Cassandra Morgan

1980

DAY 1

An address led me to a black museum in England, where I was allowed to examine a parchment found on board a merchant's ship. When the vessel was found drifting in the middle of the ocean everyone on board had died. The captain's log mentioned a young man who had been taken from the drudging lifestyle he once had had aboard the ship at New Guinea. It told of the bondsman who had strange markings on his back. The captain believed the markings were part of an uncharted area of Africa and was convinced the map would show him the home of the true Garden of Eden.

When the British Navy found the abandoned vessel floating in the misty ocean, they boarded and uncovered multiple dead bodies. The theory was a contagious virus had killed everyone on board. The commander couldn't find the young man and surmised he had gotten off the ship somehow. Did he escape, or did someone find him? These were the questions along with many I was hoping to find answers to.

I followed the work of Dr. Alexandra Knight. Her investigation led her to Africa in search of this mysterious man. I wanted to return to Kwainaba to find out more about the history of the place. It would have been quite something to have met the woman. But she died on board the SS Petoria one harrowing night.

The shipwreck sounded like a site to explore, but the ship's instruments were so badly damaged that its location was lost. Someday someone will find it, that I was certain, but it wouldn't be today with the primitive technology required to find a lost vessel of this magnitude. This of course led many seafaring explorers to find the wreck. Rumour had it there was part of the Stone of Eve aboard.

I know what you're thinking, the Garden of Eden, Stone of Eve – sounds like a bunch of wild theories, but what if the legends were true? Many believed that three jewels were forged from the stone, one man could explain the origin – however it would be science that would need to solve the mystery – that man was Sir Francis Drake, he had one of these jewels in his possession. The jewels from the stone made it sound the source of the fragments were part of a devastating piece of alchemical weaponry. That part was a little harder to believe.

If it was true, could Drake have used the famous amulet he wore to turn the tide of war?

I was the historian who knew a thing or two about Sir Frances Drake. What I had found and where it had led me kept me coming back to the stone. What struck me as odd was the two figures on Drake's emblem of an African Man and a Romanian Woman that was when I found the link between the two bodies, Dr. Knight had found in Kwainaba.

From that moment on I have been on the journey to find the stone.

I didn't believe everything I was told, and wanted to remain optimistic, but some of the stories I heard about were beyond the realm of the fantastic. I believe that science holds the answers to life's questions and if we can't explain something, it's because we do not understand the science behind it. Before I even met Evelyn my life was a little boring. I made it exciting and was often pulled from pillar to post. It all began ten years ago.

The place where I found myself was full of history, the ruins there were shaped by war. Whatever happened to that Spanish government building was going to take a long time to understand. I was enlisted by Dr. Catalina Vena Juarez, a brilliant archaeologist and linguist – she was a beautiful woman, her head full of flowing auburn hair. She hated getting her hands dirty which was kind of odd for the line of work we were in. Truth be told she mostly studied the plans and plotted where we would dig.

I remember her tipping her beige hat from the sun and handing me a piece of paper. I opened the brown-stained folded telegram, the colour matched Dr. Juarez's pants. It had the San Francisco Western Union stamp on the top, a world WWII post mark.

CASSANDRA MORGAN

THIS IS A MATTER OF THE UPMOST IMPORTANCE. I AM IN NEED OF YOUR SERVICES. IF YOU ARE AS SMART AS I BELIEVE YOU TO BE, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THE SEVERITY OF WHAT I HAVE TO SAY. A RELIC OF A NEW WORLD THREATENS US ALL – WE NEED TO FIND IT, WE NEED TO DESTORY IT - BEFORE IT BECOMES OUR UNDOING. I BELIEVE IN YOU AND SUGGEST YOU START AT THE ADDRESS ON THE BACK OF THIS TELEGRAM.

EVELYN

Who was Evelyn?

And why was she calling me out?

Was she another historian like me?

Was I about to go on an adventure?

I was used to correspondences like this stopping me in my tracks - although a clandestine telegram was new. Every time I got deep into finding an artifact of history, someone managed to persuade me, that they needed me for some research or some other historical endeavour.

