Chapter Twelve
Lillian was furiously brushing away dirt, dust and spider webs. She was angry, but mostly at herself.
Eight years they'd lived in relative peace. Relative meaning that she and her husband went off and enjoyed the odd adventure, but nothing as drastic or world-threatening as the one that had brought them together.
Lillian sometimes still had nightmares about Hamunaptra. Every time she did, she would send a letter to her sister all the way out in Egypt, burying the question she always asked in between a hundred other more mundane but no less important ones. Evy always assured her that she was fine, that her new family was fine and Hamunaptra was nothing more than a terrible nightmare now.
It was gone and had remained so.
The only thing that made Lillian believe her sister, in spite of the lingering doubts she sometimes had, was the fact that Evy would not risk her young daughter's life. Five years ago, Lillian had received a letter from her sister announcing the arrival of Evy and Ardeth's first child. Little Issa was the most important thing to Evy in the world. She often sent letters gushing about her baby girl, a perfect blend of both Evy and Ardeth, and Lillian would reply in kind with news on Alex's growth.
Lillian knew that if there were signs of a second rising of Imhotep, Ardeth would send Evy and Issa to her, where they would be safe.
Yet, putting aside the doubts, Evy's letters of reassurance didn't stop the dreams.
Lillian kept having a recurring dream. And each time it felt more real, like it was more of a memory than a dream. She told her husband and together they pondered the dream's meaning, until Lillian broached the idea of them going to the location in her dream to discover more.
At first, Rick was against it, especially when his wife told him that it was in Egypt. He was adamant not to go back to 'that playground of the undead', but Lillian had glared at him and stated that she was going whether he wanted to or not, and then Alex, who had been eavesdropping, had then burst into the room demanding that they go and Lillian had smirked at her husband in victory, knowing that he wouldn't say no to his son.
Which is why she was currently dusting off an ancient doorway to read the hieroglyphics underneath thousands of years' worth of dust and cobwebs. Lillian smiled as she worked. It had been nearly a whole year since she had been in an ancient tomb, discovering another piece of Egyptian history. Rick and Lillian O'Connell were respected archaeologists now, though some snide, jealous archaeologists called them tomb raiders.
Lillian almost sighed as she heard a yell, her body tensing reflexively, but knew it was just Alex and Rick messing about so continued to uncover the hieroglyphics, the brushing action almost therapeutic to her now. However, she froze as she heard a hissing noise. Hissing noises were generally not good in ancient tombs. She turned away from the wall and looked down at her feet to see a snake moving towards her feet.
"Go away." She said, before hooking her foot underneath it and flinging it through the air and, unknowingly, towards her husband who deftly dodged it.
"Those things are poisonous, you know." He said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the snake.
"Only if they bite you, and that kind doesn't have a strong enough venom to kill you, so you would have been perfectly safe," Lillian smirked at him, before turning back to her work. "What was all that about anyway?"
"Nothing," Rick replied, as he hoisted his wife's tools over to a stand not far from where she was standing. "Alex just wanted to show me something. I swear, the kid gets more and more like you every day."
"What? You mean, more attractive, sweet, and devilishly charming?" Lillian questioned, sauntering over to his side with a sultry smile on her lips.
"No, he's driving me crazy," Rick said, noticing Lillian roll her eyes, before he kissed her chastely, and moved away to the doorway that was still sealed. "Now, where were we?"
Lillian knew that she should offer him a hammer and chisel so that he wouldn't destroy the door, but also knew that he would never go for that, so grabbed his trusty crowbar and held it out to him instead.
"You know me so well." Rick said with a grin, taking the tool from her with a kiss.
"I should hope so, otherwise what have we been doing for the past eight years?" Lillian replied, as he shoved the end of the crowbar into the crack between the door and the wall, and it fell forward with a large, resonating thud.
Meritaten. A cold tremor ripped through her and Lillian felt that familiar feeling even more strongly than before. Like she had been here before. It made her both frustrated and curious. She had done her research on the name she kept hearing in her dreams and she already knew the legends, but she couldn't understand why she was hearing it. What did a long dead, Egyptian Queen have to do with her?
