eyes.
She killed people—innocent people. It wasn't their fault, they were being controlled.
As sobs shudder through her body, the sandy wind continues to wail and the sun scorches her skin from high in the sky. She lies there until her body can't take any more of the sweltering heat and she's forced to climb to her feet and start walking. Sometime during the fight, something must've happened to her shirt because it flutters around in the wind uselessly, barely hanging onto her body.
Eventually she just pulls it off over her head, her undershirt flapping in the wind, and lets it go to the gale that travels across the sands, leaving the baking sun to drive away the cold that begins to shiver through her system again as before.
She's not sure how long she walks on her unstable legs. Kat's not sure how many times she stumbles to the ground and gets back up. All she knows is that she finally climbs to the top of a sand dune and stops as her eyes scan the familiar horizon beyond.
Hamunaptra, Kat thinks. How'd I get back?
Swallowing hard against an even dryer throat, Kat heads across the sands to the city, grateful when the crumbling walls pass by her and shield her from the relentless winds. The first thing Kat spies are the camels. The Americans or diggers who didn't make it out alive from here on their last visit weren't able to ride those camels out again. So now they roam the ruins quietly plucking away at the stray blades of dry grass around the area.
One camel, a roughly familiar one, strolls up to her as she comes huddled up into the city and takes a gentle nibble out of her hair. Kat pulls away with a grin as she looks up at the beast in confusion, "Haven't you been trying to go at my heels all this time? Why the change of heart?"
The beast grumbles as it munches a mouth of grass but doesn't leave her side. Kat nudges its neck and motions for it to rejoin the heard to which it reluctantly agrees with a grunt. Left alone again, she lets her eyes scan the city and finds the entrance way to the temple down below. She pauses outside and stares grudgingly into the dark halls beyond.
Her eyes fall to her feet and notice the footprints leading in and confusion sets in. Surly during the time they've been gone, the winds would've swept in enough sand to wipe away all signs of stuff like this. Kat sets her shoulders and heads in.
Someone must be here.
The rocks tumble loudly as Rick and Ardeth man-handle them one by one in order to clear the obviously recent cave in made specifically to slow them down. Rick grits his teeth angrily as he tosses the stones to the side, each one he envisions as the head of the one he hates more than anyone at the moment.
Imhotep.
If the man hadn't turned all those people in the city in a zombie horde, Evie would still be by his side. If he hadn't turned evil those thousands of years ago, Kat would be safe, free, and happy. Now, his only living family is God only knows where suffering under some curse and the only woman he's possibly ever loved is held captive to be some sacrifice in an evil ritual.
He can't imagine how things can get any worse.
Then again, he's not the only one suffering. Rick's eyes shift to his right as he works to move the rocks away and studies Ardeth's dark skinned face. During the short time he's known the madjai, he watched him go from being a man he'd known he could never trust to a man who…
Well…he isn't quite sure.
One thing he does know is that Ardeth has grown a soft spot for his sister and Rick isn't sure if he likes it or not. Kat is someone who doesn't trust easily but when she does, it's with her whole heart. Ardeth is a madjai and if Rick has come to know anything about these warriors, it's that they will do anything to stop Imhotep. That includes putting their own lives…or others….at risk.
That could mean Kat if Rick doesn't do something about this infatuation quickly.
"Take those bigger stones first," Jonathan calls from behind them as he holds the torch. "Take them from the top otherwise the whole thing will cave in on us. Come on, put your backs into it."
Finally, Rick can't take much more of the man's bossy attitude and he spins around to glare daggers at him, Ardeth joining him angrily.
Jonathan grins sheepishly and backs off, "Yes, well, you got the idea. Chop, chop."
Rick and Ardeth turn back to the pile of stone and continue on in their work of moving the pile out of their way. For a second, Rick wonders if there could possibly be an easier way to get to Evie. Ardeth had assured him that this was the quickest way and that the cave in hadn't been there before so that only confirmed their belief that Imhotep had caused it to bar their path.
As if attacking them in the plane with a sandstorm wasn't harsh enough.
"Gents, you should come and have a look at this," Jonathan calls from behind them but they both ignore his beckoning. "AGH! AGH!"
Ardeth and Rick both leap out of their skins and spin around, each grabbing for their respective weapons. Rick glares at Jonathan who's flailing dramatically, "What?"
"MY ARM! MY ARM!"
Rick quickly goes to Jonathan's side and rips the man's shirt open off his shoulders just as some disgusting things comes crawling up under Jonathan's flesh to the top of his arm. "Whoa!" Rick gasps, "Hold him!"
"Do something, do something!" Jonathan wails urgently.
