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Almost everyone had fallen asleep in their respective camps. The atmosphere had calmed immensely since the brawl, but Fallon still sat by the column, clutching the diary in her good hand, and thinking about the previous night where the Medjai had approached her. She couldn't help but chuckle to herself at the fear she had when she thought he was trying to kidnap her. Her heart was skipping beats as she sat there, just like they had last night.

The temptation to open the diary and read what he thought must have been so interesting was strong. But her fear was just as strong. The curiosity right then was killing her, and she unwound the diary. She was just abot to open it when she heard Kelly call to her.

"This your new favorite spot?" She asked, trekking her way across the sand to Fallon. Fallon smiled. Kelly sat herself down next to her. "How's your hand?"

"It hurts," Fallon let out a breathy laugh. She would rather laugh about it than fret or whine.

"You...are such an idiot," Kelly sighed, shaking her head. "Why the hell did you do that?"

"I wish I knew," Fallon admitted. "I did it without even thinking. The only thing I cared about was just getting it out of there without it burning too much. I didn't have time to think about getting it out using something that wouldn't burn me."

"Oh, Fallon, always putting the welfare of books before herself," Kelly said.

"Did you and Adam fight?" Fallon asked. Kelly sighed.

"Yup. Although, I did most of the yelling. He just looked down at the ground like I was going to send him to his room or something."

"I'm not surprised," Fallon smirked.

"He's just trying to look out for you," Kelly said. "We all are. We're all trying to look out for each other right now."

"Only I just seem to be the one that's getting herself into trouble more than anyone else," Fallon added for Kelly.

"Uhhh...well...I wouldn't say you're purposely getting yourself into trouble. I think that trouble is finding you and you're not making it any better by playing with it."

"I've always been a cat like that. Curiosity always getting the best of me," Fallon agreed.

"Yeah, well, cats get killed by the curiosity. I'm just saying you should just be a little more cautious. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's any way in this world and the next that will stop you from being curious, just don't run headlong into it," Kelly said.

"That's understandable. Possible? We'll find out I suppose," Fallon said.

They sat in peaceful silence. Neither of them wanted to say anything right then. They simply wanted to enjoy the presence of their best friend by their side. "When we get back to Cairo we should write music again, you know, like we used to," Kelly thought out loud.

That put a real smile on Fallon's face. "We should. Our duets used to be so pretty. Us singing and you on the piano. We sounded great."

"We did, didn't we? We should try to get some old things going again. Like that and writing research books together on the balcony of your apartment. Remember? We used to sit across from each other at the table in the hot sun with iced tea and dozens of books open and read each others work. That was nice," Kelly reminisced.

Fallon laughed. "Haha, yeah, but remember that one time we did that there were these French men on the ground across the street catcalling us, and you called them over-"

"Under the balcony and I poured my iced tea on them?!" Kelly finished laughing and smiling. They snorted with laughter, nudging each other at the memories.

"They weren't saying very nice things to us, were they?" Fallon laughed.

"Not things suitable for a lady to hear," Kelly said.

"And that's when I poured my iced tea all over them!" Fallon cackled. Kelly clapped her hands and guffawed.

"That was the best!"

In the midst of her laughter, the diary slipped from Fallon's hands to the ground. Kelly's laughter died out as she stared at the diary. So much trouble for one little book. She picked it up.

"Have you read it yet?" Kelly asked, handing it back to Fallon.

She shook her head. "I'm afraid of what I'll find."

"But you never know. She could have written in it while she was here, what if she wrote down any clues as to what happened?"

Fallon had thought of that. But the fear still overtook her. If her mother had written any clues, she wasn't sure she wanted to find out what they were. And yet the desire for closure was killing her.

"Well, on that note, I think I better part ways. There's a line starting to form to talk to you," Kelly said. Fallon peered around Kelly and saw Burns standing a good 10 feet away, arms behind his back nervously. "So darn popular," Kelly muttered standing up.

Kelly pat Burns's arm as she walked past him to give him the go. He approached carefully.

"My brother isn't lurking around the corner ready to attack you again. Don't worry," Fallon assured him. "But be careful he doesn't see you with me over here. Better sit on this side."

Burns sat down on the side of Fallon so she covered him from the view of anybody at her campsite. She hissed when she saw his face. Even in the rising moonlight she could see the swelling take ahold of Burns's right side of his face.

"I'm really sorry about that. I know it means nothing coming from me, but I wouldn't expect an apology from him during your lifetime or his," she said.

"Yeah, he really did a number on me. I understand, I guess," Burns said. "Oh, I've been meaning to give this to you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small thin book, some water damage had been done to it, but it had dried out over time. She read the title, Medjai. Her mouth dropped open.

"Oh my goodness! How did you come by this?!" She gasped. She leafed through the pages, crinkled and stained with water, but most of the text had been saved and she could still read it decently well.