Lillian grabbed one of the torches, but only moved forward once she had checked that she had all her weapons strapped to her body. Alex loved having her as a mother. None of the other mothers could shoot a man in the eye at a mile away…not that she'd killed anyone in front of her son. That would make her a terrible parent, wouldn't it?
She walked into the room, before she paused sharply, which caused Rick to almost collide into her back.
"What's wrong, honey?" Lillian knew that he was smirking, but she was too focused on not having a panic attack to hit him for being an arse.
"Nothing," She squeaked, before reluctantly stepping into the room, hopping across the spiders and scorpions on the floor. You'd think that fighting a member of the reanimated dead would put fears into perspective, but Lillian was still terrified of spiders. "Ever since I had that dream, this place is all I could think about!"
"Ever since you had that dream, I haven't had a decent night of sleep." Rick replied, simply crushing all of the spiders under his boots, making Lillian smile.
"I know I've been here before," Lillian remarked, before she turned and looked at him. "I'm not cleaning those boots for you now."
"Lily, nobody's been here before, not in at least 3,000 years, well no one but these guys." Rick said, gesturing to the wall behind them that had skeletons lying on shelf-like beds.
Lillian didn't really hear his reply, she was staring intently at a torch holder on the wall. When she pulled on it, the wall behind them opened inwards, and Lillian and Rick exchanged a look.
"Then why do I seem to know exactly where I'm going? I do not like this, Rick. Even at Hamunaptra…I felt like I'd been there before. There are just too many coincidences that are beginning to stack up."
Rick stared at his wife, who looked genuinely concerned by all of this, and grabbed her hand with his spare one and squeezed it.
"We'll figure it out. We always do." Rick said, softly, pressing his lips to hers in another show of comfort. Lillian smiled at him, and stared up at him.
"Who knew that ruffian I met in a prison could be so sweet?" Lillian teased him, and he rolled his eyes.
"Who knew that the woman who shot me down from a noose could be so annoying?" He retorted, wincing when his wife punched him in the arm. He knew that someday he was going to regret teaching her how to fight hand to hand. Her punches hurt now.
"Let's get moving. I don't want to leave Alex up there alone for too long."
"And we don't want to be down here for too long. These places still give me the creeps."
Lillian followed her husband down a passageway, both of them carrying a torch to light their way, when she felt a funny sort of feeling wash over her. Her eyes closed of their own accord, and when she opened them, she swiped her torch to the left, holding it like a weapon, and the room was suddenly brighter.
The walls were clean, no webs or dust to be seen, but the paintings on the walls, the ones that she had only seen recreations or photographs of the dusty, faded versions of, they were clear and bright, as though they had only been painted recently. Several lit torches guided the way to a large door right at the end of the hall.
Lillian blinked rapidly, squeezing her eyes closed and opened them again, trying to wake herself up, but nothing happened. Looking down at herself, she was still dressed in her own clothes; white blouse, dark brown leather corset with shoulder pistol holders, brown leather trousers and worn leather boots.
She raised a hand to her head and felt her cowboy hat there. It had belonged to Henderson, the American she had befriended in Hamunaptra. He had died and had no one to claim his effects, so she had taken his hat and his pistol.
She was still herself and clearly in some sort of dream-like state, but this was the first time she herself had been present in her dream, which only added to her confusion.
Until the door was pushed open from the outside.
Lillian drew one of her pistols, and waited with bated breathed to see who would come out of the other side. Two women in similar traditional Egyptian dress walked through the door and Lillian stared at them as they pushed the door shut.
Lillian watched intently as the one woman twisted the scarab-adorned lock, twice clockwise, and then once anti-clockwise before she pushed it in. Both women then turned around, and Lillian's eyes widened as she saw her own mirror image and the exact copy of her sister walking towards her before the vision faded out, leaving her staring at her husband's back as he himself approached the door.
Deciding she needed more information, Lillian tried to bring the vision back herself, swishing her lit torch around and staring at the flames as she tried to recreate what she had done before, but with little success.