Juarez and I had already delayed the dig, twice – but I was intrigued to know more. If this mysterious Evelyn had put the time and effort into reaching me like this, it must be important – it must be. I took a breath and wiped the sweat off my brow, I turned the telegram over to look at the address, but it wasn't an address I could see in the strictest sense – it was an al-tashfir – Damn it Evelyn, what do you want from me?

I spent the next few minutes trying to understand what I was looking at. Was I supposed to know what this said? I didn't like the idea of not knowing the answer. I needed to be useful, to have a purpose.

A young boy tagged along from the local village, he often asked what we we found. He could see the intrigued look on my face.

"What does it say, Ms Morgan?" Nem was a young boy, sharp as a tac and adorable to look at. He had the look of adventure in his eye. He wanted to know what I didn't. In all honesty I didn't have the time for cryptography. It was such a strange thing to see, the symbols were in Arabic. I stood staring blankly through the paper. Feeling the eyes from everyone else. I was an historian not a linguist. I thought.

It wasn't just Nem though who was watching me, I also felt someone else's eyes piercing my privacy. I remember looking up over the ruins and seeing someone looking at me in the distance.

"I-I don't know Nem, I don't know." I said walking away as the Panamanian Sun shone down from the west, the heat had become unbearable, and I needed some water. I spoke to Dr. Juarez and told her I was going to my tent.

I wasn't too sure if the heat was playing tricks on me. I looked back up over the ruins and noticed the figure had disappeared. Was I imagining things?

Peeling back the large cloth tent door, I noticed a middle-aged West African man sitting at the table. He looked like a man of wealth. My eyes were drawn to his ostentatious wristwatch, and cream pocket square. His body covered in a well-tailored grey Saville Row suit. He was looking at my maps and messing up my filing system.

I told him that I could see he had a disregard for privacy.

His distinguished introduction made me wonder what his presence meant. I thought he could be about to call upon my services too. He stood there in our tent, larger than life as though he was about to deliver an eloquent speech. His eyes looked towards the paper I had in my hand. I played coy.

Jasper walked over to the chess game that Dr. Juarez and I were playing. She had checkmated me eventually, but I put up a good fight. He began talking about the game of chess, describing about there being two sides, two players. He took one of the plastic cups next to the board and blew the dust off, pouring himself a lukewarm drink of water from the canteen hanging on the wooden chair. He continued talking about the pieces, representing the Indian armies, the soldiers, along with the rules and how they've changed throughout time. Pointing out Europe being responsible for the largest of the changes. Although by the Byzantium period, the game began to see huge changes.

Jasper asked me if I ever wondered why the pieces were made black and white.

I looked at the paper and looked back at him, what was he trying to tell me? I concluded why he was asking this cryptic question. He sat waiting for me to answer with perceptivity. I thought about the reasoning, trying to understand what this had to do with anything.

I concluded he was talking about the contrast…it's simply a matter of understanding where each piece sits on each square on the board. Without black and white you wouldn't know what position your pieces were….well…positioned. That was the best I could come up with.

He found my contrast conclusion to be valid.

I of course had my own knowledge to add, reminding him that chess pieces weren't always Black and White they were red and black -the most common inks available at the time. My retorting annoyed him slightly, he knew what he was talking about, but the metaphor he was trying to use was not going to work on me.

He didn't know that, but it wasn't the colour he was trying to make me understand, it was the knowing which side I was on and knowing where my position was – which was important. He asked me which side I was on.

Huh, I didn't know what he was trying to do, was he wanting me to decipher the code for him? Did he know where the address was? He was just as coy as I. Jasper clearly knew more than he was letting on, he wanted me to do something, but what! I did not know.

I point blank asked him who he was, I was becoming tiresome of his speeches, I hated to admit it, but I was mesmerised at first by his words; he seemed to think he was a prophet telling tales of heresy and how to build a better future. Although the words were convoluted, they sounded inspiring, intriguing and above all serendipitous.