Ardeth steps behind Jonathan and grabs him sternly under the arm to keep him still while Rick whips out his knife and bares to blade to the puckered flesh where the bug is embedded.
"NOT THAT! NOT THAT!" Jonathan quickly argues when he spots the knife but Rick has already slipped the knife under his flesh and starts digging. A second later and with a flip of the blade, Rick flings the embedded scarab out from Jonathan's arm and across the room from them.
The bug lands with a quiet poof on the sand, wiggles around a bit with a high pitched gurgle, before making a U-turn and scurrying back towards them hungrily. Rick pulls his gun, takes aim-.
SLASH! HIISSSSS!
Out of the darkness of the hallway behind them, a blazing whip snaps out across the floor and splits the bug in half in the blink of an eye, leaving its carcass steaming from the heat sizzling off the beam of emerald light. The sound echoes through the halls around them like a ghostly scream.
They all turn to dark tunnel as Kat strides through…and yet doesn't. Her eyes are glowing bright green, no sign of his sister anywhere to be found in that gaze, and flooded with anger that might as well be as old as time. The weapon pauses in the middle of the room, paying the men no mind, and its gaze stops on the cave in blocking the path.
Growling like a vengeful feline, the weapon stretches out her hand and, like a breath, the sands beneath their feet start to move like snakes across the ground towards the pile of stones, slithering over them and into the crevices between each slate. A few seconds later, the weapon flicks her wrist and the stones fly across the room out of the way at her command and crash against the far wall as loud as lightning from a storm.
The weapons slips into the opening in the wall, leaving the men to stand there dumbfounded in her wake.
"W-wait," Rick breathes before hurrying after the weapon, snatching a torch up from the ground as he goes, "Wait! Kat!"
The opening becomes more and more narrows, forcing him to slide through sideways until he finally comes to the end of the tunnel beyond into a darkened room. He tosses the torch to the ground with his bag before squeezing through and jumping the short distance to the ground. He looks up and finds the warm light from the torch highlighting the fallen form of his unconscious sister.
"KAT!" Rick rushes to his sister's side without waiting for the others to catch up and gently rolls her over onto his bent knee so that she's sitting up a ways. "Kat? Katherine, answer me. Come on."
Kat groans and takes a deep breath before coughing. Her eyes flutter open and she looks up, "Yeah, I can…hear you."
Rick sighs heavily in relief and wraps his arms around her, rocking her gently for a moment in silence. Jonathan and Ardeth wait patiently a few paces off for the siblings to reunite. Kat is the first to break the silence.
"R-Rick….Rick, I love you, but I need to breathe," she hisses. Rick loosens his hold and stares down at her.
"You alright? How do you feel?"
"Honestly-."
"Yes, honestly!"
Kat pokes him in the side for cutting her off, "Let me finish, idiot. I was going to say, honestly I've had better days and that I feel worse each time I come out of the daze this curse puts me under."
"How'd you get here?" Jonathan asks while Rick helps his sister to her feet and holding her up.
"I think…I walked…or ran…"
"Across the desert…?" Rick gawks.
Kat nods slowly, "Time's kind of funny when I go under. I remember…I remember more of what happened this time. I saw myself fighting but I couldn't control my body. It was like I was floating outside of myself." Her words come to a dead stop as she stares down at her feet, her face pales drastically, "I remember…all the people…that I killed."
No one responds except for Rick who tightens his grip gently on her shoulder, "They weren't people anymore-."
"Yes they were," Kat responds in a drained voice. "I could see the light inside of them, their souls. I could see those lights vanish as they died. They were innocent people, Rick."
"You weren't yourself," he tells her.
"Was I?" Kat snaps, turning to glare up at him, "It may not have been me, Rick, but it was done by my hand." Breathing heavy, she pulls away out of her brother's grip and turns away, "I don't even…know if I'm me anymore."
"We will end this curse," Ardeth states suddenly.
Unable to meet his gaze, Kat shakes her head and pulls out the last bit of determination she can find inside of her, "Forget it. Let's just get this over and done with."
She reaches for the knife tucked at the back of her brother's waist and pulls it out of the holster. Before he can say anything, she aims it and hurls it through the air towards a round, familiar object sitting quietly atop a tower; a beam of light from the roof highlights it as the knife clashes against the metal loudly. Across the way, the Egyptian mirror spins and reflects the beam through the room, lighting it up for all to see. Almost instantly, the darkness is replaced by a golden glare as the light reflects off the mountains and mountains of gold before them.
They gaze out across it, speechless.
Kat starts down the stairs first and the guys follow a bit more slowly. Between the statues of gold, the columns of gold, the pottery of gold, or just the huge mounds of golden coins piled up, Kat can't tell a difference between any of the ancient artifacts since they all bare the same color.