"You know, if you move that fast enough, you can almost write your name." Her husband mocked her, and she gave him a dry look.
"I just had a vision. It was like my dream, but it was real," Lillian replied, ignoring his teasing for now and trying to stay on topic. She looked around the room once more, before her eyes connected with Rick's. "It was like I was actually here in ancient times."
"Well, if you actually were here, could you show me how to open this thing?" Rick questioned, and Lillian marched towards him, holding out the torch for him to hold for her, before she twisted it just how past-life-Evy had done. She stumbled back a little bit when the door opened, surprised when it actually worked.
"Alright, now you're starting to scare me." Rick stated, his blue eyes wide as he looked down at his wife.
"I'm starting to scare myself, so you're not alone."
Lillian and Rick held each other's eyes as they exchanged a worried look, until she nudged him into moving. She wanted to discover what she could and get back to Alex. Knowing both herself and her husband, she was concerned over what mischief their son could be getting himself into while he was alone.
Rick entered the chamber first, lighting the way with the torch, and Lillian followed quickly after, one hand clutching a pistol and the other reaching out to her husband. The entire room was filled with cobwebs and dust; two things that the O'Connell woman hated most. Glad that she had tucked her gloves into the waistband of her trousers, she holstered her gun and pulled the leather gloves on.
Hands now shielded, she moved ahead of her husband to the object that seemed like the most important piece in the room. It was covered in cobwebs and she gritted her teeth as she brushed them away, revealing shining gold underneath the dirt.
Smoothing her hand over it, she realized what the symbol on the golden statue depicted.
"That's the emblem of the Scorpion King," she remarked, wonder tinging her voice. "He's supposed to be pure myth! No trace of him has ever been found before. No artefacts. No archival evidence. Just stories and folklore. This is amazing."
"Maybe they didn't want anybody to find him." Rick commented, and the hairs on Lillian's neck went up in slight fear. Nobody had been meant to find Imhotep either, for the plague he would bring upon the world were he to be awakened and they both knew how that had worked out. Yet her dreams had led her here for a reason and she still wanted answers.
Below the statue was a box, and because of its placement, she knew it must have held something of great importance inside. Throwing caution to the wind, she turned to her husband.
"Let's open this."
"Lily, I don't know. I don't have a real good feeling about this."
"It's only a chest. No harm ever came from opening a chest." Lillian replied, choosing to purposefully forget what had happened to the Americans in Hamunaptra in order to sate her burning desire for knowledge. She really wanted to open the chest.
"Right, and no harm ever came from reading a book. You remember how that one went?" He questioned sarcastically, and Lillian rolled her eyes at him.
"That was Evy, not me, and we can't exactly stop now. If I don't find out why I keep having dreams about this place, I might go crazy."
"Just remember, I was the voice of reason here." Lillian bit back a laugh, trying not to upset her husband. He rarely was the voice of reason in their marriage, but he had his moments. The Carnahan family curiosity often got her into trouble, and he did usually suffer from it, but things always worked out well in the end.
He held his crowbar towards her, and she accepted it with a smile.
"For once."
She placed the crowbar between the lid and the base of the chest and began a five minute struggle to force it open. Lillian's dreams had not extended this far. She could see that there was an indentation where a key was supposed to go, but no clue if the key was still in the chamber or if it were elsewhere in the temple or simply lost to time.
"Hon?" Rick got her attention and Lillian stopped her fight with the chest and looked up at him, as he held out a necklace to her he had pulled off of one of the standing skeletal guards. "Let's do it your way."
Grinning at him, Lillian took it, dropping the crowbar, and quickly placed the key into its rightful place, twisting it round until the lid burst open. Gently, carefully, she lifted the lid the rest of the way and felt her breath leave her all at once at what it held within it.
A golden cuff adorned with a scorpion with the head of a jackal lay in the chest. She had seen drawings of it before and heard stories of it, but she never believed that she might be the one to find it.
"The bracelet of Anubis." Lillian breathed, excitement buzzing around her body.