He eventually told me he represented a group that had certain interests in the world. Years later, I knew this to be The Protectors. His job was to protect sacred assets from ever falling into the wrong hands. Finishing the last of our water things became a little unnerving, he walked closer to me. I was a little worried at first. My fingers began to tighten, it felt as though a fist was forming – getting ready to strike. My girlfriend said I had an unpredictable temper, especially if I felt threatened.

What side was this man on? He told me that the Protectors were always watching and waiting to come into the light when needed. Returning to the chess analogy and taking each chess piece off the board, meant mixing the colour - you mix black with white, and you get grey.

I watched him smile; he was trying to tell me what he did – whatever that might be – was for the greater good. But how did I fit in to all of this, what did he want with me?

My antagonistic side began to show, but probably wasn't the best approach. The unnerving feeling became more of a terrified one. I didn't want to scream for help, in hindsight I probably should have done. Jasper unsheathed a blade, moving it into my view, he slowly rubbed it against my face, trying to instil fear and intimidation. I joked, "only six inches, that's not going to do much for me." Ha. My words were complete with a tremble but not enough for him to notice. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. He could see I wasn't afraid, as much as he'd liked.

The next words out of Jasper's mouth were a little unusual. It went from the natural to the supernatural, do you know what he said? "Don't interfere with primordial forces."

Primordial forces? I knew what he meant, I just didn't know what he was talking about here, what was he trying to tell me? The blade returned to his side. He wasn't done with me quite yet. He told me about a place called The City of the Broken. The legend of the Viking city under London. Hearing the words sent alarm bells ringing, oh shit I thought…the lost Viking city. The last time I heard about the broken cities mentioned a link to a legendary artifact – The Stone of Eve.

The clues were buried deep within Varangian history. There was also the matter of the ambiguous maps hidden somewhere within Africa. It wasn't a race; it was a marathon. For each clue Evelyn and I found led to the next, as though we were 1940's detectives solving a case. It didn't matter how long it took; it mattered what we found along the way.

"Why are you telling me this, I already know this story?" Gendra, my cell mate asked, I couldn't think of anything else to do with the time, and I had no idea how long I was going to be in here. My attention could only focus on his very good looks for so long. It wasn't just his looks that were attractive, it was his skills in engineering too, which would prove to be useful to the cause. Evelyn's husband trusted him to be with me. Unfortunately, we were both locked in this room. My methods of stealth were not as good as I hoped, and we both ended up in here because of it.

I felt dizzy, my head was hurting. Someone had knocked me out, but thankfully I was alive. The door opened and a Russian man I didn't recognise entered the cell.

"Okay you two, let's go for a walk."

Both Gendra and I stood up and walked towards the doorway. It looked like we were being set free, although I wasn't sure why. I knew this place was a viper's pit, but it held some answers to questions, Evelyn and I had. We joined a small team, I could see Evelyn sat at the table, she was smiling. I felt better seeing her there. But what was she doing here? She must have thought I would get into trouble. An American ginger haired bureaucrat came into the lounge area of the mansion.

"Welcome ladies and gentlemen." He was accompanied by a smarmy looking guy who had a pistol at his side. He wasn't the man running the show, it was Brigadier James Harrison. A typical stout man in a green army uniform. He had the stereotypical grey handlebar moustache and the reddest cheeks I had have ever seen. He'd been on expeditions in Africa, The Middle East and Russia.

"Looks like we have guests." The bureaucrat seemed to know a lot more about me than I did him. "I have studied you Ms Morgan, you're a parvenue. Most of us here are defined by avarice and arrogance. You may want to seek fortune but it's the answers you want more, the curiosity drives you more than anything. You know what they say about curiosity."

"No not really, especially if it involves the death of a moggy. I really like cats."

Gendra smiled at me, he liked my jovial attitude.

"Believe me when I say this is one curiosity better left indifferent."

