As we hear the car pull up and some men yelling in Arabic we end up shoving the unconscious Steven down into a ditch, I'm praying they assume he's dead, and I'm sure Layla is too.
We hide in the back of the car ducking as they drive around the car.
When they drive away a bit looking at Steven, Layla grabs a flare from a box of them.
I follow as she climbs out and lights it, I don't know why she's doing it but at this angle I can spot the brand of an ammunition company.
The men see us and start driving towards us, Layla starts to go around the back of the car.
"Wait!" I whisper yell. "Give me the flare." I says stretching my hand out.
"What no!"
"Trust me! And hurry their getting close!" She finally sets the lit flare in my hand and I wait until their in range, and I chuck it hitting the ammo perfectly.
The explosion is far enough away from everything, luckily I have a really good arm.
Once the explosion is over I see Steven struggling to climb up the dune.
"Steven!" I scream and run towards him switching the sprint into a hug. "Don't you ever pull something like that again." I can tell he's thrown off but hugs me back soon.
We all get back in the car and start driving.
"We can't lose more time. Harrow must be headed to the tomb." She pauses and glances at Steven. "Look if he is we're gonna need Marc yeah?"
Steven looks away, I've come to think that they can somehow talk through reflective circumstances based on earlier tonight.
If I'm right Marc was probably saying something like "see she gets it!" Because well, it's Marc.
"No, you see, we made a deal, Marc and I, that when he was done with Konshu, he would disappear for good." What? Marc said he'd leave. Forever? No, Steven has to be lying right? No, that sounds like something Marc might say, he never really wanted me anyway he just got stuck with me, that's why he didn't care about leaving me in the desert 11 years ago. Nonetheless it hurts.
"That deal kind of doesn't work with Marc's current situation." I say from behind.
"What do you mean?"
"We'll, if Marc disappears, you become my legal guardian, and I'm not completely sure on the logistics of everything but I'm pretty sure whatever savings you have from being a gift-shopist would not be enough to support a 16 year old girl and you."
"You trying to make me the bad guy here?"
"No I'm simply stating that if Marc goes you're still stuck with me, and I've been told my personality is eerily similar to my fathers."
"Wait- you and Marc made a deal? That he would just disappear from our lives, and you didn't think that maybe we should have been made aware of that?" Layla questions.
"Well, hadn't he already disappeared from your life already?"
"Yeah, I mean, his suit was his best feature wasn't it? Didn't even have that anymore."
"You mean the musty looking bandages that had infinite blades right on his chest?" I ask, she ignores me.
"Plus I know him, he'd wanna lone wolf this whole thing." We all go quiet until Layla parks the car. "We're gonna go on foot from here." We all hop out and start walking
"Looks like they beat us here." I say as we arrive at a small camp.
"We're gonna need another way to beat them to Ammit." Layla responds. "Let's check for supplies, Y/n stick with us." She says that but yet her and Steven start heading in opposite directions in the camp.
"Stick with who?" I ask, but she's already ducked into a tent.
"C'mon y/n." Steven calls before climbing into a different tent, I run through the sand after him and we start shuffling through things when he stops.
He found a mirror.
"I'm not." He says out of the blue, I guess Marc accused him of something.
"Steven?" I ask, he holds up a hand to shush me.
"Yeah, and no more you I thought. But believing anything that comes out of your mouth just shows you what a big plonked I am." He shoves some things he found deep into a drawstring bag he must've grabbed.
"So have I, it's the same body isn't it? It's in there somewhere right? Muscle memory and all that?"
Whatever, I start ignoring him and grab a few hand guns and bullets.
Steven starts heading toward the opening of the tent and I follow but then he turns around.
"I know I'm not bloody alone! I've got Layla, and
y/n!"
"Leave me out of this!" I defend.
But Steven has already walked out of the tent mumbling something about protein shake recipes.
We meet back up with Layla and head toward a cave super close to the coordinates we got from the papyrus, as we get geared up Steven says something.
"I have to say, it feels like I've been waiting for this my whole life. The adventure I mean." He states as Layla secures his belt.
"I know. we want what we never had." Layla responds.
I'd say something but my belt is being difficult. And all of a sudden I hear.