"On the boat," Burns started. "When it caught fire, I ducked into this cabin suite to dodge one of those men that were attacking us. When I saw the book on the floor I realized that it was the one you were reading earlier that day and you weren't anywhere to be seen. I didn't think, I just grabbed it and stuffed it into my coat. I remembered I had it when I was looking through my coat for my handkerchief to clean my glasses earlier. I had meant to give it to you when we were all sitting together, but...well, know the rest."

She flipped to the chapter about Hamunaptra, the print still decipherable. "I was just thinking about this earlier today, how I wish I had it. Thank you so much!" Without thinking she wrapped her arms around him in a hug and he froze. She let go and felt her heart sink. "Sorry. I'm sure that wasn't very appropriate."

"D-don't worry about it!" He stumbled, his eyes wide. "I'm just glad I could brighten your day a little bit."

She smiled at the thoughtfulness. When she looked at Burns again she noticed that he was rather attractive, in an American, brutish, academic sort of way. He wasn't completely like his friends, stumbling over his words from time to time, but at least he wasn't crude like them. She thought maybe she hadn't completely given him the chance he deserved.

"That's some interesting material in that book," Burns said. "I only read a little bit of it. I'm not sure I completely understand it all."

Fallon cradled the book in her hands. "It seems to be a complicated subject. Or at least not a very popular one with scholars since there is only so much written about it."

"I mean it's not even finished, so we can't know everything we could possibly know, at least what this author knew," Burns added.

"Unfinished?" Fallon asked.

"Yeah, look at the back," Burns advised her.

She flipped to the back of the book, and noticed that the book stops abruptly in the middle of a body paragraph at the bottom of a page. There was no conclusion section in the back at all. It just stopped.

"How can that be possible?" She muttered to herself.

"Maybe the author died before he could finish it, and someone published it for him anyway? Like Charles Dickens and The Mystery of Edwin Drood," Burns suggested.

Smiling slightly at the fact that he was well read enough to reference Dickens, Fallon went back to observing the book. "No, it couldn't be that, though that is a fair conclusion. But there would have been something in the beginning of the book or even the back about the author's death before completion." She looked at the last page before the back cover and noticed a small gap in the binding. It was the same as if a chunk of pages had been torn out of the middle of a book, but these were in the back. "Someone took the last pages out. Look, they weren't ripped out, someone carefully perforated the pages out. It's like they specifically took these pages out to make it look like nothing was taken. Whoever took out those pages was meticulous, and didn't want someone to read that information." She checked what chapter it was part of. She wasn't completely surprised to see that it was part of the Hamunaptra. After further inspection of the chapter, she noticed other pages were missing from the middle of the chapter as well, not just the end. "Typical." Just her luck, she thought.

"Did you go to college for this?" Burns asked. She closed the book with a sigh.

"I did, yes, for Egyptology, followed in my parent's footsteps," she replied.

"My dad would have loved it if I had followed in his footsteps like that," Burns said.

"Did you go to university?" She asked.

"Yeah, but for English. My parents wanted me to study Mathematics and be a professor like he was, but I couldn't care less about it. I actually ended up just dropping out because I felt like I was pursuing their dreams rather than mine. So that's when I met Henderson and Daniels and we just decided to travel, find our fortunes and what not," he explained.

"You're full of surprises, Mr. Burns," Fallon smiled. He flushed all the way to his ears.

"Yeah, well, you always surprise me with all of this Egypt knowledge you have. You're probably one of the smartest people I know," he said.

Fallon chortled. "Hardly. You should go check out what Evy knows. I've been a little distracted lately."

"I mean, that's alright, I understand...I guess," he said. Fallon smiled and caught something out the corner of her eye. She looked and saw Adam glaring over at her and Burns from their campsite.

"Oops, looks like you've been spotted," she chuckled. Burns looked and gulped loud enough for Fallon to hear. "You can go around that way without going through our camp. Although I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't dare start something after that fight he had with Kelly, I'd go the other way just to be careful."

"Yeah, that would be best," he sighed standing up. "Well, it was, uh, good talking to you."

"Likewise," Fallon replied. "Goodnight, Mr. Burns."

"Uh, Bernard," he corrected her. "You can call me Bernard...i-if you want of course. I know everyone else calls me just Burns."

Fallon smiled. "Goodnight, Bernard."

"Goodnight," he said and left. Fallon opened the book to the chapter about Hamunaptra.

An hour later

Her instincts were right, Fallon read all the way through what had been left of the chapter of the Medjai of Hamunaptra and found it hardly gave her any new information. She knew what they did in ancient times, but she wanted to know about them in present day. What were they still doing around? In the chapter she managed to catch a bit about them protecting something within the city, but the next page had been taken out. What was it they were trying to protect? The most obvious answer to her was Seti's treasure, but anyone from either party still had yet to discover it. The city was vast, there could be anything hidden within it. Her mind raced to the sarcophagus. There was just something off about it. 3000 years old and it was still decomposing? It just wasn't natural. She put the book down next to her and eyed her mother's diary. It was time...

She opened the diary and flipped through the entries from the year 1915, reading the first few sentences to find where she wrote about Hamunaptra. When she found the first mention, she began to read it.

