Trapped Alive!
Summary- A year later, during an excavation with the O'Connell family, Jonathan and Samantha get caught in a landslide which traps them in the Temple of Bast. With Samantha badly injured and unwell, father and daughter learn even more about each others lives while trying to escape.
Author's notes- According to this history website, the walkie-talkie object that I am giving Alex in this story was invented around this time in the story.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 3- Cave In!
The next morning, everyone got up feeling refreshed and ready to search the temple, except Sam, Jonathan and Alex who were groaning about getting up too early.
"Where you two up all night talking again? And why are you so tired, Alex? You were in our tent last night and we never heard you talk at all" Rick asked at the tired trio, they were all sitting around a fire and having breakfast. Samantha had sheer guilt running around her body and desided to speak up.
"Me and Alex were doing some training with swords and dad heard us, so he came to see what all the noise was. He told us off for making so much noise and then I got the idea that he could use some sword fighting training himself. That lasted quite a while, sorry".
Alex piped up "It was quite funny actually, Uncle John kept getting tripped over and landing on his back" Jonathan looked down at his nephew with mock hurt, then ruffled up his hair which resulted in a laugh from Sam. "But he is getting really good at it. Uncle John finally tripped Sam over, then I fell asleep" Alex added.
Rick, Evy and Ardeth looked at Jon with surprize and he couldn't help but grinned sheepishly at them. Evy then got up and declared that it was time to get ready for exploring. Alex, Samantha and Jonathan, now fully awake walked into their tents to get their equipment ready.
"Hey Sam, come and see what my parents bought me before we came here" Alex yelled from the O'Connell tent. Samantha walked into the tent and saw her cousion huddled over a backpack, in his hands were two plastic boxes with arieals sticking out of them.
"These are Walkie-Talkies. If you had one and was at a far away distance, I can still talk to you from here. Try it, if you want to talk to me, just push the button" Alex handed her one of the boxes and told her to go to the entrance of the temple. When she got there, Sam pressed the button on the side and spoke in the box "Alex?"
A faint voice could be heard "See, I told you it would work. Come back now" She walked back over to Alex, who was now outside the tent looking very happy. Evy, Rick, Jonathan and Ardeth walked over to them and told them it was time to explore.
The big family walked towards the hugh temple in front of them "Well, here we go again. Let's try and not bring anything back from the dead or cause any distaters, shall we?" Jonathan joked as they walked into the entrance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inside, there were many statues of a woman with a head of a cat, holding a rattle in one hand. "That's Bast, the protectress of cats. Sheba would be pleased with that" Sam explained, saying about her cat back at home. Up ahead, there was three passageways.
"Right, here's what we'll do. Me and Rick will take the left passageway, Alex and Ardeth can take the middle and Jonathan and Samantha can take the right" Everyone agreed and went their seperate ways.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick and Evy walked down the passageway, lighted by the torch Rick was holding. Along the walls were numorus pictures of Bast and Anichant tales of her, the passageway ended in a big room with a alter in it. Behind the alter was a hugh picture of Bast with a golden cat statue and a hugh black panther-looking creature.
Evy was at the picture right away and started translating in her head the anichant writing below it. Rick shortly joined her side "Well, what does it say?"
"It says 'Whoever disturbs the golden statue of Bast's animal form, shall suffer the consequnces of Bast's protector, a giant monster of dangerous perportions' We better not find that statue then".
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Say, dad. What excatly are we meant to be looking for?" Sam asked, confused. Jonathan, leading the way with his torch, just shrugged "I'm not sure. Something really important, I think". They walked along side each other in silence until they reached the treasure room. The gold was shining brightly from the light of the torch and Jon's face was a picture of wonder. Samantha looked up at him and rolled her eyes.
They walked though the piles of gold and came to a table with the most beautiful treasure they would ever see. It was a medium statue of a cat made of solid gold, it's eyes were made of golden-yellow gemstones. It was wearing earrings and a necklace of blue, green and orange gemstones. At the centre of the necklace was a gold plate with the eye of Horus on it and below that was a scarab made of blue, green and red gemstones. It was in a sitting position with anichant Eygptian writing at it's feet and around the edge.
"This is Bast favorite animal. In some pictures and writing, this was how she was dipicted. This is so beautiful, we must show Aunt Evy this. She'll love to study it" Sam explained, but before she could make a move to grab it, Jonathan grabbed her arm and stopped her.
"No, we better not touch it, just in case. We don't anything to happen to us yet or at all" He warned. Sam nodded in understandment and started to walk away from the statue. Jonathan, who couldn't keep his eyes off of it, started to walk backwards and unwittingly walked into a stone statue. He let out a terrified scream and ran forwards into his daughter, making them both fall into the sand.