"You smell like him." WHAT THE FUCK. "I mean why wouldn't you right?" I know she did not just talk about how Steven SMELLS.
I glance over at them to see Layla leaning towards Steven, luckily Marc must've threatened him or something because he immediately blurts.
"Marc's trying to protect you both from Konshu." Layla looks startled.
"He failed" I laugh recounting yesterday in the pyramid.
"That's why he's been pushing you away. He thinks Konshu wants you for his avatar and he won't let that happen. I'm sorry I just thought that you should know."
"Why are you telling me this now?" She asks, squinting her eyes against the sun.
"I don't know, I just thought you guys deserved to know." He shrugged against his harness
"That wasn't his call to make, I don't need protection. What I need is honesty." She says before peeking into the cave below.
"Yeah I get that." Steven responds kind of quietly
"That's more of a 'you' thing isn't it?"
"What? being... honesty?" He asks.
"Yeah, being honesty."
I finally get my belt tight enough and look up in time to see Layla and Steven. Kissing.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TWO DOING?!?" I scream.
They both jump and laugh nervously, Layla doesn't even bother to yell at me for cursing. And they move on like nothing happened.
"I'm gonna go down first. Before I belay." Layla says.
"Thank you, um, what's 'belay'?" Steven asks
Layla and I both burst out laughing.
"I still can't tell when you're joking or not." Layla says, wiping a tear from her eye before going down through the opening of the cave.
Just as we're out of Layla's view Steven Punches himself in the face.
"Oh shit!" He yells as he falls on the ground.
My hand immediately hits my mouth in shock and I can't help but laugh.
"You deserved that!" I say inberween laughs, Steven groans in response and rolls closer to the edge before attempting to stand back up, then he threw himself down into the cave.
I peek over the side to see Steven land flat on his back.
I climb down wheezing from laughter.
"What's so funny?" Layla asks as she helps Steven stand up.
"You don't wanna know, Oou look statues."
"You ok?" Layla asks him.
"Oh yeah I'm aces." He says, he sounds like he's in pain. "Oh wow, look at you."
I flare at him to make sure he's talking about the statues.
"Yeah, they've been standing guard for centuries." I say signing my signature in the sand on one of the statues paws, a habit I've picked up to leave my mark (heh get it) on every place I've visited with Marc.
I turn toward Steven an notice Layla leaving her dad's initials on the other statue.
"Right, like if they just sprang to life right now and asked me a riddle for passage I'd be thrilled. I'd shit myself but I'd be thrilled."
"T.M.I." I respond, though he ignores me and walks over to the statue Layla signed.
"What's this? Did you do that?" He looks at Layla.
"What? Oh yeah. It's for my father he would've loved to be here right now." She's pretty focused on looking for any clues but I hear a tang of sadness in her voice.
"Oh yeah big history buff is he?" Steven asks, I purse my lips in reaction.
"So much worse, archeologists on a mission." She says and starts examining the statues
"Cool!" Steven says
"And to him it was a dream worth dying for. And he did." She says brushing off a bit of sand.
"I'm so sorry." Steven apologizes, I can't tell if it's because that's what you say when someone dies or because he's apologizing for bringing it up's
"It's fine, happens, right y/n?" She says. My jaw drops in disbelief.
"I- ouch Layla." I say making sure to dramatize the amount that comment stung. "You didn't have to bring my bio mom into this."
We all start walking down a hallway and get to a room that has 6 different exits.
"It's a maze." Layla points out
"It's a-maze-ing." Steven says, I don't think he realized what she meant.
"No like there are six paths." I say, I'm trying to be patient with him but ugh.
All of a sudden down one of the paths we hear a bunch of loud gunshots.
"What would they be shooting at?" Layla asks.
I realize Steven has started drawing in the sand and go to look at it.
"This whole structure is a symbol." He whispers.
"The eye of Horus?" I'm confused why a tomb was built in the shape of the eye of Horus or how they got the resources to build it on this scale, like this room is huge.
"Look at that." He points at the spot where all the points meet. And I realize Layla has joined us at the table thing.
"The royal symbol, protection in the afterlife." He states. "I mean the resources needed to build this thing."
Me and Layla look at each other, we both know what it means.