It's just…gold.
"Can you see…?" Jonathan whispers through his shock.
"Yeah," Rick answers his unfinished sentence.
"Can you believe…?"
"Yeah."
"Can we just…"
"No."
Kat scoffs, picking up her pace as her eyes spy a golden bladed sword displayed on a golden stand a few feet away, "Well he may not but I'm getting something out of all this chaos."
Her hands lift the sword deftly off the golden stand and lower it to her level. Her hand grips the hilt, fitting it into her palm, before spinning it by her shoulder; it gives off a hum through the air.
"And…where did you learn to use a sword like that?" Rick asks, narrowing his gaze at his sister.
Kat lifts her eyes to his and the emerald irises are spinning brightly again.
"Gotcha," he nods.
Gurgles and growls mumble behind them and Kat whips her eyes towards the walkway nearby as the ground breaks open and a decaying mummy starts crawling from out of the sand, and another breaks loose from the floor behind Ardeth and he spins towards it with his gun raised at the ready, and yet another from behind Jonathan across the room. The team back towards each other, standing back to back as the creatures close in on them.
"Who the hell are these guys?" Rick asks as more mummies begin to crawl out of the ground.
"Priests," Ardeth explains. "Imhotep's priests."
As if the name triggers it, Kat's eyes begin to glow green and a cat-like growl tears out from behind her fangs as the weapon takes hold of her again. Rick glances over his shoulder at his sister warily and watches the weapon flip the sword expertly in her hand.
"Alright then," he states in contentment.
Accepting that as a good to go, the men start firing their gun and the weapon races forward with her sword raised. Mummies go down left and right, one by one, but the mummies crawling from the ground just replace each of their fallen with two more. Rick grabs Jonathan by the back of his shirt collar and starts pulling him back as they retreat towards the door at the far end of the treasure room.
The weapon spins, raises her hand and the ground splits open with a roar, swallowing the mummified priests into the dark depths below. Rick and Ardeth exchange a worried look; the weapon is getting stronger and Kat was getting weaker.
Only death could possibly follow at this point, but who's?
They keep retreating down the close quarters of a tunnelway and into another large room where Jonathan has brought the torch. The glowing eyes of the weapon vanish suddenly before the light of the torch can touch her and Kat slump to her knees. Breathing heavily, she shakes her head and looks back over her shoulder as Rick and Ardeth back into the room, continuously letting off rounds at the countless mummies that file down the hall after them.
Quickly climbing to her feet, Kat brings the sword in her hand with her and stops a step behind the two men just as Rick pulls out a stick of dynamite. She gasps and snatches it out of his hand before he can light it, "I thought we had this discussion? You and explosives don't mix."
Kat takes the match from her brother and strikes it against the heel of her boot as Rick and Ardeth take a step back. With a long toss, the dynamite bounces off the walls of the hall and lands on the sandy floor. Spinning on her heels in a panic, Kat dashes after the others who take cover and Ardeth grabs her by the belt as she skids by too far and pulls her down with him as they all duck behind the base of the statue.
The explosion erupts not a second later. Somehow landing in the crook of Ardeth's arm, Kat ducks her head as Ardeth curls over her to shield their heads from the debris that follows. A few pieces of stone tumble and land on them all the same but nothing dangerous.
Kat turns her head to cough only to come face to face with Ardeth, so close she can see every detail of his dark eyes. Their labored breathes mingle in the small space between them and she can almost taste him on her tongue—she swallows.
"Alright, guys," Rick groans. "Let's get diggin'."
Ardeth and Kat blink and quickly sit up away from each other. Rick and Jonathan jump at their abruptness.
"What's up with you?" Rick demands at his sister who jumps to her feet and wipes away the sand from her clothes. "And why is your face so red?"
Kat's eyes widen in horror at her brother's words, glancing briefly at Ardeth before rushing away, but not before she snatches Rick's weapons bag in the process. She unrolls it and starts picking through his very limited knife collection, "We're in a hurry, right? Get digging!"
Rick and Jonathan do just that, pulling out pry bars and shovels as they start banging away at the statue's base, leaving Kat and Ardeth to guard the entry and exit ways so they can work.
Kat keeps her back to Ardeth, staying crouched as she tucks away as many knives as she can on her person; which is hard considering she's lost most of her sheaths over the last few days. Even with the work to distract her, it doesn't help in the slightest. She's still hyper aware of Ardeth being right there. Her heart hammers in her chest against her will and she prays that no one can hear it down in these halls where even the slightest sound echoes like a roar.
