Hunter and Hongo ran back to the initial room. They saw Tiyana standing out in the hallway hollering her lungs out. When she saw them she burst into an enormous smile and started running as well. When they met, she jumped onto Hunter, wrapped her legs around his waist and began kissing him. Hongo stood by sheepishly. As Tiyana dropped to the ground she acknowledged Hongo and turned back to Hunter.
“Well, I can hardly believe it, but I’m not complaining. How in the wide wide world of miracles did the two of you manage to get lights?”
Hunter shot Hongo a sideways glance, “About that…” he started, “Well…” he continued, “Ok, so it’s like this…”
“Right well, take your time then, why don’t you just start from the beginning.” Tiyana directed.
“Ok, so I woke up and Hongo here was milling about. We were both up, and didn’t want to disturb anyone so we went for a little walk.”
“In the dark?”
“Right, we just felt our way along. So, then we came to that far door at the end of this hall here and we opened it and went in.” Hunter went on to tell the tale of the green sphere; the monotone, yet pleasant voice; the progress bar; and the lights.
At the end, Tiyana had her face scrunched together. They could almost see the wheels turning in her brain. “First of all, you really shouldn’t have let that thing near your head. Who knows what kind of radiation it gives off? Second, I can’t imagine… EEG technology is rudimentary at best… you can buy brain-scanning EEG machines now that hook up to your home computer, but they are mostly only good for rudimentary games… there is just no way that anyone in any country can build one that will learn the English language in a fifteen minute brain scan. It could, however, have recognized that you speak English.”
By the end of the story, the rest of the crew had emerged and begun to stare slack-jawed at the illuminated hallway. “I think it’s time to rally the troops, eh Hongo?” Hunter said.
“Yes, what did you have in mind, Mr. Price?”
“Exploration parties. Shenouda’s leg is probably broken. She’s holding it in. I can tell. She’s in a bad place. Much as I would love to explore every inch of this amazing place, we have to find help and we have to find it fast.”
“I find it hard to believe that the Egyptians would abandon this place, maybe we can find someone down here?” Tiyana speculated.
“Maybe if we find them, they will have to kill us?” Hunter ominously replied. Tiyana frowned, but did not say anything.
“Let’s break up into three groups, we’ll each lead one and explore. Now that we can see our watches, let’s meet back in thirty minutes. Hongo, you go left at the end of the hall, I’ll go right, and Tiyana, sweetheart, you could check out all the rooms in the hall we’re in, then pick a direction and go for it. If we meet up, we’ll just split off again. Now, everyone, be extremely careful. This place could be dangerous.”
“This place gives off an insidious vibe…” remarked Tiyana. “And things aren’t adding up.”
With that, they split up and explored. They found room after room of wall recesses and stone bunk beds. They found no bodies, skeletons, or indications of life. The labyrinth looked like a hybrid of the future and the ancient past. The rooms were bare rock. Lights randomly poked out of cracks in the rock. The hallways, in contrast, looked clean and sharp. About eight feet of rock wall rose up off of the bare rock ground. Then, a straight line of metal cut across the rock. A tall, metal concave ceiling filled with long straight unbroken lights running the entire length of the hallway gave half of the room a meticulously orderly, almost martial feel. Much of the labyrinth seemed primitively carved, but the unprimitive parts were modern and sleek. The metal of the roof shimmered as if it never oxidized or tarnished despite the fact that this place had ostensibly been abandoned long ago. The lights shone in perfectly straight lines. They gave off no noise whatsoever, none of the normal fluorescent humming.
When they met up again in front of the initial room, Hongo had the most interesting news. “We searched room after room and we found nothing. But, only one hall to the left from our location, there is a sign. It is a map. It has arrows and symbols and other directions. We followed all of the directions on the map except one. One has an arrow pointing directly the other direction from this hallway here. Underneath the arrow, there is no writing, just a symbol. It is a golden skull.” Hongo said ominously.
Hunter spoke up, “We have got nothing; we just found room after room of stone beds.”
Tiyana added, “I spent some time in the utility room where you turned on the lights. I couldn’t get the damn thing to turn on, let alone get any information out of it.”
“How’s Shenouda?” Hunter asked.
“Not good, she’s getting pale. We’ll run out of aspirin soon.” Replied Tiyana.
Hunter took charge, “Alright, let’s do this then. Only bring volunteers, it could be dangerous.”
Hongo nodded, “I’ll speak to them.”
Hongo addressed the troops in Swahili, and then in English for the benefit of the Egyptians. Everyone volunteered. Despite the cryptic warning sign, no one could imagine a fate worse than waiting to run out of food and water in the morbid halls. Hongo only wanted to bring a small, manageable group and selected Geb, Haji, and Andwele along with a few others.
With no reason to wait, the small group formed a procession with Hunter and Hongo walking side by side, leading the way. Tiyana walked behind them between Andwele and Geb. The rest followed. They passed the sign and came into a long, wide hallway with a magnificently tall ceiling. The walls of the hall were covered in elaborate, colorful paintings and petroglyphs. They depicted captivating images. More Vedic beings from the ancient Asian world appeared in the scenes. Some scenes showed them building the pyramids. Others showed them huddled together eating, praying, or dancing. The Vedic depictions fascinated Hunter and Tiyana because they did not belong in Egypt.