"Her final avatar was a pharaoh." Layla says first.
"Woah! A bloody pharaoh!" Steven sounds super excited.
"So what? You think it's a map?" I ask, bringing the attention back to the eye of Horus.
"Yeah well, you got the eyebrow that denotes thought, pupil sight, obviously. This point here is uh hearing." He says pointing to one of the lines. " this, smell, touch. And this long line ending in a spiral, that's the tongue." He tries pointing to his tounge as he says it but it does work.
"The Avatar would be Ammit's voice." Layla states.
We start walking down the one we hope is the tongue path.
The path leads us to a huge room, over triple the size of the one we started in.
There's a painting of like 7-8 men all standing above large cubbies filled with human remains.
In the center is a large table surrounded by canopic jars.
"Oh wow" Steven says when we first walk in. Layla shines her flashlight up at the painting, making the ceremonial masks more visible.
"Heka priests." She states "judging by their masks and ceremonial stances they would've been entombed here to protect the pharaoh."
"The heck is a Heka?" I ask, that was not something I learned about in history class.
"Sorcerers of their time, they've been down here for centuries." She says walking by the cubbies "these must be some of the unlucky souls that crossed their paths."
"Oh my god! Is that fresh blood? With little chunks of meaty bits in it?" I see what he means, the table has what looks to be fresh blood smeared over it.
"Let's keep moving." Layla instructs and starts to continue down a path, but me and Steven are both hesitant at the piles of human bones and blood down that way.
"Um just a minute. Just a minute. I'm just saying what I see, and I see lots of bones and blood going that way. So I'm just thinking like what if there's..."
"There's an opening up there. You see that?" I say pointing to a door way up on a balcony. Layla has agreed not to go down the murder path.
"Yeah." Steven responds.
"Should we check it out?" Layla asks like that's even a question.
"Yeah." I respond this time, I notice a way I might be able to climb up and work my way up, Layla stays down to try and see anything from her angle.
I hear the faint sound of a tongue repeatedly clicking but choose to ignore it, probably just paranoid.
"So according to the ancient texts Ammit should be bound to an ushabti, statue thingies."
"How's it looking?" Layla asks from below.
"It's amazing!" He says as he starts rambling about canopic jars, and self regeneration.
"Steven?" I ask, trying to bring him back to the task at hand.
"Yeah?" He responds, still staring at some of the things up here
"The exit." I say pointing.
"Oh yeah," he says before saying a little louder to Layla, "we can go this way."
All of a sudden there are mor gunshot, a shit ton closer and more clicking, along with some distressed human sounds, i motion silently for Steven to get on the floor as I do the same and see Layla hide behind the table.
Sure enough some zombie looking thing comes out dragging what looks like one of Harrow's men.
Is this a Heka priest? It wouldn't surprise me that one of these ancient sorcerers was able to stay alive in order to protect the pharaoh, or Ammit's ushabti.
I watch as the Heka priest cracks the guys chest and nope, not watching that.
Steven let's put a sigh when the Heka priest is Finn ally done robbing the man of his organs. Big mistake.
The priest stops clicking his tongue and walks just underneath us. Somehow against all laws of physics the priest jumps 10-15 feet grabbing onto the bottom of the floor boards and climbing toward us.
Layla throws something, sounds like pottery, against the wall, the priest immediately drops from the balcony and starts clicking again.
"Run! We'll find you!" I yell.
That's when I realized Steven and I had stood up and started screaming out of fear. In my defense you try being inches away from having your organs ripped out of your body while you're still alive. But anyway Steven takes advantage of this and shoves a part of the balcony away, it land right on top of the curious priest.
"I squished it! I squished it." He celebrates a bit.
Steven and I make our way through the exit and down a short hallway, now on high alert, when we come to a surprisingly well lit room.
"Oh my days," Steven gasps as we walk in. "First ones in, tomb fit for a pharaoh."
We walk to a kind of moat surrounding the sarcophagus.
" Thutmose ll, Nefertiti. Oh it's gotta be one of the big'uns" he stops, and looks in the water, which is oddly reflective. " so what're you gonna do? Try and drown us now?" He asks
Marc probably brought up the kiss.
"Hey Steven?"
"Yeah y/n" he looks up from the water.
"Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't that Macedonian?"
"No way, that can't be right. That is Macedonian." He says rushing up to the sarcophagus to examine the writing. " but the only pharaoh, but I mean."
"He insisted on calling himself Egyptian. We're looking at the long lost tomb of Alexander the Great." I say, this is crazy.
"Everything inside me is screaming not to open this thing."
"Sucks for you, we need to get that ushabti. Now how do we get this open?" I ask,
Steven doesn't say anything just starts pushing the lid of the sarcophagus off, revealing what should be a ton of toxic fumes, however I'm still alive, and Steven barely broke a sweat.
"Dude!" I yell, a human should not be able to do that.
"What?" Honestly I'm surprised he responded considering we were in front of a long lost mummy.
"You realize you just pushed 5 tons away like it was nothing right? And you don't even have Konshu's super strength." I point out. He shrugs.
"Where's the ushabti?" He asks, looking over Alexander's body.
"We'll if you're going to hide it for an eternity, you're probably gonna put it somewhere no one would think to look." I point out. "Alexander was Ammit's tongue..."
"Right...i'm gonna try something here." He says starting to dig into Alexander's mouth, he breaks his jaw and keeps apologizing as if Alexander were alive.
He finally pulls the ushabti out of the mummy, when Layla comes running in.
"Layla look we won! And the Ushabti goes to us! I had to go digging around in ol' Alexander the Great's gullet but you know." His face lights up and he laughs at his bad jokes, his face falls when he see her's, she looks pissed. "You alright luv?"
"Can he hear me?" She asks, she sounds out of breath.
"Alexander? I don't think so.. god I hope not!"
"Layla you ok?" I ask, she ignores me
"What happened to my father? I'm talking to you." She's staring intently at Steven, that's when I realize what she means.
"What?" Steven is still confused so I rush to be at his side.
"I'm talking to you, Marc!" She shoves him.
"Layla! That's Steven!"
But it's not anymore, Marc comes to.
"Come on we gotta go!" He tries to rush us out as he ticks the ushabti in his jacket pocket.
"No." Layla says, she plants her feet on the floor, I stand silently, not wanting to get questioned on wanting to stop this conversation.
"We need to go right now." He tries to rush us out again.
"Marc, answer her." I encourage, I've given up on my silence.
"What happened to my father?" She asks, I can see her eye's starting to well up with tears.
"Listen to me." Marc begs, he glares at me and I put my hands up defensively. "We need to leave right now, but I will explain everything later I swear, but we have to go."
"Did you kill Abdullah El-Fouly?" She asks, Marc sighs, he glances at me and FINALLY answers her.
"Of course not. Of course I didn't." The look on his face is both that of remorse and annoyance.
"But you were there." Layla states.
"I was there, yeah I was there." He looks at me. "Can we not do this in front of-" I cut him off.
"Finish. Your. Damn. Conversation."
"And how did he die?" Layla's voice is starting to tremble.
"My partner got greedy and he executed everyone at the dig site." He says, I'm staring him down and notice he's refusing to make eye contact. "I tried to save your father but I couldn't save him and I.."
"No but you led a killer right to him right?" I notice a tear fall to her cheek as she speaks.
"Yeah."
"Yeah." She copies.
"He shot me too, I was supposed to die that night." I remember that, the gunshot, Marc's screams, but I still stayed at the bottom of that pyramid. "But I didn't die that night. And I should have, I've tried to tell you since the moment we met."
Layla takes a step back before Marc speaks again.
"I just didn't know-"
"Oh my god. That's the reason we met, because you had a guilty conscience."
There's a loud sound not far away.
"Their here!" I say, Layla drags me into a hiding spot, I can't do anything but listen and it's killing me.
Harrow goes on about how liberating it is to know Konshu's gone and how now that Marc is a free man he has a choice
And this brings us back to when we first met.
POW!
From behind a pillar I hear the sound of a gun go off. I pull away from Layla just in time to see Marc's body fall to the pool of water by Alexander the greats sarcophagus. His face is distorted in shock as the water slowly soaks into his clothes.
"MARC!" I scream without thinking. Harrow turns toward me, gun still in hand, it takes a few seconds before he's cocked the gun and shot it.