As she gazes down, Kat realizes terrifyingly that there are no knives left for her to get. She's left with only move left and that's to stand and keep a proper look out. Just the thought makes her stomach flip anxiously. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she releases it slowly and stands to her feet, taking a post next to Ardeth. She licks her lips and keeps her gaze locked on the doorway in front of them.
Every hair on her arms is raised nervously even though he's three feet away.
"You seem nervous."
Kat stops breathing, "Nervous? Me? No. Just ready for all this to be over and done with."
Ardeth pauses in his work loading the gun in his hands, glancing down at her, "I see."
"Yep."
Another long silence and Kat breathes.
"What will you do when all this is finally done?"
She sucks in her breath again and bores her eyes into the dark wall at the end of the hall beyond, "If the curse doesn't kill me? …Uh…..No idea."
"I see."
"You see what?" Kat blurts out against her will. She quickly bites her lip, cursing herself. Ardeth stares at her at her outburst. "What I meant to say was…uh… Oh, forget it. I'm not good at this stuff!" Kat drops to a knee again, grabs the sharpening block from her brother's bag and starts running it along the sword blade in her hand to clean off the gunk from the mummies the weapon had fought in the treasure chamber.
They both fall into a nervous silence again, each one tending to their own weapons rigidly. Kat fights off a shiver bewildered as to how she can be so cold when she feels like she's on fire; she swallows again.
Even knowing this she doesn't understand why she's acting so insane. Sure she's attracted to the guy—who wouldn't be?—but it's not like she likes the man. Her heart continues to hammer in her chest, something it's done since meeting him, and Kat wonders about that. Looking back over the time she's spent here, meeting him and fighting with him has been different from anything she's experienced. She's liked a few guys before and sparred with them on occasion but none of them left her breathless or her heart hammering the way it does now.
Could she actually have grown feelings for him without knowing it? There's no way. Kat has always been careful not to let that happen…
"Katherine."
Her heart all but explodes in her chest. When has he ever said her name like that? Or said it at all? God, it sounded almost perfect coming from him. Kat shuts her eyes tightly, fearing his next words as she holds her breath.
"There is a place that I know of that may have answers you seek. There are people there who may be able to help you."
Kat opens her eyes slowly, staring down at the blade in her hand, "T-Thank you. I'd…appreciate that…though, I'm sure I'd need a map to get there."
"I would take you," he answers, his words stop her heart in her chest. "That is, if you'd wish the aid."
Kat can't help it. She turns her eyes up at him to search his face for a hidden meaning, but his eyes are fixated on the hallway beyond. She opens her mouth to answer, practically tasting the words on her tongue.
"Gurrrrrgraaaaa…"
Kat leaps to her feet as the shadows move at the end of the hall.
"Damn, these guys just don't quit, do they?!" Rick grunts from his work on the stone face of the statue.
Ardeth cocks the gun and the sharp sound echoes, "Keep digging."
Kat watches him move closer towards the doorway and aims for the end of the hall as he readies to shoot the first mummy to expose itself from around the corner. She's not sure what to do, thoughts swirling in her head chaotically.
She can't really be of much help to Ardeth at the doorway, her brother and Jonathan are just pulling the box free from under the statue so they have that covered, and she's just standing here uselessly.
Ardeth's gun starts going off as the mummies close in. Shots fill the room and hurt her ears.
"The book of Amun-Ra," Jonathan suddenly states in awe as they open the box and unwrap the golden book inside. The shots abruptly ceasefire and they all look up in alarm—no more ammo.
Ardeth turns back to look at them all, "Save the girl. Kill the creature."
Kat's blood runs cold in her system. No, he wouldn't…
Their eyes lock briefly for a moment and then he turns away from her and rushes the mummies closing in down the hall with a war cry. The mummies surround him almost instantly as he fights to keep them at bay. Kat is taking a step forward to rush in after him, but a crumbling noise makes her stop.
Back in the opposite direction, the doorway they had collapsed with the dynamite is starting to shift. A mummified hand breaks through the rubble.
"They're digging through!" Jonathan exclaims.
The top part of the rubble tears away and a hole is formed but quickly filled as the mummy starts crawling through. Kat can feel the weapon inside begin to take over again and her heart shudders in her chest.
"Rick," she calls to him. As their eyes meet she smiles, "I'll keep them off of you but you need to hurry. I don't know how much time I got left."
"What-?" he takes her by the arm but she gently pushes him away.
"Trust me. Get to Evie and get out," Kat tells him. "I may not be able to come out of the change this time to make sure you do but I know you'll do the right thing."
"Wait, KATHERINE!"
Kat tears away from him, eyes locking on the mummies breaking through the rubble, and feels the vicious power of the weapon consumer her in anger as it takes control.