Chapter 8: Underground

/ Hey! :) I'm so sorry this chapter took me so long. A month ago I got a second, temporary job which I had to do by my ragular day work. I only had time to do it at nights, when I usually write this fanfiction. I didn't wanna ruch it, I wanted to have the time and energy to write this chapter properly as well :) But from now on I promise there'll be regular updates again - at least one chapter per week! :) Thank you so much for reading!

Hugs and kisses, SophieScribbler! :)) /

The stairs went down for so long, Rose felt like they had already climbed down hundreds of meters when they finally got to their end. At the last step she stopped to glance back, hoping to see anything else than the pitch-black darkness and the cold stone corridor but couldn't see the opening anymore.

They were completely underground; the only sources of light were the two torches in their sweating hands. She guessed that being buried alive must have felt almost like the same.

"Stay close, okay? And keep your eyes open, there might be traps down here..." said Sam as he held his torch above his head as much as he could, trying to see as far as possible. Although he couldn't do much since the ceiling of the tunnel was so low, his hair was almost brushing it.

Rose felt extremely uneasy in the narrow underground passageway. If anything attacked them down here, there weren't much escape routes they could take.

She honestly hoped that, whatever made the sound of hooves up there, wouldn't want to follow them here anytime soon.

"Let's go." She said for she wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

She took deep breaths to calm herself down a bit and cursed her shaking hand that was holding the torch as they marched their way deeper and deeper into the unknown depths of the tunnel.

The air she breathed in was cool and felt ancient as well as dusty, mixed with the smell of ground and mold. They must have been the first to come down here in at least a hundred years and fresh air hadn't had the chance to enter ever since Fawcett's time.

As the trembling lights of the torches broke the darkness, spiders and other insects of every size could be seen running to hide from the warmth, sending shivers down Rose's spine. She wasn't very fond of any kind of bugs...

On the walls, under the thick layers of dust and spider's web, she could see carvings of the same figures they saw on the rotating rock, back at the entrance.

The difference here was that they weren't divided into three separate sections now. Humans, dolphins and the souls were all mixed up together, looking, pointing and reaching their arms to the direction Sam and Rose were heading towards to.

She kept glancing back checking if there was anything that followed them but all she could see was only the pitch-black darkness. Still, she felt the small hairs on her neck rise up as she constantly felt someone invisible watching them.

Sam walked in front of her, his steps were resolved but careful as he watched each and every step he took. Seeing his huge and steady figure calmed Rose down a bit. What could happen if he's with her? Nothing that bad... right?

She watched as his masculine arm held his torch up, hugging his shape into the warm and playfully twinkling lights of the fire. She saw all the muscles on his back and neck being tightened and her eyes followed the curves of these muscles being drawn out under his shirt, starting to wander to lower parts of his body...

"Stop it!" she hissed at herself as her thoughts again wandered dangerously far from reality. She needed to focus. Sam was like a colleague anyway, wasn't he? Also, she wasn't such an attractive woman to catch the attention of a man like Sam. For her own sake, she needed to stop with these thoughts already!

"What?" Sam asked, and looked back at Rose above his shoulder.

"Nothing! Really, just a spider." she lied and was happy Sam didn't ask further questions. This was really not the time to wonder about what these sudden feelings towards Sam were, and where'd they come from?

"I think I see the end." he said after a while of silent walking and pointed in front of him. The tunnel still went on for tens of meters but at the end, hiding in the darkness there really were two huge and heavy wings of stone doors, both filled with carvings from floor to ceiling.

"Let's hurry!" answered Rose who still hadn't been able to shake off the feeling that someone was following them, staying well behind the cover of shadows.

She clenched onto her torch, and fastened her steps up so that she could catch up with Sam. When they reached the door together, they stopped to have a look at the carvings but the same scenery greeted them again. This time with much more details.

Where the two wings of the door met, there was the golden orb, cut in half with all the same creatures under, admiring it. But now it seemed like the whole scenery took place in an enormous cave, the orb taking place in the highest arch of it.

They silently pushed their shoulders to the doors but before opening them, they looked at each other - just to nod in agreement.

"On three?" asked Sam.

"On three."

"One, two..." they counted together and started pushing. The doors opened slowly, very slowly, even though they were using all their weight. They felt a cool breeze run by their face, that tickled their skin and playfully grabbed a few strands of their hair and then the wings of the door gave in to their forces and opened up fully at once.

Sam raised his torch above his head as he stepped into the hall that opened up in front of them. It was a square shaped room, with a ceiling that reached way above their heads - two or maybe even three meters high.

In the middle there were two rows of thick pillars guiding the way into the back of the hall where there was a huge picture carved into the wall. As Rose looked at it from far, it seemed like a huge map or a landscape of some sort of mountain and it focused on especially one part of it - on a huge cave entrance.

As they walked closer and closer Rose now could how there was the golden orb in the middle of the cave, palm sized and the same word written all around in Mayan language.

"Paraíso..." she heard Sam read it out loud next to her.

"Paradise... " she repeated the word in English." This must be our next lead isn't it? But I don't know where this could be..." she said absently, trying to recognize the carved mountain in front of her. But no matter how hard she focused, it wasn't even similar to her.

