CHAPTER 6
In the morning Evy was hung over but that didn't stop her from going back down to the tunnel and trying to open the sarcophagus, I had walked away from the camp site and was looking around.
"You shouldn't go too far from your camp." I jumped up and almost screamed when I saw one of those warriors standing a few feet away from me. "What do you want."
"My name is Ardeth, I'm the leader of the Medjai, we have been protecting this place since it was built."
"Um… Hi, my name is Amirah, I'm a librarian." I gave a weak smile.
"You need to leave this place, if you don't I will be forced to give the order to have you all killed." I didn't say anything as Ardeth walked away to his horse. I walked back to the camp only to see Evy waiting for me. "There you are Amirah. Come on, we are going to open the sarcophagus!" Evy was bubbling with excitement as O'Connell and Jonathan looked like they wanted to crawl back in their sleeping rolls and go back to sleep.
"OH! I've been dreaming about this since I was a little girl!" Evy kept pacing as O'Connell and Jonathan set the sarcophagus up against the wall. "You dream about dead mummies?" O'Connell looked a little freaked out when Evy gave him a big smile. I took the key from Jonathan's bag and opened it and fit it in the key hole on the sarcophagus, my heart was beating fast I turned the key. I took a deep breath as I completely turned the key, the lid came busting open as the mummy came busting out. Evy and I screamed as we jumped away, "is it supposed to be…. Gooey?" I looked closer at the mummy, Jonathan and O'Connell had a disgusted look on their face as Evy stepped closer to the mummy. "It looks like he is still…"
"Decomposing?" I finished what Evy was saying as I took a step away, the smell was making me want to vomit.
Evy and I stayed down and examined the mummy while O'Connell and Jonathan went back up not wanting to stay down there. While Evy was admiring the not yet decomposed mummy, I was looking at the bottom of the sarcophagus and found a bug, I picked it up and looked at it up close. "Hey, look Evy. This is a scarab, or at least the exoskeleton of one, wait. Look, there is more." Evy bent down and looked at the other scarab exoskeleton.
"Come on, it looks like it is dark out, and I'm hungry." I followed Evy out of the tunnels and over to our camp. "Look at these!" Evy went and sat by O'Connell as she showed them the scarab exoskeleton. "These little scarabs were alive when they were put in the sarcophagus with our mummy. According to my research, the mummy suffered the Hom-Dai, a curse reserved only for the worst blasphemers, never used by the Egyptians of the time because they feared its effects: those condemned with the Hom-Dai would bring back the Ten Plagues of Egypt, should they be resurrected." After Evy's long depressing talk no one wanted to talk after that so everyone decided to go to sleep.
Later that night as I lay in my bed roll I heard Evy wander off and came back a little while later. I heard O'Connell start talking to Evy about not reading a book, I sat up to see Evy holding the Book of the Dead. "Evy, wait. I want to open it!" I got out of my bed roll and crawled over to Evy and took the book from her. I read from the book as Evy looked over my shoulder translating to what I was saying. After I finished reading Dr. Chamberlin jumped up and started shouting that we mustn't read from the book. There was a low droning sound as a swarm of locusts were flying towards us, we all ran down into the tunnels to keep away from the locusts. We ran down the hall way but was stopped when a mound of sand came bubbling up from the ground and then a swarm of scarabs came crawling out, we all ran away from the scarabs. The scarabs managed to swarm us and then separate us, O'Connell and Jonathan reached a stone platform away from the scarabs while Evy and I were pinned against a wall. I started pushing against the wall in fear of the scarabs, I started to panic until the wall shifted and forced Evy and I into another chamber before sealing itself shut.