Cassie gasped for air as her head surfaced. She still had her hand on Omaria's shoulder and was pulling her through the door. There was an army of mummies coming at them. She wanted to swim back, but the closing door was barely open and water was starting to flood the hallways. The doors were about to close in on her feet and she yanked them in time. Harkov, Kamille, and Khaled swam through the door and fell beside the three adventurers.
Cassie, Derek, and Omaria free of her hogties rolled away from Harkov, Kamille, and Khaled. Despite the door closing to prevent water from flooding the hallways, water was starting to slowly leak through the walls and ceilings around them and the water rising up to their knees, and if that wasn't so worse, two dozen mummies were advancing towards them.
The six of them used whatever resources they had available to shoot at the mummies and move forward. Cassie and Derek were killing mummies like zombies by stabbing them with their pitons while Omaria was using Derek's grappling hook. The three remaining Overlord soldiers had knives to kill the mummies. When the first wave of mummies was gone, another wave of two dozen mummies appeared at the end of the hallway.
Out of all the six people still standing, Khaled was the most terrified one out of all of them. He recognized that his superior officer was dead, they weren't going to get the virus, mummies were going to crush their hearts and suck them dry, and the tomb was filling up with water, already reaching just below their waists. He was not going to have it anymore, so he waddles forward through the water, maneuvering out of mummies' grips and desperately tries to run to escape the tomb.
"We gotta get out of here," Cassie shouted as she recognized that the water was rising too quickly.
"No shit," Derek replied. "Come on Omaria."
Cassie and the others ran forward, leaving an enraged Harkov and Kamille behind to deal with the mummies. Once the two Overlord soldiers finished off the mummies, Harkov lunged for Derek and pulled him underwater. Kamille lunged for Omaria and tackled her underwater.
Cassie stopped wadding and turned back. Both of her friends and enemies were underground, drowning the other. Cassie attempts to run back, but a hand grabs her by the hair and yanks her back painfully. She is forced to turn around face-to-face with one more mummy. Cassie throws a punch aiming for its face, but the mummy caught it. The mummy uses its free hand to choke Cassie and using the other hand to reach into her chest area.
She winces in pain as she feels the most vital organ in her body be ripped from her chest supernaturally. She gasps at the sight of her heart in the mummy's hand and tried to reach for it. The mummy held the heart far out of her reach and felt the weight in its hand. Fearful that the mummy was going to crush her heart, she starts panicking. Then she remembered that the Overlord soldiers were drowning her friend and her Derek. What was worse? Letting your friends and your person drown to death or waiting for your heart to be crushed and the life sucked out of you in front of your eyes?
The mummy groaned as if trying to say something. It slowly raises its arm down and holds the heart in front of a wide-eye Cassie. The mummy tilts its head from side to side like a weight scale, groaning softly like a baby. Cassie listened to the thumping of her own heartbeat as she feared the worst until the mummy gently placed the heart back into her chest. The mummy's grip around her throat lessened and she was put down to the floor. The mummies all around her seemed to sense her weightless heart and moved around her.
Her heart was as light as a feather and she was spared but more importantly, she would be going to a good afterlife once she died. "I guess those stories about weighing one's heart were indeed true. I knew that this entire time." No longer was she worried about the mummies being a threat, so she took out her one pistol and dove underwater.
Derek was punching Harkov in the face underwater. Cassie swims towards them and aimed her gun and put it to Harkov's head. He didn't seem to notice as he was too preoccupied with trying to kill Derek. Cassie squeezed the trigger, but the bullet did not fire out for water interfering with the firing system.
Derek noticed Cassie and reached for her belt once she got closer. He snatches the grenade from her and punches Harkov in his throat, causing him to open his mouth in pain. He shoves the grenade in Harkov's mouth and uppercuts him with his index finger inserting itself through the pin and yanking off.