I looked at Evelyn and at the photo of us in my pocket that we took at the decommissioned bunker in Scotland. I followed the architect of that bunker to this mansion where he supposedly built a war room inside, like the one hidden in Windsor castle. Hoping to reveal the location of the hidden Viking City.

The brigadier accepted that Gendra and I would be part of their endeavour. It was either that or be arrested for trespassing. I know I couldn't contain my excitement, but we weren't among friends, we were among infamous men of questionable reputation. Most of whom were British – surrounded by a nation of conquerors, who sought out land and claimed it for their own.

One thing was clear they were all here for the same thing, but did they believe it? Evelyn knew one of them held the location to the city. My money was on the bureaucrat. But whoever it was wanted experts. Both Evelyn and I were the experts in the history of Sir Francis' secret missions for the queen, but how long would we last? I reached for my head tapping it, trying to make the pain go away.

"Are you okay Cass?" Gendra was worried about me, but I assured him I was fine.

Evelyn whispered to me. "Do you remember what I told you on board the ship?" I told her I did as she revealed the symbol on the ring of one of her attackers. We were in a building belonging to the Protectors of the Stone. Is Jasper here? I thought to myself.

"I'm not sure about this Cass," Gendra said, as the look of worry could be seen on his face. I told him about the origins of the protectors, detailing the Varangian elites, unfortunately taking Evelyn back to some painful memories.

Evelyn was looking even more worried. "What if they know who I am?" I reassured her that it's been quite a few years and that no one would know who she was, I certainly wasn't going to tell anyone who she was, and I didn't think anyone else in the room knew who she was either. I told her to be calm.

We were all placed around the table as the bureaucrat told us to raise our glasses and toast what will be the find of the century. I smelt the wine and swirled it in my glass, it smelt sweet and dry. We all raised our glasses and drank the liquid down.

I felt dizzy and before I blacked out, I watched each of the heads at the table fall.

DAY 2

They'd knocked us out so we couldn't see where we were going. I knew one of the men hadn't drank the wine with us. We were all in the same room inside the bunker, each of us began to come around confused by what had happened. The room looked the same as the one at the military installation in McAlly's Lake. We didn't realise it at first, but this wasn't the city of the fifties it turned out from the British historian Andrew, that this was constructed much earlier, and the government used the ruins to build a new city. Our job was to find what they couldn't. Part of this was of Viking Heritage.

The British government had no idea what they'd found. We were fortunate to have a woman who helped build the new city in the fifties and was regaling us with what the engineering team saw when they first arrived. Most of the original structures remained. The chapel, the dining area and even some of the bedrooms. Formed within the limestone under London, to make it more quote unquote 'to standard'. They built around the structure mixing the old with the new.

This part of the Viking epicentre was a barracks, somewhere to house the elite soldiers that lay waiting outside. This was also the place to house the Vault. Somewhere in this building was the location to the vault and that would be where the stone was last seen. I was certain of it.

Throughout history one man, Amvrosy Petrov had been linked to forming rooms out of rock, a 19th century Russian architect, mason, cryptographer and engineer. His speciality was creating elaborate locks hidden in plain sight.

"This place brings back memories, that's where we found Captain Hastings' body." The small thin woman pointed out at the wall as we walked down the long corridor towards the meeting room.

"Yeah, I heard he shot himself – went crazy didn't he?" Andrew's words sent a chill down my spine. As they both told more of the story, Harriet concluded with Hastings shooting himself, but not before he shot and killed the men and women that lived here.

"It is said the ghosts of the dead walk these halls and quietly whisper their last words." It was clear Andrew was trying to scare us. Evelyn and I were sceptical. He prevaricated when we asked questions, we knew the answers to.

"We are not here to listen to ghost stories," I said.

"Do you not believe in ghosts?" Harriet asked.

"Of course not, ghost stories come from the bored Jane Q. Public of the 1900s. They used to see things that weren't there from lack of nutrition, clean water and modern medicine." I made it clear I wasn't convinced with ghost stories.

"How do you explain photographs of ghosts?"

Gendra was interested to hear what I had to say about that.