July 3, 1915

Dr. Bey warned us at least one more time this morning before we departed on our ship to Hamunaptra not to go. He repeated that it was a dangerous and foolish. He became increasingly irritated when we continued to refuse to tell him who our guide was to the city. We assured him that it was someone trustworthy, and that he had nothing to worry about.

While I feel guilty about leaving Adam and Fallon behind, I know they will be in good hands with Dr. Bey. It is humorous to think of him handling children, even older children like Adam and Fallon, who are reaching ages where they are becoming more irritating the more they think they know everything. But they are bright children. Fallon keeps buggering him about his family, wanting to know more about who he is and his family history. She finally managed to get out of him that he had a cousin, and a nephew who was only a little older than she was. She of course, has no interest in boys despite her blossoming age. She has more interest in the family trees of Egyptian Pharaoh's and books.

Fallon felt herself tear up. Wiping away the moisture from her eyes, she turned a couple of pages.

July 6, 1915

Hamunaptra is a marvelous city! We have set up our campsite and allocated specific places that we would like to start digging and excavating with the diggers. I have been increasingly attracted to the Statue of Anubis, as if I can almost hear the jackal howls calling me over to it and beckoning me to start digging. But something in the back of my brain is telling me that we shouldn't go anywhere near it.

Strangely, I have had an uneasy feeling since we stepped off the boat. I can't quite place it, but ever since we set out on our journey on camel-back into the desert I have had the constant feeling that we were being watched.

Fallon skipped ahead several pages, eagerly.

July 7, 1915

We were attacked last night by desert men in black! Though it was thrilling, many of our diggers were killed.

Fallon snorted. That was just like her mother, finding the most dangerous and inappropriate things thrilling. Much like her sometimes.

When the leader of the tribe (I suppose) ceased his fighting as soon as he saw a woman among us, he gave us a heavy warning. He was a very tall man, his beard and mustache and shoulder-length hair were so gray that any sign of black hair like his other men sported was completely gone. He could only be 10 years older than Elliott. He wore a turban on his head made of black scrap cloth. The tattoos on his cheeks were shaped differently than the usual clean style of hieroglyphs but I thought they said 'Truth'. I had never heard of such men in this desert before. They ranged from every age, young men to old men. The youngest I could see was a tall, fit, handsome lad who had to be only a couple years older then Adam, and he bore a strong resemblance to the leader with the same shaped face and stature.

I felt a pang in my heart seeing him. I immediately felt a sense of urgency to return home to my own children. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Flipping a few more pages, Fallon realized that she had reached the last entry until the rest of the diary was left completely blank. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Here it was, the last piece of evidence she had that could be the answer to all her questions.

July 9, 1915

So many workers have left. We only have 3 left total, having started out with 12. 4 died in the attack several nights ago. Flesh eating scarabs have been a discovery, and many of us, Elliott included, have had to cut them out after crawling into our skin before they reached vital organs or our brains. 1 died because of one. We have found several things from a mummification room that we would like to take back to the museum, but the motivation to continue digging and discovering is fading. Elliott and I are worried for our lives, and yet there is nothing that we have found physically that is threatening here that we haven't found on other digs. And yet there is this looming sense doom over the City of the Dead. And it radiates from the Statue of Anubis which I stare at every night as I try to fall asleep. Sleep is something I have gotten little of since we arrived here. Several of the diggers have constantly urged me to start searching around the Statue of Anubis and the Statue of Horus. They keep speaking to me of legends and myths, and if they are true, we could go down in history for the discoveries. They speak to me of The Book of the Dead and the Golden Book of Amun-Ra. These finds would indeed be legendary, but I still feel the pull in my stomach to stay away from the Statue of Anubis.

I will say this though, even though there is nothing here within Hamunaptra that we have found that we don't think poses a threat to us, my mind has been turning over the attack from the desert men in black. They came again last night, setting fire to a tent as another warning to us to leave the city. I saw the young man again. He stares at me, keeping his distance. Such an intelligent young man, he reminds me so much of Adam. How much I miss my children.

These men frighten me. Every morning I wake up here I am afraid that the following night they will return and finally kill us all. I sincerely believe that.

...My hopes that we get out of this city alive are fading. I believe that if we do not get out of this alive, it will be because of the men in black. If we do not make it back to our children, we will have been killed by these desert men...I miss my children so much.

Fallon couldn't breathe. She regretted even opening this journal. A hand flew to her mouth to keep her from crying out in shock. If it was true...then the man from last night...he would know something. What if he was there? What if he...?

"NO! YOU MUST NOT READ FROM THE BOOK!" Someone screamed to the top of their lungs across the camp. An eerie wind began to blow through Hamunaptra.

AN: I hope you enjoyed! I would love to hear what you all think happened to Fallon and Adam's parents in the comments! Please Favorite, Follow, and Review! Since this is the last chapter that I had some pre-written content from my previous drafts, the updates may be less frequent, but I promise to post at least one every other day. Reviews may make the updates quicker ;D I would love to know what everyone thinks.