"It's a mountain range in Mato Grosso, called the Serra do Roncador." Sam explained and took his notebook out the scribble it down. Also trying to draw everything that were carved into the wall in front of them.

"Look at you!" Rose looked at him, approvingly. "I guessed you were good at history but now geography as well?"

"You know, thirteen years in prison, all I could do was reading and working out." he shrugged.

"Yeah, I guessed that..." said Rose as her eyes wandered - again - to check out his biceps softly glistening under the drops of sweat lighted by their torches. Of course, she meant it for the working out part but deeply hoped Sam took it for the reading.

She took another look at the wall in front of her as well, when she noticed something. The small golden orb here seemed so out of place. She reached her hand to touch it, and at first, she just gently stroked the cold metal under her fingers, but then, just to give it a try, she pushed it like she'd do with button of an elevator.

She heard a small clicking sound and the orb came out of the wall.

"Sam look at this!" she gasped as she held the small, and cold metal artifact in her hands. He stood next to her and leaned closer to have a better look, bringing his torch as well.

"Nice job!" Sam smiled at her. "Can I...?" he asked before taking it, and Rose gave it to him, silently nodding - she was still speechless by the fact that she held a real artifact in her own two hands! In fact, she was the one who found it! Treasure hunting might not be that hard after all...

He started rotating the small item between his experienced fingers, checking it from every angle and after a while he said: "It seems like a part of some machine maybe..." he furrowed his brow and gave it back to her. "We might need it on our way."

Rose immediately, and very carefully, put it into the very bottom of her backpack, that she then put back on her sweating back. She wouldn't even wanted to imagine the possibility of losing it accidentally.

Sam went back to quickly finish his sketches, and Rose, not wanting to bother him, wandered to check the hall completely before they left. It was mostly empty, and really seemed like it existed just for the sole purpose of showing the next stop for those who were desperate enough to look for the legendary city this far.

Here as well everything was covered in webs and dust and as she slowly wandered around, looking at the walls, observing the sceneries carved onto them, she felt her shoe kick something lying on the ground.

As she stopped to check it, she felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured into her neck and shivers immediately started to run throughout her body. Under her feet there lay a skeleton, old clothes wrapping his shape instead of his long rotten skin.

"Oh my god, Sam... " she moaned in horror as she crouched next to the remains of the corpse to have a better look.

It seemed like his right leg and jaw were broken badly, his clothes were torn apart and something that seemed like a huge, yellow claw was deeply stuck in his chest, right where this poor man's heart once used to be.

Next to its body there was an old pistole on the ground, covered in a thick layer of dust. He was holding onto a small black notebook with one of his hands that was almost idemtical to the ones that hid Fawcett's clues.

It overall seemed like he got into a fight with a bull at least...

The sound of hooves drifted into Rose's mind again, as she reached her hand out to get his notebook. The bones of his fingers creaked painfully as she tried to open them up and, in the end, she had to broke off of his thumb to get to the small, black leather bounded journal from him.

"I'm sorry..." she said, just when Sam finally got next to her.

"Oh crap..." cursed the man quietly as he saw all the broken bones and teared fabric. "What the hell had happened to this poor bastard?" he asked, leaning closer to the corpse, observing the clues. When he saw the pistole lying on the ground next to it, he took it, checked if there were still any ammo left in it, and then put in the back of his pants.

"I don't know but it seems like he fought a rhino..." said Rose as she tried to swallow back her stomach that been twirling wildly at the sight of the remains lying in front of her. "He had this with himself..." she said and raised the notebook. "Maybe we'll get to know more after we read it."

"We get back to Sully first, I suggest." he said as he reached towards the corps, to pull the claw out of his chest. He sure wanted to examine it, but as he pulled it, the remains started to fall apart.

The head of the skeleton fell down, and rolled away surprisingly loud. The sound of bone hitting the stone under it echoed loudly around them, making both Rose and Sam twitch. The sudden loudness after the complete silence almost hurt for them to listen to. When it finally stopped, their ears were still ringing for a few more seconds and they motionlessly waited for something to happen.

For a brief moment, only enough for them to let out a sigh of relief, everything remained calm.

But then, they heard the roar of a beast, coming from way too close...

"What on earth...?" Rose gasped, her eyes widened but she didn't have time to finish her sentence as Sam immediately grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the shadow of a pillar, being the closest to them, while kicking Rose's torch as far from them as possible. He pushed her to the cold stone and pressed his body against hers, trying to hide both of them.

Rose felt her heartbeat racing but was it because of the roar, or because of this extreme closeness of Sam? Or both...

A second later, something out of this earth, strode into the dark hall. Rose tried to catch a glimpse of it, but it was almost completely black. The only sources of lights - their torches - were meters away from them and the monster - making it almost impossible to see anything at the entrance of the hall.

But they could clearly hear the hooves of the creature pounding against the stone floor, getting closer and closer to them with each step...

/ I'd really be glad to read your opinions about the story! Let me know if you'd like to read more, please! :) It'd really mean so much to me! Thank you so much! /