"It's called ghosting, when the light hits the lens in a certain way, or that the idiot using the camera has no idea what they're doing." I made Gendra smile once again. I thought about my husband taking pictures of Sam, I kept the name Morgan, I needed to know it meant more than a name. I missed my family so much. It was hard to leave them, but if I find the stone, we could all have the best life together. I would give up all of this and maybe have another child.

Listening to Evelyn and I debunking Andrew and Harriet's theories made the room laugh as I looked around at each person. Harriet was also well versed on Varangian history, Andrew looked more like a hired gun. Between Andrew and Harriet, they were considered experts on this place.

Day 7

We had broken through more of the walls inside and outside of the bunker. It was dangerous the ceiling wasn't exactly stable, and we still hadn't found anything. The bureaucrat started to turn the place into some sort of stately home. Adorning the walls with paintings, filling the rooms with furniture and an elaborate grandfather clock. He setup one room as a museum bringing in parts of Drake's ship. They had placed it next to the chronometer. It was weird to see one next to The Golden Hind anachronistically it didn't belong.

He had claimed everything we found as his own including the chronometer which was probably the most expensive item in the whole of the underground bunker. Gendra had been working on some locking mechanism for a room outside of the bunker. He told us about some elaborate lock he'd created with a link to Adam and Eve's exile. I don't think he had much of a choice but to help them.

It had only been seven days, but I think the setting was getting to some of us, some had said they were hallucinating at times. Unfortunately, I had no idea how long we were going to be here for. Hopefully for not much longer, listening to Andrew come out with more weird tales of this city was getting to me.

I asked Evelyn to close the door to our room, revealing something I had stolen. I showed her the piece from the chronometer. I moved it around and showed her how valuable this piece of metal was.

"Cassandra, did you steal that?" She asked, I did steal it, but I was going to return it. We looked at it in greater detail. I couldn't keep it for long, so I drew it in my journal I was using for this expedition. I also drew the chronometer as well. Nobody noticed me watching, before as I saw someone dismantle the chronometer and take it.

BANG

The noise of the gun was loud, we rushed towards the brigadier's room, bursting in he turned the gun towards me, I closed my eyes as I thought he was going to shoot me. But he didn't. Evelyn held on to me as I opened my eyes. Nathan and Andrew came running towards the room too.

"Brigadier, are you okay?" My heart was beating like a London discotheque.

"Of course, I am." He said, moving towards his bed.

"What the hell happened?" Andrew demanded.

"I saw my father." The brigadier was unsure of his words, "b-but he's dead."

We all looked at each other, confused, scared and greatly concerned. "What do you mean you saw your father?" We were worried about the brigadier, from what Andrew had said about the captain from before. This could get a lot worse.

"Huh, must have just been a dream." Demanding we left his room.

We returned to the dining hall area and spoke about what happened. There was great concern about what had just transpired. With only seven days down it was going to be a very long expedition.

That night I couldn't help thinking about what had happened and what we were going to do next. I wrote mine and Evelyn's name on a piece of paper and placed them on the door. The paper slid in just right. This was now our home – I couldn't think of her not being by my side.

Day 10

It had finally sunk in that no one could leave this place – we had no idea how long the food would last us. We were already down a soldier as the Brigadier shot himself three nights ago. His body was left in his room and the door closed. We all became worried that we may be in danger. Most of the places were shut off in the bunker and it felt like they had found something that we weren't privy to.

They called us when we were needed but this wasn't one of those times. It was deemed a necessity to lock us in our rooms and I had no idea why or what the time was. I hated knowing the time, it always meant there wasn't enough of it and if I didn't know the time, I believed I had all the time in the world.

The construction work in the chapel had damaged the integrity of our wall. Sitting up in the bed I could see the white strokes peeking through the hole in the plaster on the wall. I walked over and put my finger inside the hole picking at the plaster, watching it crumble in my fingers and dropping to the floor.

The noise awoke Evelyn, as I continued peeling plaster off the wall. She stirred and looked at me wondering what I was doing. She wrapped her robe around her waist and walked over towards me. She too started to peel back the plaster on the wall.

