Meanwhile Hack, Rugged and the villager try to outrun the rapidly approaching boulder. Rugged yells at the villager. “Hurry up!”
Hack is in the lead, easily clearing the doorway and out of sheer panic, he runs through the doorway at full speed. Rugged, trying to fight off the pain in his swinging and damaged appendage continues to run. The villager seems to have taken his advice as he passed Rugged. Rugged looks back to see the boulder is closer than he thought and looks forward to find the doorway farther than he thought.
He shuts out the pain and musters all he has left to avoid becoming a human pancake. Seconds after the villager goes through the doorway, Rugged dives through as the boulder slams into the door. It stops the massive boulder and to Rugged’s surprise the doorway stayed mostly intact. Wiping away beads of sweat from his head, “Whew that was too close. Way too close!” Rugged exclaimed.
Chapter Eighteen
Tripwire yells as he slides down the dirt chute. He lands flat on his face on a dirt floor. “Ouch!” Then he hears two more thuds, one right after each other. He tries to see if it was Bebida and Shadow but the room is pitch black and there is no visible light anywhere to be found.
“Shadow? Bebida? You guys here too?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” replied Bebida.
“Is Shadow?”
“Like I know. I can barely make out my own hand directly in front of my face. And you know she’s a mute.”
“Well, I believe the other thud I heard was her. Where are we at?”
“I have a feeling somewhere we don’t want to be.”
“Me too.” Both of them draw their weapons.
Tripwire suggests, “Hey, I got an idea so that none of us are left behind. You follow my voice. That way we can find each other and help each other get out of this place.”
“Okay, just keep talking. I know you’re good at that.”
“Fuck off!” But even Tripwire can’t avoid laughing at what Bebida said about him. “Shadow, I know you can hear me. You should do the same thing, so we can all get out of here together.”
“Hey Trip, you know what I just thought of.”
“What?”
“What if there’s someone or something bad in here. It’s gonna find us by our voices too.”
Tripwire’s pleasant mood disappears, he realizes that Bebida is correct. He also realizes that he has no choice. “You’re right, so you need to get over here ASAP.”
Bebida stops when he sees to his left, what appears to be a pair of red eyes glaring at him. “What the hell is that?”
Tripwire doesn’t see it, “What is what? What are you talking about?”
The eyes disappeared. “You didn’t see that?”
“See what?”
“We are not alone in here. And I don’t mean Shadow either. Arm yourself”
“Already did.”
“Good. Keep talking but keep your eyes peeled.”
“Talk about what?”
“I don’t know, recite the fucking alphabet for all I care, but keep talking because something is in here with us. We’ll have a better chance together.”
Tripwire starts the alphabet and the whole time frantically swinging his blade around. Bebida is trying to follow his voice, when another pair of red eyes opens, directly in front of him this time. “You don’t see that? Come on you gotta see that! I’m not hallucinating!”
“Maybe you are because I ain’t seeing anything but darkness. And that is how Explode and me got tricked, by some hallucinogenic in the air. It was scent-less too.”
This theory doesn’t comfort Bebida at all, especially when the second and third pair of eyes appears, also in front of him. Finally, a fourth pair appears to his right. “I’m not hallucinating shit!” Bebida starts to feverishly swing his knife in front of him. “Come on, motherfuckers! I’m ready for you!”
Tripwire looks in direction of the yelling but still sees nothing. “Damn it man, you’re spooking me out. Knock it off, there’s nothing here!”
Bebida screams in pain, then yells, “Take that!” An eerie squeal shoots across the room.
“Oh shit! There is something in here. Hang in there. I’m on the way!” Tripwire yells as he runs blindly in the darkness toward the sound of blood squirting, teeth tearing flesh and steel meeting flesh. Bebida exchanges screams with squeals. There is total silence. This sudden and eerie silence makes Tripwire slow his pace to a slow walk.
“Bebida?”
Nothing.
“Bebida? You okay?”
Nothing. Tripwire keeps walking toward where he believed he heard the ruckus. That is until he trips over something. He falls flat on his face again. As he put his hand down to stand up, it lands in a puddle.