Straight. At. Me.
As I feel myself slip away I silently pray I haven't given away Layla's location to Harrow.
***
B22
G15
The world is fading in and out.
There's a huge sound of commotion as some guy starts yelling.
"Steven?" For some reason his voice is eerily familiar.
The guy is only a few feet away when he face plants out of his wheel chair.
Wait-
I know that guy.
That's my father.
That's Marc!
Wait- where am I?
What am I wearing, Pj's?
There's a guy walking around handing out cupcakes to everyone, saying nice things.
Some people rush over picking Marc off the floor.
One of them looks familiar.
The Heka priest, he's the guy who has his organs ripped out.
The 'nurse' wheels Marc out of the room.
I stand up once they've gotten far enough away the nurse so know I'm following them.
"Hey where are you going?" I hear someone yell at me.
"Bathroom." I hope that works, it does.
I follow them to a room, and duck into a room before I get caught by the nurses.
I see Marc start stumbling out of the room.
"Marc!" I yell chasing after him. He turns around.
"Y/n?" He motions at an open room and I follow him in it, he closes the door quickly and we watch as the nurses run past.
We turn around in relief and see a sarcophagus laying down, it's thudding and I swear I can hear someone yelling from inside it.
"Here help me." Marc says starting to push the lid.
"Yup." Apparently 5 tons is a lot lighter than I thought.
A man immediately jumps out.
"Steven?" Marc and I ask in unison.
"Marc? Y/n?" Steven asks.
"Steven!" We exclaim
"Marc! Y/n!" He exclaims and we all break into a group hug.
"Wait how is this possible?" I ask pointing at the fact that their in separate bodies.
"I don't know." Steven says.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Marc asks Steven.
"Harrow shot us?" He responds.
"Yes! Yes!! Y/n? What about you?"
"Harrow shot you guys, then me."
"Yes! Wait what?"
"Yeah, I really hope Layla's ok."
"No. Go back."
"Harrow shot you guys?" I'm just being difficult now.
"Right after that." Steven responds, now he's acting like my dad, fuck Marc's enough I don't need the golden retriever guilt from Steven.
"Yeah ok, Harrow shot me too. Anyway, let's get out of here." I say peeking my head into an empty hallway.
We all creep down a hallway, on high alert for any nurses. When we go past another open room, this one has a standing sarcophagus shaking.
Immediately my thought goes back to yesterday. and I immediately run into the room.
"Y/n!" Marc whisper yells. "What are you doing?"
"You gonna help me or not?" I say trying to push the top of the sarcophagus off. Steven rushes over to help me.
Another person that looks exactly like Marc almost falls out of it.
"Gracias." He says, instead of the blue and white PJ's Steven, Marc, and I are wearing, this guy is wearing green.
"You." I stare at him, he looks less scary now, I can't tell if it's the psych ward pjs or what.
"Yo?" He points at himself. Marc and Steven are both too shocked to do anything.
"Yes you." I say stepping toward him.
"What did I do?" He asks in a New York accent.
"Woah what the fuck? You speak English?!" I jump backwards
"I mean Yeah, I'm from New York." He shrugs.
"Then what's with the Spanish?!?"
"I dunno, it scares people I guess." He says.
"You guys gonna help here or am I gonna have to deal with this guy again?"
"Again- wait that was you?" He asks "what we're you doing you scared me!"
"I scared you? I was following what I thought was my father and ended up thinking I was gonna get killed!" I motion at Marc. "You killed the guy!"
He laughs.
"Heh, yeah I do that."
"Dude who are you anyway?" I ask finally.
"Oh, uh, Jake, Jake Lockley." He says sticking his hand out to shake with a bit of a smirk. "You? And uh, them?"
"Y/n, uh that's my dad Marc in the white, and his friend Steven in the blue."
Jake waves a bit and Marc speaks.
"He's not my friend."
"Pretty sure you just hugged him more lovingly than you've ever hugged your wife." I say crossing my arms.
Steven and Jake both laugh.
"Alright that's enough, let's go."
All four of us continue the zig zag sneaking until we reach a due doors. There's a huge shadow behind it and we all take a step back as the doors open to reveal.
A hippo?
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" we all scream.