As the wall broke down it showed more of the chalked strokes. It was now becoming apparent that the room we stayed in was somebody's prison. The door was reinforced steel but that was most likely replaced in part to prevent nuclear fallout from reaching the inside of the room.

The strokes didn't stop on the east wall, they were on the west and the south. Moving the bed was hard enough and how we were going to remove the wall was another conundrum.

"What are you hoping to find?" Evelyn couldn't understand what I was doing, I didn't have an answer to that question I was more interested in who stayed here. For so many strokes - this person was incarcerated for a long time. Whoever this was wasn't recorded in the history books.

"Who stayed here?" Evelyn was as intrigued as I was. We needed to speak to Harriet, if what she said was to be believed she might have the knowledge of who stayed here. I wish I could tell who's handwriting this was.

Seeing the strokes didn't seem to make sense as the numbers were sporadic, it was as though this person was moving around the walls writing certain numbers trying to hide important numbers from the ones which weren't important.

Our door opened and Gendra came running in, he looked at the mess we had made. "Cass, we need you to look at something." I followed him to the chapel where the rest of them were standing, looking at the floor.

"What are we all staring at?" Before I could even get anything more out the lights went from bright white to black lighting, revealing symbols on the tiles. The room had turned into a black lit room and the symbols below our feet shone with a blue tint, the dust flew a few millimetres from the illuminated Greek lettering.

"Come quick!" Andrew shouted out loud. We went running to Harriet's room – we could see her swinging from the ceiling – she had hanged herself.

Day 11

The death of Harriet was playing on my mind, I had to find a way out of here fast. The bureaucrat wasn't opening the bunker door – I had to find some answers otherwise we were going to be here forever.

The chapel floor was the mystery, what did it mean? It was something worth looking into. I knew the next few days were going to be very interesting. I stood looking at the mural of the star system on the chapel wall, the lectern and the uncovered tiles. If I was going to die I would need someone to pick up where I left off. I had the idea of putting the numbers on the wall to link to the grandfather clock, where I left the piece of the chronometer.

Day 14

This was so much harder when you didn't have the answer. I pressed, pushed and tapped each stone – nothing. Without short of blasting a hole through the floor there was no telling what any of this meant. It was advised that blasting would bring the roof on our heads, in fact the whole place inside was not up to code. This had to be done with kid gloves.

The malign comments from Andrew were pissing me off but Gendra offered more comfort. He had a way of making you feel you were important.

"Petrov was also known to construct elaborate traps. He went crazy at one point in his life and feared he was being watched. To keep people at bay he built hiding places within hiding places. He found himself thinking he was omnipotent, at least so he thought. His name Amvrosy means God, or immortal. Either the name went to his head, or something happened to him."

Gendra listened to my words, as Andrew continued with the derogatory remarks.

"Give it up Cass, you've been at it for days." I pictured grabbing his nuts, twisting and biting his nose off. A bit feral I know, but this piece of shit was asking for it.

I ran my fingers across the mural stars of the constellation. I felt them embossed I pressed the first one, then the second but nothing.

"You'll figure it out cass, you always do." Gendra looked at me with confidence, he could see I was frustrated. He made me feel good about myself.

I explained to him that the letters were Greek, which he already knew, but not the Ionic ones used in Greece in the modern day. These were based on the Phoenician's North Semitic Alphabet.

"It's definitely the Chalcidian alphabet. A forerunner of the Etruscan alphabet, later to become the Latin one we use today."

"Okay so what does it mean?" Andrew was growing impatient.

"I have no idea."

I looked at Evelyn for inspiration, but she had a blank expression on her face. The rug that led to the lectern was covering this 6x6 grid. 24 tiles - 24 Greek letters of the alphabet.

"Do they move?" Gendra asked again, I could see he was trying to keep me motivated.

"No, it feels like they should move, but they don't."

I got closer to the tiles and once again felt them to move them. "They're fragile, but I don't want to break them."