She lifted it up from the chest, her hands almost cradling it as she gazed at it with one dominant thought in her mind; Evy would have loved this.
The shaking of the ground and walls knocked her out of her thoughts and sent her into a panic.
"Oh, my God." She muttered, all but throwing the bracelet back into its chest and slamming the lid close, while Rick stared at her incredulously.
"Well, it's a bit late for late, isn't it?" He yelled, and she glared at him, grabbing the chest and shoving it towards him.
"Put it in your rucksack."
"I've got a better idea, let's leave it here!"
"I think it's a bit late for that!" Lillian retorted, her mind rushing through all the scenarios of not only what was going to happen, but how they could avoid death and if Alex was safe where he was. He was a brave boy, but he was just that. A boy. She almost wished she had left him with Jonathon now, but knew that could have even more disastrous results.
"What's it say?" Rick demanded, and Lillian turned her eyes to the box and hurriedly translated the hieroglyphs.
"'He who disturbs this bracelet shall drink from the Nile.' Well, that doesn't sound too bad."
Though from experience, 'not too bad' was almost always worse.
Rick shoved the chest into his rucksack, grabbed his wife's hand and together, they began to rush back to the entrance. Only, they got to the doorway of the chamber and saw a huge body of water rushing towards them.
"I guess, that's the Nile we're supposed to be drinking from." Lillian grimaced, as they darted left to avoid it.
The couple ran furiously away from the thundering wave nipping at their heels, making unfamiliar turns down unknown corridors until they reached a dead end.
Panic stricken, all Lillian and Rick could do was grab hold of one another as the water finally hit them, not knowing that while they were fighting not to drown their son had set into motion their very escape.
They managed to find an old, rusted grate, probably used as a waste disposal or a water system, to grab hold of as the water rose rapidly, already at their necks.
"This is bad, Lily." Rick stated, and Lillian tried, in vain, to put a positive spin on things.
"We've had bad before!"
"This is worse!"
Taking one last gulping breath, the pair disappeared under the water, hoping to God that they found some way out of this mess before they left their son an orphan.
They wrestled with the grate, wishing desperately for it to give way so they could escape, when suddenly they were swept away, involuntary yells leaving their mouths as they were launched out of a massive hole in what once was a wall and onto the dirt covered floor in front of their disheveled son.
Both of them gasped for breath, coughing and spluttering as they held each other, just thankful to be alive. Lillian then had the presence of mind to glance about the room to take in the destruction their son had caused to a historical Egyptian site, even though it had saved their lives. She turned her eyes upwards, still trying to catch her breath, to stare at Alex, who wore the same guilty expression he wore when he had broken the 15th century Tudor vase in her study.
"Mom, Dad, I can explain everything."
His parents just shook their heads and went back to trying to regain the strength, and the will, to get up out of the puddle they were laying in.
She had been right.
'Not too bad' had been worse. Infinitely worse.
A/N:
Hey, The Mummy fans! I'm back!
First of all, I'd like to apologise for the long hiatus this story ended up taking. I just lost inspiration for this story and found it in other fandoms so concentrated on those while it was there. But we have officially entered The Mummy Returns territory, and we are beginning to take the mystery tour of Lillian and all those crazy, subtle hints and nudges from the first half of the story!
Second of all, I'm very sad to tell you that this story is being plagiarised. A fan of this story left me a kind message telling me that she had read a story on Quotev that was very similar to my own, though it had been taken and tweaked and embellished with a different OC and a small crossover from characters in Uncharted (the video game which is set much further into the future than The Mummy is set - which is weird). If you read it, you can spot the similarities almost instantly to my story. This person has pretty much copied me word for word in some places. I work hard on my stories, in trying to make them entertaining and different enough from the original movie that people enjoy them, so to have my work stolen and claimed as somebody else's is very hurtful and upsetting. If you want to message this person and help me get in contact with them (I left a comment on the story about it, because I don't know how Quotev works), or just report them, I'd be grateful for any help at all. The user is called Avy and I think the title is The Mummy.
Here's the link as well: story/5933257/The-Mummy/7/
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new update,
Soph.