Thanks all for reading. I realized that I made a mistake while revising and realized one of the new motivations that I added for Fallon was that she wanted to find out more about her parents and how and why they died in/trying to find Hamunaptra. So I'm sorry if that get's sprung up out of the blue. But that will be more of a prominent motivation for Fallon in the following chapters. Enjoy!
Fallon woke with a start, a sort of cry mixed with a gasp that startled everyone awake. Rick rode back to her and put a hand on her back.
"Hey, you okay?" Rick asked her comfortingly. Fallon kept a hand to her forehead, blinking several times to make sure she really was awake. She looked up at the cliff they were still riding next to. She looked all the way up to the top and saw nothing.
"Yeah, just a weird dream," she said. He looked at her worriedly.
"Was it the same one?" He asked.
"No, it was different. There was…" She stopped. She looked at Rick. "I never told you about my dreams."
"No, but Kelly did," Rick said. "We're starting to get a little worried about you. These types of dreams don't happen a lot." He stopped when he looked ahead. He could see a large group of people heading towards them, most on horses and one on a camel. He muttered a few foul words and said to Fallon, "We'll talk about this tonight, okay?"
She nodded and he rode ahead. It was the Americans and Beni, the guy who ran away before the battle in Hamunaptra three years ago had started. The two groups met each other and turned away from the cliff, staring out into the east where the sun was just rising and almost blinding them from glimpsing at the open desert that Fallon and Kelly knew all too well.
"Good morning, my friends," Beni greeted them. Fallon and Kelly scowled at him. He meant no kindness towards them. He always was an asshole, even to them sometimes.
"Remember our bet, O'Connell, first one into the city, five hundred cash bucks," Henderson reminded Rick. He turned on his horse to Beni. "A hundred of that is yours if you help us win that bet."
"Oh, my pleasure," Beni replied. Beni gave Rick a look. "Hey, O'Connell, nice camel."
Rick pat his camel's head while sitting upon its humps.
"What are we waiting for?" Evy asked him.
"We're about to be shown the way," Rick said. They all stared at the horizon and the rising Egyptian sun. As it slowly started to come up something started to form in the distance that looked as though it was a mirage to everyone's eyes.
"Here we go again," Kelly muttered. A building started to form solid in that mirage and everyone stared at it dumbfounded except for those who had already seen it.
Then, everything started to become hasty. People started kicking their horses and letting out cries as they started racing towards the Lost City. Fallon looked at Kelly and they began to race towards the city as well. The camels were obviously faster than the horses. Evy was gaining quick speed, Rick was beating Beni on his camel with a riding crop, and the Americans were hooting and hollering on their horses like cowboys. Kelly, Adam, and Fallon just kept moving along as fast as they could. But they weren't worried, Evy was obviously winning.
Jonathon cheered Evy on as her camel rode into Hamunaptra first. Fallon on the other hand, felt her stomach twist as she rode into Hamunaptra. It had been three years since she had been back. She tried to keep the old memories out and tried to imagine herself entering the city for the first time in her life. But somehow she found it a little harder than she wanted it to be. Her suppressed memories were being brought back, and all she could see were letters and meetings with Mr. Bay, her employer, about how her parents had gone to Hamunaptra and were never found. All she could imagine were the dusty bones of her parents hidden deep within the sandy tombs of the lost city. No more fooling around with books and research, she thought. She needed to find out what happened to her parents.
After everyone had made it into the city, they began almost immediately on creating their camps. Rick's group excavated near the statue of Anubis, the same one where Kelly and Rick experienced the sand spasm. They had not forgotten it, though, they eyed each other when Evy chose the spot to excavate.
"That's the statue of Anubis, his legs go deep underground. According to Benbridge scholars, that's where we'll find a secret compartment that holds the Gold Book of Amun-Ra," she said.
"What's the book of Amun-Ra?" Adam asked.
"It's the Book of the Living. It's said that if you read from the book then you'll be able to take someone's soul away," Fallon replied.
"Well, that's the myth," Evy said.
Rick went over to Kelly with a rolled up sack in his hands. "Hey, are you alright?"
She was looking out over the other diggers, out over Hamunaptra. She looked at him and then back out at the city, rubbing her chin.
"This doesn't feel right; coming back I mean," she said.
"I feel ya," Rick agreed.
Kelly lowered her voice. "Something's just not right about this place. I can feel it." There was a silence. "Coming back was a mistake. Especially with Fallon. We shouldn't be here."
"Yeah, well, we can't exactly leave now. What about Evy? I agreed to take her out here and take her back because she saved my neck. No thanks to you guys, by the way."
"She had you covered. She can make her way around anything. And you…you would have gotten out of there anyway without her. And I know it was part of the agreement, and I was wondering from the beginning if it would be a good idea for Fallon and I to come back out here. But she seemed so excited and afraid to come back, you know?"
"What do you mean?" Rick asked.
"Well…she was afraid at first because of the battle. She had never seen so much death around her. I mean, the giant display of dead warriors she grew to know, and then the others of the opposing force was more bodies than she's ever handled of mummies in the museums. It was enough to scar her for life. But she was so excited to come back because she never had the chance to excavate Hamunaptra when she was here. She was about as excited as Evy was when she found out we were coming back. But then there was also the fact that her parents died trying to find Hamunaptra. They were never found, we don't even know if they found it. And then there was the whole part with the dreams that kind of made her want to come back. To kind of figure it out, you know. But that's the one thing I'm worried about. Those dreams led her here. This place, as you and I both know, is dangerous by itself. I'm worried about what might happen to her."
"Wait, her parents died trying to find this place?" Rick inquired. With a nod from Kelly, some things were starting to clear up to Rick. "Well…the only thing we can do is to just keep safe and make sure nothing happens to any of us, especially her and Evy, that girl doesn't seem to know what she's gotten herself into," Rick said. Kelly nodded with a knowing smile and continued to look out onto Hamunaptra, But it seemed as though she was looking out farther than that.
"They're out there," she said. Rick knew she was referring to the Medjai. He looked out there with her and nodded. "They know we're here. I bet they even know we're back, Rick. They're out there, and they've got something to do with Fallon. They've got a bone to pick with her or something." She turned to Rick. "But I'll have a bone to pick with them if they want to get to Fallon. And they're definitely not getting to Fallon before going through me first. Mark my words."
She walked away. Rick didn't think they wanted to get to Fallon. They didn't have a reason to want to have something to do with Fallon. Not unless she did something to them, and Fallon knows better than to get herself in trouble with the wrong crowd. But the Medjai warrior on the boat…it was just strange what she described. This Medjai had to have known something, something she didn't know, something Rick and Kelly didn't know either. He knew Fallon, somehow he knew her. But how? How did he know her when they've never really crossed paths with each other before. Rick hated to come to this conclusion, it had to do with something outside of reason, outside of the world that he knew. No, he told himself. There is no such thing as destiny or other such things. Destiny is just stupid. Maybe the guy just thought…she was good with a sword or…he thought she was just really pretty. Yeah, that had to have been the solution. And like what Kelly said, he lowered his mask because he was really hot and couldn't breathe. Yeah, that was it. Destiny is just a load of bullshit.
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