"What do you know about them?" Andrew was now asking the questions.

"I have already told you, 24 letters all capitals, Greek letters not Alpha to Omega, they're all mixed up."

"That 'o' isn't a capital." Gendra pointed to the second tile which I had overlooked.

"Yeah, you're right - it's lowercase." I made a mental note of it and walked towards the mural.

"Press the second star," Andrew said thinking he knew what he was talking about.

"Not the second but the fifteenth - Omicron." I pressed the button, and the floor made a noise like a mechanism was whirring underneath us. The boys and I watched as the tiles began flipping around like a child spinning an alphabet on a skewer.

"Wow, that was pretty cool," Gendra said with a smile. "What now?"

"Just flip the letters which are stars!" Andrew said, who was now getting on my last nerve.

"They're all stars you idiot, please the two of you, update him and I will continue working on this." I didn't mind Gendra staying behind, but I couldn't bear another moment with Andrew. I watched them leave as I stood up and looked at the tiles once again. There seemed to be a riddle written in Russian spread diagonally across the tiles.

"The…path…to…death…has…milestones…along…the…way." Evelyn read out the mistranslated words – but I got the idea. Knowing what I knew I wrote the date on the wall at the back of the chapel. If someone was to pick up where I left off, then they wouldn't have to do much to open this back up. I started to feel dizzy and collapsed, hitting the ground hard.

Day 17

I awoke to the sight of Gendra who had been looking after me for the last few days. I quickly shot up and looked myself over. What happened? I thought. I remembered being on the floor but then blacking out.

"Cass are you okay?" He looked worried, there wasn't anyone else in the medical room.

"Evelyn…what happened?" I said falling back down on the bed. "I need to finish." I slowly got up again and climbed out of bed.

"Cass you blacked out, we're all feeling the effects. We think there's some kind of hallucinogenic gas emitting from the rocks. Andrew is in the other room puking his guts out."

"We need to flip those tiles, right Evelyn?" I said pointing at her and telling the answer to the riddle.

"Cass there's no one there, Evelyn isn't here, she's in your head."

"What are you talking about, she's right there." I pointed again; I could see her. She smiled at me telling me that it was Gendra who was seeing things. What the hell was happening?

"It's this city, it's rotting your mind. We're all feeling the effects, like I said." Listening to Gendra mademe question my sanity. I know Evelyn is real, I can't do anything without her. She's my rock, my guide I'm lost without her. She would never leave me. I took the photo of us out of my pocket and placed it on the table in the room.

"Gendra, we need to go, we need to get to that city and get the hell outta here." I panicked; I wasn't sure what was real anymore. All I wanted to do was to find the city and whatever secrets it held and go home to my family. I was done with this life.

"Okay Cass, but we've lost contact with the outside. We're trapped here and are most likely going to die in here."

"Not if I can help it." I said as gung-ho as I could be. I darted out of bed. Trying to shake off the small migraine I was feeling and ran back to the chapel. Pressing the stars associated to the constolations. The room began to shake lightly, and the mural crashed to the floor in pieces. The lectern's top revealed a keyhole. I asked Gendra to help me with the back wall as I could see the date needed to be pushed. After we did this, I wanted to cover the wall so no one could see what we're doing. The room began to shake. Andrew came running in. Petrov was fascinated with Sir Francis Drake, and I betted the farm the answer was Drake's birthday.

The panel on the lectern revealed a key, I took it and the piece from the chronometer. I shaped the metal ring to fit inside the lectern and asked Gendra to return it to the box along with a piece of jigsaw. The inlet on the lectern was just the right shape. By placing the key in the lectern, the floor began to shake violently, the noise was enough to bring everyone into the room – the floor revealed a staircase downwards.

The mechanism was a one-time thing, It - was completely broken. It would close but the birthdate would be the only way to open it. I put the key in my pocket as Andrew came rushing into the chapel.