Harkov's eyes widened in terror upon the familiar clink and desperately tried to get the grenade out his mouth. Derek already planned ahead and punched him so he would bite down on the spoon and release it. Derek uses both of his knees to kick Harkov back and shove Cassie and himself away from Harkov.
The last thing that was heard of Harkov was him screaming through the water as the grenade went BOOM with a loud splash and his head went in several places.
"Don't be thinking dirty thoughts," Derek smirked upon getting a gulp of air for the first time in thirty seconds. "Thanks for the grenade, Cass."
"No problem; it was not my intention, yet not my problem either." She said that wrong and she realized it. "I mean…."
As for Omaria and Kamille, Omaria managed to shove her cousin off of her and surface in time before she drowned.
"Guys, we have to get out of here," Omaria said. "Leave Kamille to the mummies."
As fate would have it, the mummies did indeed grab hold of Kamille. The same one that was choking Cassie was choking Kamille.
Cassie and the other two watched the mummy reach for Kamille's chest and pull her heart out. Cassie must've guessed that her heart must be heavy as a rock because as soon as the mummy grabbed her heart, his whole hand went down to his waist level. "Oh no," she whispered. "No, Kamille."
Even though Kamille was Cassie's enemy and betrayer, she could not bear to see her former friend die a slow and painful death like Hamed and Rahmaan. Using the last bullet in her pistol, she cocked the gun to exit out any waters within the gun and aimed the barrel for Kamille's head as her skin began caving in. She squeezes the trigger and kills Kamille on the spot with a well-aimed headshot, giving her a merciful death rather than let her die slowly and painfully. Her corpse sank underwater. Even that was not enough because if her heart was heavy, then that meant that she was going to a bad afterlife. "May God have mercy on your soul, Kamille."
"We have to go, now," Derek spoke. He ran forward and around the mummies. Cassie and Omaria followed. The mummies seemed to sense that the three adventurers were friendly with weightless hearts and did not need to be taken down. Cassie started racing forward, but the water rose to her chest level, making it very difficult to run quickly. The ceiling was only a few feet above them, so they could still swim out of there. They reached the part of the hallway where they made a right turn into the wall of mummies earlier and retraced their steps.
When they got to the narrow opening they crawled through earlier, all three of them knew they had to swim underwater and none of them hesitated. Cassie took a deep breath and plunged headfirst into the water. Derek and Omaria copied her and swam after her. They swam through the narrow opening and back through the steep floor the two slid down earlier.
They surfaced sooner than they expected and they realized that the water had not flooded this part of the hallway that Cassie and Derek fought the Overlord soldiers in. Derek sighed deeply with relief upon the realization that Niko did indeed manage to escape the tomb, and so did Lachina.
The water level in the hallway was currently up to their calves, so they had a good chance of running, but the door that Derek and Niko came through earlier was sealed off tight.
"Why do the doors always close behind us?" Cassie asked herself. "Let's try that door I came through."
The three of them ran back towards the door that Cassie used to escape the mummy general. Like on the opposite side of the door, there were two levers, so this time Cassie would not need to trick a mummy into pulling a lever. Cassie and Derek yanked the lever and waited for the door to open completely. The water flooded onto the bridge and the three of them ran through and the door closed behind them.
They had to repeat every single test and trial Cassie had to overcome all by herself, albeit reversed. Even when they made it to the end of the bridge, the door opened and the blocks that came down from the ceiling recede back into their original positions, allowing the three to run through the halls without the worry of being crushed or drowned as there were no floods. They were so close to making it out of the tomb before it floods completely. The hole the jeep made in the wall was being filled with water, making Cassie realizing that the tomb itself was sinking into the sand. Derek and Omaria climbed through the ascending hole that the jeep made, with Cassie going last. Cassie barely made it through in time before her waist got crushed from the sinking tomb entrance. Cassie crawls hysterically fast as she could to get away from the sinking tomb. Derek and Omaria were already on their feet and running through the sandstorm. Cassie caught up to them without looking over her shoulder.