Afraid that the puddle is blood but with a need to confirm it, he lifts his hand right in front of his face. It’s covered in blood. He figures it’s most likely Bebida’s. As he lowers his hand from his face, he sees the last thing he will ever see. A pair of red eyes glaring at him, directly in front of him.
Chapter Nineteen
Rugged, exhausted, stands up and says, “Man, how in the world are we supposed to get back out now with that rock blocking the exit?” He directed that question at Hack who he believed was standing behind him.
The villager tugs on Rugged’ s injured arm, “Ow! What the hell are you doing?” He turns around to see that Hack’s momentum must have carried him right into a giant spider web. Amazed, Rugged says, “Wow! This has to be the world’s biggest web ever constructed.”
Hack struggles to move around and mumbles something incoherent. He’s stuck face first into the web.
“Well at least I know you’re still alive,” says Rugged as he cuts away with his machete, “You’re very lucky the creature that created this wasn’t home, otherwise you would be either devoured or full of some kind of body-numbing, and probably fatal substance.”
Almost on cue, the villager starts to scream, “How come I have the feeling I don’t even need to look to know why he’s screaming.”
Once his head is free from the web, Hack yells, “Look at the size of that thing! It’s coming damn it! Get me out of here! Chop! Chop! Chop!”
A giant black spider is making its way down from the top of the spider web, where it was resting. Rugged cuts the last piece holding Hack up and he falls to the floor.
“Let’s get out of here!” yells Hack.
Rugged replies, “To where? The exit is blocked and I don’t see another way out!”
The spider gets closer as it edges down the massive web. The villager once again tugs on Rugged’s injured arm.
“Ouch! Not now!”
The villager then tugs on Hack’s arm, Hack turns, “What?”
The villager says something that Hack doesn’t understand but he does figure out that the captive is trying to point out something by his gestures. Hack looks at where he’s pointing and notices a hole behind a bush that might be an exit. Hack yells to Rugged, “Look, let’s try that hole unless you think you can take out this spider?” Rugged replies by heading to the hole. Hack and the prisoner follow safely behind.
Chapter Twenty
In a dark tunnel, a block of wall is rotated revealing a secret panel. Emerging out of it is a battle worn Shadow. She staggers out of the darkness, into the dimly lit passageway. She staggers and uses the opposite wall to brace herself from falling.
Her outfit is torn and ripped in numerous spots. From these exposed parts, visible are claw marks covered in blood, most of it greenish in color. Her facemask had been ripped at the bottom exposing a section of her face from the bottom of her nose down. The back of her pull on mask is only partially tucked in with her dirty blonde hair sticking out.
She tries to walk down the corridor with a firm grip still on her two daggers, as if she was expecting a fight. Both daggers are covered in green blood. Every few steps she either stops to gain balance or use a wall for leverage. She spits
out a mouthful of blood.
Despite looking as if she’s in bad shape and experiencing unimaginable pain, the exposed part of her face shows no sign of it. One of her sleeves, almost completely torn off exposes an elaborate half gauntlet on her wrist. She leans against a rock, once again in effort to gain balance. After shaking her head in what looks like an effort to shake out the cobwebs, she continues stumbling down the hallway leaving a very visible blood trail. She tries to lean against another wall, but the wall was a fake. It was made out of some brittle substance that crumbled easily under her weight, sending her to the floor of a new found room.
She tries to stand but can only manage to get to one knee before she can regain her senses. She looks forward. It seems that she has found a hidden oasis, complete with palm-like trees with a shallow pool between. The pool starts to bubble. Shadow grips the dagger that is still in her hand, the one she didn’t drop when she raised to one knee.
The water starts to rise and form into a shape, the shape of a woman. A very soothing voice emanates from it. “I am Julia, a water elemental of wishes. Welcome, traveler.”
Shadow has her head locked in the direction of Julia but doesn’t respond to her.
“I sense you are in great pain. Unfortunately, I’m under the control of the one who summoned me. I can still grant you a single wish as long as it does not concern my master, the treasures of this tomb or your life force, which I must regretfully drain once your wish is granted.”
Shadow has mustered up enough energy to stand fully erect. She readies herself for battle but then suddenly collapses. She lays motionless on the sandy floor.
“Poor child.” Julia said. Then she dissipates back into the pool in which she came.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rugged complains, “We’ve been crawling through this damn crawl space for a good minute now.”