"Well done, Cass, well done." Andrew said with an eerie grin on his face, he pulled out his Smith & Wesson revolver, he stood looking at us, aiming the gun…who did he think he was, Dirty Harry? "Unfortunately, the adventure is over." He said in a Russian accent. All this time I thought the bureaucrat was the bad guy, it turned out I was wrong. Some Russian pretending to be British. I hated to admit it, but I was impressed.

"Andrew what are you doing, this is what we came for, we don't even know what's down there."

"The vault is down there." Andrew began pacing the floor. "Petrov was told to bury it, to make it near on impossible to find. This place all of this was always under the watchful eye of the protectors." He cocked the gun and pointed it.

"Ah Mr Fisher, nice of you to join us." He pointed the gun at Redd Fisher in a threatening manner. "This rich no good thieving piece of shit, thinks he get his hands on our treasure, meddling in our affairs." He slowly pulled the trigger, "dasvidaniya." The gun fired and went straight into Fisher's shoulder. Gendra ran at Andrew punching him in the face. I panicked and ran down the staircase.

The torch fires were still burning after all these years as I ran, practically flying down the stone staircase. I felt dizzy, nauseous and my temperature was rising a few degrees more than it should. Looking at the large open space and the huge doors and statues in front of me, I knew I had found the entrance to the vault and maybe we were one step closer to the stone.

"Cassandra…Cassandrea Morgan," Andrew said walking slowly down the stairs, he sounded like a school child playing hide 'n seek. Shouting out the name of the people hiding in a patronising tone. "Cassie, where are you?"

I hid between the statues following his every move. But there weren't too many places to hide.

"I have to say Cassie, I was very impressed up there." I heard the gun cock once again as I felt a frog in my throat. "Not many people have your cunning intellect," he walked around the statues looking for me. I was at the last one. I really had nowhere to go.

"Would you like to see what's behind door number three?"

I double backed and took each statue one at a time, being careful not to make a sound and give away where I was. I was just inches away from him.

"It does me no good to kill you really, but you already know too much, you and the elusive Dr. Knight." His words were worrying me, what did he know about Evelyn?

"You talk in your sleep do you know that?" I saw him peering his head around the last statue, but I had already made it to the first and headed towards the wall near the doors. There was just enough room for me to fit.

"You spoke a lot about Evelyn, you really thought she was here? You're pretty fucked up."

I couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Not as much as you, you psycho." He turned around and ran towards me. Gendra came out of nowhere and began pounding on him, each punch broke some part of Andrew's face. The final blow was enough to knock him out as I watched Andrew take the hit and fall on the stone staircase in front of the entrance to the city.

"Gendra!" I ran into his arms and could see he was holding his waist. I helped him as much as I could. I searched Andrew and found the code to move the statues to open the door. I sat Gendra down on the staircase as we looked inside the vault. The doors slowly opened, revealing a golden light. A gust of wind blew towards us, but it felt as though there maybe another way out.

The heard the room above us was closing, but I didn't see Andrew until the last second. The hero got in the way of Andrew's bullet as the trajectory guided the bullet into his back and out of his chest. The small blood splatter fell on my face.

BANG BANG BANG

The shots came from Fisher's gun, he had managed to survive his gunshot wound too and deliver the coup de grace.

I nursed Gendra and tried to get him to stay awake. His last words were of his family.

"Cass, I need you to find my son, I-I need you to tell him I'm sorry." His voice was weak, there was no way I could save him.

"Yes, stay with me, I didn't know you had a family." I tried to shake him to make him keep awake.

"I have a son. His name is Nathan."

"Nathan? That's a lovely name." That was the last time Gendra spoke. Fisher walked over and helped me up, looking at Gendra, he closed his eyes.

"I thought you were a bureaucrat, where did you learn to shoot like that?"

"Oh Ms Morgan, there is more to me than you can possibly imagine." He helped me open the doors wider. We both looked in amazement, it wasn't a vault this was a city built into the rock. I ventured forward and realised how wrong I was.

Thank you for reading this re-cap chapter, in the next part we will regroup with Nathan, Sam and Chloe and continue the adventure as we explore the city in greater detail.