Somewhere from afar, Khaled was dragging Lachina away from the sandstorm and to safety. Crawling on their hands and knees, the sandstorm slowly subsided to reveal what was becoming of the tomb: Sinking into the ground like a rock in water with actual water replacing its position, making a small pond. The two Overlord soldiers saw Cassie and the other two escaping from the Tomb in time before it sank into the earth, gone forever, but they did nothing to chase them down. Instead, they just laid there on their backs and gazed up towards the sky, tired and dehydrated, yet grateful to have survived.
"What are we going to do now?" Lachina asked Khaled. "Are we just supposed to go home?"
Khaled sat up and gazed towards her, his hand stroking her green hair. "Savor the fact that we are still alive and breathing. Our friends there died, but we survived and we get to see Tadeas again. We get to see our son again." He reached out and grabbed her hand. "I am glad to be alive and I promise that I will not leave you again this time."
Lachina gently laced her fingers in between Khaled's fingers affectionately. "You promise?" she asked the father of her baby.
"I promise."
Khaled got up to both feet, keeping ahold of Lachina's hand and helped her to her feet, putting her arm over his shoulder and having her put weight on the leg that wasn't broken. They walked off to one of their vehicles and drove out of the desert.
Back with Cassie and her group.
The three of them ran out of the sandstorm, tiring from the sudden heat and individually feeling exhausted. Cassie fell to her knees and leaned forward, her hands in front of her and buried deep within the sizzling sand. Derek collapsed to his side while Omaria slowly squatted down to get on her back. Cassie took slow and deep breaths in and out and looked over her shoulder to see the tip of the tomb sinking into the sand, leaving no trace behind except a small pond of water. Once again, another lost city was destroyed and permanently became a myth.
"I guess it runs in the family," Cassie chuckled. "Man, why do every lost city we find ends up getting blown up, caved in, or drowned underwater? Then again, we did come here to destroy the tomb." She slowly looked away from the now-gone tomb to Derek. "Did you by any chance get any…"
Derek knew what she was going to finish asking and smiled smugly. He reached into his pocket and grabbed out six gold Egyptian coins. These coins were even more valuable than the ones that Cassie obtained from the museum and they were proof that this adventure would happen in case the press asked questions. "As long as I'm around, fortune and glory are ours."
Omaria sat up and looked at her two friends with a smile on her face. "I cannot believe what we just did. We saved the world and an ancient pharaoh."
"Yeah," Cassie said. "Kill the villains, save the world, typically superheroes of us."
Suddenly, Derek's heart started pumping and his eyes were wide with terror. He jumped to both feet and looked around, shouting, "Where's Niko?!"
Like answering a ringing phone, a car honked in the distance and droves towards the three. One of the Overlord jeeps left behind met the three and the driver revealed itself to be Niko himself.
"Someone need a hand?" he punned, considering that his hand was broken and he was driving one-handed.
"I love you cuz," Derek cheered as he ran to hug his cousin lovingly. "I'm driving," he whispered into his ear. Niko jumped into the passenger's seat carefully, allowing Derek to hop into the driver's.
"This is quite an adventure to tell," Cassie said happily to Omaria. "And about your cousin, I'm sorry. I shot her myself because I couldn't let her die slowly. If it makes you feel better, Kamille has said herself that her joining was nothing personal, but for the sake of the world. I hope you can forgive for joining a group who claims to be saving the world from killing itself."
Omaria ignored her and hopped into the back of the van, shutting her deceased cousin out of her head completely. Cassie climbed into her seat and took out her journal to write in it. She made a mental note on the last page to honor Kamille somehow. Cassie said nothing as Derek drove them back to civilization.
'Some are born great, others achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.' I'm one of those people. Greatness is thrust upon me.
Kamille Al-Bashir: #584914 (2016-2036) She was neither a sociopath nor psychopath but suffered from a severe case of schizophrenia. She has had consideration of joining Overlord for a long time, the voices just helped support her.
