My Life In Code

23. Pinch Me, I've Got To Be Dreaming...But Not That Hard!

Chapter 23

Pinch Me, I've Got To Be Dreaming...But Not That Hard!

I guess it was a good thing that it was only about a ten foot drop.  But when we landed, I lost my balance and fell backward onto the stone ground.  I smacked my head on it hard, making my vision go blank for a few moments before I could see again. 

"Callie, are you okay?" Max asked.

I had to close my eyes and open them to refocus on his face, which was just over mine.  I nodded slowly, my head still pounding.  "Yeah, but I'm going to have one heck of a knot on the back of my head."

He smiled as he helped me sit up slowly and kissed the side of my head.

It was dim, but we could still see better than we could before.  How, I had no clue.  But there were little pinpoints of light coming down from the ceiling of wherever we were. 

"You guys okay?" I asked Ben and Drew once we were standing. 

Ben was rubbing the top of his head and Drew was holding onto his arm. 

"Yeah, surprisingly," Ben said. 

"But where are we?" Drew asked, looking around.  "And you guys do know we're trapped now, right?"

In the dim lighting, behind us was just a smooth wall of stone, but in front was a tunnel like the one that we'd come through.  The walls weren't smooth, though, but looked like they'd been carved out, leaving the jagged edges. 

"Let's check it out," I said, walking forward. 

The tunnel seemed to go on forever, never changing.  There was no other that went another way.  Nothing.  I was still trying to figure out how the light was getting down from the ceiling of the tunnel. 

"Do you think we're still under the Colosseum?" Max asked.  "The light could be coming down from small holes in the ground."

I shook my head...and instantly regretted it when it started to pound again.  "I don't know.  Possibly.  But wouldn't they have found this before, though."

"Not if they never started digging," Drew said.  "And I don't think they ever would since it was such a huge part of Roman culture.  They wouldn't do something like that...hopefully.  But after this...they'll probably would."

"Hey, it's starting to change," Max said, dragging his hand on the wall, which had started to smooth out.  "Maybe we're getting somewhere."

It definitely seemed like we were getting somewhere.  The tunnel started to smooth and widen.  Our footsteps started to echo as we walked.  But when we got to where a set of stairs started, we immediately stopped.

And it wasn't because we were hesitant about going down. 

No.  What made us stop was what we saw.

It was like when we found the Aztec treasure.  Everything was laid out in the cavernous room that had been created to house the...the treasure. 

"We've got it," I whispered, looking out over everything. 

"So this is what it feels like to find something that's been lost for decades," Drew said quietly from beside me.  "Like...like you're dreaming or something."

"Do you want me to pinch you?" Ben asked him, grinning.  "Because this is real."

We couldn't help it.  The four of us ran down the steps to look at everything. 

There were paintings propped up on one another in crates and as I flipped through some of them, my heart started pounding.  People had thought that these were gone forever, but here they were, right under my fingertips.  Raphael, Aleksander Gierymski, all of them were there.

I moved through the crates of artwork and toward a giant wooden chest.  When I opened it, my eyes nearly popped out of my head at what I saw.  It was the Polish crown jewels, which had thought to have been lost since 1795.  But here they were, right in front of me. 

"Hey, I think...I think these are the panels from the Amber Room," Max called out from somewhere to my right.

I guess Ben and Drew were too far away to hear him because I was the only one who came to him.  He was standing in front of these huge panels that were, sure enough, the Amber Room panels.  They were made of amber - hence, the name - and backed with gold leaf and mirrors.  It was looted during the war and hadn't been found...

But here we were, looking at the panels that were worth possibly half a billion dollars. 

"This is crazy," I said.  "I mean, I was just expecting the Nazi gold...not the rest of this."

Max grinned at me.  "But you should be used to this.  I mean, last year we were looking for Blackbeard's treasure and ended with the Aztec's.  Whenever a treasure's found, over time it's bound to get larger."

I don't know how long we looked through everything.  But when Max and I finally found Ben and Drew, they were lounging against bricks of gold that were stacked on top of one another. 

"Having fun?" Max asked, laughing at the two of them.

The two of them grinned, both picking up a handful of the gold coins they were sitting on and letting them fall. 

"Oh, yeah," Ben said.  "I could stay here all day."

"And you might have to if we can't find a way to get out of here."

Drew rolled his eyes and pointed somewhere behind us, back toward the stairs we'd gone down.  "We found that already."

Max and I turned and looked where he was pointing.  There, right beside the stairs we'd come down, was another set, leading into another tunnel. 

Well, hopefully the way out was going to be easier than the way in. 

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