Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. stepped forward. Ahead of him, illuminated in a beam of sunlight, was the golden idol he had searched for. Across a passageway no longer than ten yards, some stairs led up to the podium where the idol rested. Dr. Jones took a deep breath and nodded. Finally.
"There is nothing to fear here," came the accented voice of Satipo, the guide Dr. Jones had hired. He stepped forward.
Dr. Jones stuck out his arm, stopping Satipo from going any farther. Turning to face the boy, he shoved him up against the wall.
"That's what scares me," Dr. Jones muttered. Releasing Satipo, he reached over to the side of the chamber and picked up a piece of old, rotting wood—perhaps it had originally been a torch. He bent down and brushed some moss off the floor, revealing a rhombus-shaped tile on the floor. Dr. Jones reached out and pushed down on the tile with the piece of wood.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the tile sank down into the floor a couple inches. Dr. Jones heard a poof. His head snapped up just in time to see a dart hit the piece of wood. Had the wood not been there, the dart would have gone straight into Dr. Jones's heart.
Standing up, Dr. Jones handed the wood to Satipo. "Stay here," he commanded.
Satipo smiled nervously and nodded. "If you insist, señor."
Dr. Jones turned back to the idol. Lifting one foot, he set it down between two of the rhombus-shaped tiles. In this fashion, he made his way slowly across the passageway.
Satipo sucked in a sharp, nervous breath. Ignoring him, Dr. Jones jumped up onto a moss-covered rock and then to the top of the stairs leading up to the idol.
Careful to avoid the deadly tiles, Dr. Jones stepped up to the podium. Bending down, he stroked his chin and examined the idol for a minute, trying to estimate its weight. He pulled his satchel forward and took out a bag of sand, shaking it in his hands to get a feel for its weight. He looked between the idol and the sandbag before opening the drawstrings on the bag. Grasping some sand in his hand, Dr. Jones let it run through his fingers and fall to the floor. Satisfied, he closed the bag.
Dr. Jones pushed his satchel back to his hip and stretched his arms out, making sure the sleeves of his jacket would not impede his hands from the delicate task they were about to perform. Twirling the fingers of his left hand and holding the sandbag in his right, he reached for the idol. He hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath and licking his dry lips.
In a smooth motion, Dr. Jones picked up the idol and replaced it with the sandbag. He waited for a moment.
Nothing happened.
Satipo let out a relieved sigh. Allowing a smirk to come over his face, Dr. Jones adjusted his hat and turned to leave.
Dr. Jones's smirk soon disappeared when he heard a rumbling behind him. He turned slowly around and saw the sandbag sinking down into the podium. The rumbling increased in volume, and suddenly pieces of the walls and ceiling were collapsing.
Dr. Jones sprinted back down the passageway, triggering every single dart in the place and somehow managing to avoid being hit even once. Throwing an arm up to protect his head, Dr. Jones followed Satipo out of the room.
When Dr. Jones turned the corner, Satipo was standing on the other side of the chasm they had crossed to enter the idol's resting place. Dr. Jones's whip was in Satipo's hand. Evidently Satipo had swung across and the whip had come undone from the branch Dr. jones had attached it to.
"Give me the whip," Dr. Jones demanded, holding out his hand that wasn't holding the idol.
"Throw me the idol," Satipo countered, extending his arm and looking nervously at the door slowly closing behind him. "No time to argue! Throw me the idol, I throw you the whip!"
Before Satipo's sentence was out of his mouth, Dr. Jones had tossed the idol to him. "Give me the whip!" Dr. Jones yelled.
"Adios, señor," Satipo said, dropping the whip on the ground and ducking under the door.
Steeling himself, Dr. Jones leaped for the other side of the gap. His arms landed, but the rest of him was still hanging off the edge. He desperately groped for something, anything to pull himself up by. An old, yellow plant caught his eye. He grabbed onto it, sighing in relief and smiling.
Yet again, Dr. Jones smiled too soon.
The plant began to slip out of the ground. Gritting his teeth, Dr. Jones painstakingly pulled himself onto the ledge and just barely managed to roll under the door with less than a foot of space. Throwing his hand under the door, he grabbed his trusty whip just as the heavy stone door sealed shut.
Dr. Jones looked around. He could still hear rumbling, so he decided not to dawdle. As he turned to run, he nearly crashed into Satipo, killed where he stood by the temple's defenses. Gasping, Dr. Jones swallowed and bent down to pick up the idol.
"Adios, stúpido," he muttered to Satipo's body. Dr. Jones's knowledge of Spanish was limited (otherwise, he would have known that the correct word is "estúpido"), but he felt that the general idea still got across.
Dr. Jones had taken no more than two steps forward when he heard a loud crashing sound behind him. Turning around, he saw a giant boulder rolling towards him.
"Wha-" he gasped, then turned and ran. The boulder was an amazingly perfect sphere, and as such it rolled quite nicely. So nicely, in fact, that it was gaining on Dr. Jones.
Stumbling, Dr. Jones pushing himself back up with one hand and looked back at the boulder as he ran. Yep, still gaining.
He could see the exit now. He couldn't die now, not with survival so close. He dived through the gap, getting a face full of spiderwebs in the process.
"Oof!" he groaned as he tumbled down the slope outside of the temple. The boulder, thankfully, had not followed him.
When Dr. Jones came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, he leaned back against a rock. When he looked up, he suddenly realized that he wasn't alone.
Peruvian natives surrounded him. Not one of them lacked a weapon, and not one of those weapons was pointed anywhere other than Dr. Jones's face.
René Belloq, French archaeologist and Dr. Jones's long-time rival, stepped forward. Dr. Jones hid the idol inside his jacket, pretending to slump weakly against the rock.
"Dr. Jones," Belloq greeted, holding out his right hand. "Again we see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away. And you thought I'd given up."
Dr. Jones looked at the man's hand, then reached to his right hip for his gun. The instant he pulled it out, he heard the natives' bowstrings tightening. Glancing at them, Dr. Jones turned the gun around in his hand and grudgingly slammed it into the other man's waiting palm.
"You chose the wrong friends," the man said, switching the gun to his left hand and holding out his right towards Dr. Jones again. "This time it will cost you."
Knowing he had no other choice, Dr. Jones pulled out the idol from his jacket.
Both he and Belloq gasped. The idol was glowing a burning red-gold color, and Dr. Jones could swear he heard voices coming from it.
"What… Jones, what have you done?" Belloq demanded, taking a step back.
Dr. Jones didn't reply. He looked down at the idol. It felt like it was burning his hand, yet his brain also knew that the metal was cool. As he gazed down at the idol, his vision began to darken.
Looking back up at Belloq, Dr. Jones used the last of his energy to smirk at him and adjust the brim of his hat before he lost consciousness.
A/N: Guess where he'll wake up...
This was a random idea I had one day. I thought about it and decided, "Well, what the heck? It could be fun." Give me feedback and suggestions, if you please!
UPDATE: Reposted this chapter the same day after finding a typo.