"Dad, what the hell is the matter? What happened?" She managed to push her father off and stood up and saw what scared him "It's just a statue, dad. It's not alive, but it is very realistic" When Jonathan got up, they walked closer to it. It was a statue of a granite cat, a giant cat. It was about the size of a panther in a standing position, with one of its front legs out, like it was attacking something. Its eyes were made of bright yellow gemstones and it wore the same necklace as the smaller gold cat statue. Father and daughter looked at eah other and felt chills go up their spines.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ardeth and Alex had made it down to the end of their passageway and stood in a smaller room witth a small alter in it. On the alter was a small oval-shaped hole, with anichant Eygptian writing along it. Alex, with his knowlege of the Eygptian wrintings, started to translate it.
"It says 'The person who disturbs the golden statue of Bast, must place it here to stop the curse. If it is not placed here by the end of three full turnings of the sun, the curse shall coscumate them'. What does it mean, Ardeth?"
The Med-jai leader looked down at him with wisdom in his eyes "It means, young O'Connell, that if this person disturbs the statue, they have three days to place it here, otherwise it will be too late".
Alex swallowed nervously and moved away from the alter and started to study the walls of the room. He walked along side one of the walls and came across a picture of a person standing underneath a load of falling rocks. Alex started to translate this piece of writing as well.
"Thee who steps on the rock button on this floor shall be buried alive within this temple" Alex now scared started to walk backwards and accidentally trod on a rock stuck in the floor. The rock sank into the ground and a rumbling could be heard.
Ardeth grabbed Alex around the waist and started running with him "We must get out of here NOW!" The young O'Connell didn't argue back about it and let the Med-jai leader carry him away to the entrance room where the big family split up.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The rumbling got louder in the main alter room, Evy and Rick looking around the room with panic and worry in their eyes, watching as dust, sand and small rocks fell from the celing. "Time to go" Rick shouted, grabbing his wife's arm and pulling her out of the room.
"Do you think the other's are alright?" Evy asked, alarmed. "Of course, our family's tough. Let's go" They both ran to the entrance room.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan and Samantha both jumped when they heard the rumbling noise, looked at each other and ran towards the door. Sam stopped suddenly, turned around and ran back towards the small statue. Jon noticed this and followed after his daughter.
"What are you doing? Now is not the time to get treasure. And that's saying something coming from me" Jonathan shouted in a blind panic, but Sam wasn't hearing it. She picked up the statue and told Jon to turn around. She then put the statue in her father's backpack "Now we run, Dad".
They both ran down the passageway until they met up with the others in the entrance. Evy and Rick hugged their son while Sam, Ardeth and Jonathan said their hellos as well. The dust and sand falling down were getting more and more bigger, so were the rocks. They all started running towards the entrance hallway leading outside, the O'Connells first, then Ardeth, then Sam and finally Jonathan, whoses backpack suddenly felt a lot heavier.
Samantha noticed him falling behind and ran back towards him. She took the back pack off him and threw it towards Alex and Ardeth who stopped to see if they were alright. They picked it up and started to run though the hallway once more. Jonathan, having lost the extra weight, was able to run much faster towards the light outside, only to be positioned right under some large falling rocks.
Sam noticed this and pulled Jonathan back behind her. That made him fall backwards and hit his head off a large rock sticking out of the ground, making him fall unconcious. "Dad!" was all Samantha could shout out before the rocks fall in front of her, making her fall backwards so she lay on her back on the floor. The last thing she could remember was a quite largish rock fall on her leg, a lot of pain and than blackness.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The others managed to get out of the temple fine, but knowing something terrible was amiss. "Jonathan, Samantha" Evy shouted out to the entrance of the temple, but knew it was too late when the rocks covered the doorway to the temple. She sank down on her knees and started crying. 'No, not my brother, not my niece. Please, no'.
She flinched when she felt a hand on her shoulder, then realised that it was Rick. Evy spun around and hugged him, crying into his shoulder "They're dead Rick, they're dead. I know it, just like how my Mother and Father died. I was hoping nothing would happen like this again"
Rick didn't know what to do, but just to rub his wife's back as she sobbed. They both heard a noise behind them and turned their heads to see Alex with tears running down his face "Mom, dad. It's my fault they're in there still. I trod on the switch and made the rockslide in the temple. I'm so, so sorry".
Evy let go of her husband and hugged her son "Alex, it isn't your fault. It isn't anyone's fault, it was an accident, okay?" He nodded but didn't seem convinced. The O'Connells cried with each other and Ardeth looked towards the temple, kissing his fingers and bringing them to his forehead 'Allah protect them' he prayed, tears in his eyes for his fallen family members.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes. Finally finished the thrid chapter. Will Jonathan and Samantha live? And what about that golden cat statue and the stone cat statue? Is there some kind of connection? Only time and reviews can tell. From chugirl2526.