“Yeah, but it beats becoming a human fly waiting to be devoured.” Hack is following right behind Rugged.
“Yes, but all this hands and knees stuff is killing my arm. Hey, where’s the villager? Did you leave him behind?”
“No, he’s right here behind me.”
“Why didn’t you put him between us? He could have escaped.”
“And go where? Back to Bram Stoker’s version of Charlotte's Web?”
“I see your point.”
Rugged notices a light off in the distance. “Hey, finally a place where we can probably stand up.”
Rugged comes to a small square exit with a golden color cloth covering it. He stops.
Hack asks, “What you waiting for?”
Rugged shakes his head, then moves the curtain and crawls through.
Once all three are out of the crawl space, each one has a look of disbelief. Rugged speaks out first. “We finally found it!” He almost has to squint his eyes because of the brightness of the room thanks to the light reflecting off the massive amounts of gold piles.
Hack smiling says, “So it does exist? There must be billions of dollars in treasures and artifacts in here.”
Rugged has already started to dig into a pile and emerges wearing a crown and holding a scepter. “I’m the new king!”
Hack laughs then says in a serious tone, “Hey, we need to find that damn Stone of Sunfire. It’s a fiery red ruby embedded into a necklace.”
Looking around the room and at its numerous, massive piles of wealth, Rugged replies, “There must be at least one hundred red rubies in those piles.”
“I doubt that it would be in any of these piles. Remember? Foymama collected treasures and artifacts that had special powers like the Stone of Sunfire. So it must be over there.” Hack points at a row of chests, and other royal boxes lined up by a golden throne. Seated on the throne is a solid gold statue of the king.
“Talk about vain.”
Both men head over to the row of chests and start opening them.
“So that is what he looked like huh?” Rugged asked.
“Yeah, pretty close. Well, at least as the old portraits of him portrayed him.”
“Pretty mean looking dude.”
“And was pretty mean too. Hey, I just thought about something. How the hell are we supposed to get out of here with the treasures and our lives?”
“Well, we both are pretty knowledgeable. Maybe we can find something that with the power to protect us. Like Johan’s Stone of Protection.”
“Who knows? It’s worth a try.”
They start digging again through the various boxes.
The head of the golden statue turns toward them and frowns. They don’t notice it or the fact that it’s starting to stand up out of its seat.
“Hey what is this? Why does it look so familiar?” Hack asked as he held up a bracelet.
“I believe it’s the...” Rugged started to say until he noticed the approaching and angry looking golden king.
“Look out!” Hack didn’t move fast enough as the top half of his head is cut off cleanly.
“Oh shit!” Rugged screamed as he leaped away and pulled out his machete.
The golden king gives pursuit. Rugged swings his machete and hits the statute on the arm and the blade breaks without leaving a mark.
“Damn.”
Walking backwards, Rugged trips over a treasure chest.
Realizing that his life is about to end, Rugged shrugs. “Oh well.” He closes his eyes right before the statue slams its swords tip through his heart.
The statue pulls out the sword that is dripping wet with blood. It turns and heads toward the last remaining intruder. The villager, who was still over by the covered entrance, drops down to the ground and balls up into a fetal position. Shaking and crying, the villager watches helplessly as the golden statue of the king approaches.
The statue stops in front of him and lifts the mighty golden sword high above its head. The villager screams and covers his face as the king brings the blade slicing through the air toward him.
Shaking feverishly and crying for what seems to him a long time, he starts to wonder if he’s dead. He peeks though his fingers and has to squint immediately from the sun glaring down on him.
With a confused look of disbelief, the villager slowly spreads his fingers and comes to find that he’s lying down outside. It’s a bright sunny day.
He stares forward to find the jungle in front of him. No sign of the tomb. He looks down at his chest. The Stone of Awareness rests in its usual place around his neck.
Completely confused and starting to wonder if he daydreamed all this, he wipes off beads of sweat that are forming on his forehead. In his native tongue, he says out loud, “Was it a dream? Did I pass out? Must have been the heat.”
He turns around to head home and falls to the ground in shock as he discovers all the non-functioning equipment that was left behind when they first entered the tomb.
He continues to stare at the equipment and shake in fear.
ISBN #: 978-1-105-48021-8
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