Pursuit of Immortality

Chapter 1

The sea of gold before me was vast and great, the only contrast a cream set of lines that were constant in front of us. With the sun indicating mid-day, I was quite glad that we were moving, if only a little. The heat is quite unbearable here in the place of the great ones.

The great kings that is.

All of them reside in this valley, hence the name "Valley of the King's." Well, they once rested in this grand tomb, but now they were in museums all over the world. However, I was only going to see one specific site.

I was going to the tomb of Young King Tutankhamen. He was my favorite to learn about and I volunteered for this group along with four of my other class mates. The university we attend back in the states pays for the trip only to a point and we pay the rest, but I was willing to pay everything I had in the bank to go on this trip.

My duty for this trip is to read hieroglyphics in the king's tomb; but not all of them. That would take years. Many before me have already deciphered a great majority already but I was to read the most important. I am to read about the days before the young king's death. His quest for immortality. His want of a family. His lack of both as a dying human.

I pitied him and his wife, a part of me feeling their pain of not being able to have breathing children. If only they were brought to this time where the medicines could be offered to help keep their children alive and not still born. If only they had a second chance at happiness.

But they are both dead.

Tut is in a museum nearby on display and his wife is who knows where. Those are just their shells. Husks of what they used to be. I sometimes imagine them frolicking in their own little heaven. But I also know that with much unrest in their lives that it may cause them to not be able to move on in their own way.

The vehicles exhaust pipe played an unfavorable tune as we putted through the sea of gold that continued almost endlessly. Foreign music played along with the exhaust pipe and made for an unlikely duet. Excited quips and complains blended into the onslaught creating one throbbing migraine.

My class mates that accompanied me on this trip consist of one other female and three men. The brunette girl's name was Maria. She was a tree to put it mildly. Her legs could reach the bottom of the pyramids if she sat on top. Her hair was almost uncontrollable as a wild animal around her pale light skin. She didn't quite fit in out here where the history was presenting it self to the world on a gold platter.

The three others are Orlando, Ken, and Zack. Orlando was the joker of this deck. His hair was visible as a kind of hat that would keep his head warm during the desert's cold nights but may cause him a bit of discomfort in the scorching days. He was about a head taller than myself and a bit darker in pigment but he was one of the most toned in our group. Ken was the Ace. He was about my height and the same tone of our skin but other than that, we didn't share much other than space and oxygen. His hair color was similar to Maria's but a bit lighter, almost a mix between her locks and the sea of never ending gold around us. Zack, well, I guess he would be the Jack. He held a bit of authority that we understood but knew that he was just a needed part of this group to help keep things going. His hair was the craziest of us all with the desert around us being its twin. If Maria could sit on and reach the bottom of the pyramid, then he would stand next to it and be able to talk to her face to face. I guess you could say he was the jock of the group yet he was one of the smartest.

Yet he wasn't the smartest.

As the Queen and leader of this deck of Egyptian history majors, my strait raven hair and blue eyes gave me an advantage to the rest. I look a bit like the pictures of the Egyptian paintings on the walls of the tombs that surrounded us. I wasn't as tall Orlando but I was taller than Maria, if only by an inch.