As they walked the halls, further inspection of the paintings blew their minds. The Vedic beings were a mere minority of the beings depicted. The gods of ancient Egypt dominated the depictions. They saw Ra at the helm of the Mandjet, the Boat of Millions of Years riding across the sky with the sun in tow. They saw Anubis balancing Ma’at’s scales. The depictions bore only slight resemblance to the rudimentary drawings found all over modern day Egypt. These depictions looked incredibly detailed, almost photographic. As they walked, the lights dimmed and spotlights shone on the paintings, elucidating the breathtaking images. Like a linear cartoon strip, they saw and read the story of Nut and Geb, Osiris and Set, Horus and Isis.
They saw Ra, the god of the sun and the king of the gods, curse Nut, the goddess of the sky, so that she could not bear children on any of the three hundred and sixty days of the year. Ra rightly assumed that because a circle has three hundred and sixty degrees that a year on earth had three hundred and sixty days. Nut wanted to have children so she sought out Thoth, the god of wisdom, for help. Thoth took light from the moon and used it to add five days to the year. On these five days, Nut gave birth to five children. The first, Osiris, became the lord of the earth.
They kept walking and saw a long and beautiful portrayal of the conflict between Set and his older brother Osiris. Osiris ruled the earth benevolently. He made the Nile river flood to water the crops and he made the crops grow and turn green. His younger, jealous brother, Set, eventually killed him and took the throne. Isis later used her magic to raise Osiris from the dead, but he had lost interest in ruling earth and went on to rule the underworld where he continued to make crops grow by giving them new life every season after they died at the end of the prior season. Osiris’s son, Horus, would grow up to wage war against Set and retake the throne of his father, but this story must have lived on in another hallway.
In the pictures, Hunter identified the Vedic beings. Hunter now saw the Asuras, the demons of Vedic lore, depicted. He saw Vritra in his reptilian brilliance attended by the snakelike Nagas. He saw scores of Asuras following Vritra’s orders. The Egyptian gods dominated the paintings and seemed to give orders to Vritra, which Hunter found strange.
According to Vedic lore, Vritra became head of the Asuras. Hunter could not picture Vritra in a subservient role. Nevertheless, there he was, apparently, taking orders from Ra and Osiris. Hunter saw mostly bizarre and animalistic Asura, but he also saw a few Devas, which were celestial Vedic angels, in the mix. He saw Varuna riding the mythical Makara creature. He saw Agni the Deva of fire. Vritra, however, seemed to run the show. In Vedic mythology, the Asuras and Devas are two groups of nearly immortal beings. In most Vedic texts, the Devas rule heaven, but the Asuras constantly assault them and occasionally take over. In some stories, they intermarry and mingle. Often, the Asuras are portrayed as bad while the Devas are portrayed as good, but sometimes the roles reverse and other times the roles are neutral. Hunter saw all of the Vedic beings on the fringes though, in the penumbras of the story. Often they worked on a project in the background or mingled with the Egyptian mortals. Hunter saw the Egyptian mortals working alongside with Asuras in building the pyramids. The enthralling artwork fascinated the group, but ultimately their nervousness over their own survival outweighed their fascination. They did not stop to admire the art. They kept walking, albeit slowly and cautiously.
At the end of the tunnel, they saw darkness. As they neared the end of the mythological scenes, the darkness beyond caught their attention. At their least aware moment, the ground sunk a few inches beneath them. They looked down and saw that they all stood on one large floor tile. They saw further that when the right amount of weight bore down on this particular tile, it sunk. They heard the creaking of very old gears. A great whooshing sound filled their ears and a blast of cool air passed over them. They looked up to find a massive steel blade on a pendulum swinging back and forth over their heads. If they had been a couple feet taller, the blade would have separated their heads from their shoulders. They all instinctively ducked.
The group let out exclamations of surprise in five different languages with some utterly profane and others relatively clean.
Hongo barked orders, “No one move! Be still!”
“A booby trap…” muttered Tiyana.
“Is that supposed to scare off grave robbers?” Hunter said.
Tiyana mused. “I can’t imagine why someone would build a thing like this. The arms are too short. You would have to be seven feet tall just to be grazed.”
“So, it’s only meant to scare people.” Hunter shrugged as he said this. “Maybe all of the traps in here are more frightening than dangerous.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Tiyana retorted.
“Agreed.” said Hongo. “We should keep moving, I do not like this thing swinging above my head.”
“Ok, but carefully.” Tiyana acquiesced.
The group moved forward more slowly and tighter together. As they came to the end of the hallway the darkness gave way to a dim light that brightened and eventually illuminated a vast cavern. The near side of the cavern contained water mottled with small stepping stones. On the far side, they could see land. The water looked deep.
Tiyana spoke up. “Great, what do we do now?”
“We go across. I’ll go first” Hunter, as usual, took initiative.
“Wait!” Hongo said. “What if this is another trap? I’ve got an idea. You all wait here, I must get something. Geb, Haji, Andwele come with me.” With that, Hongo vanished back down the hallway. Hunter and Tiyana waited and waited. Hongo did not come back for a while. Finally, they saw the quartet returning. Geb and Andwele carried a massive boulder from the original crash site. Surprisingly, the whole crew had followed. A couple of men even carried Shenouda, whose leg they had splinted with a metal pipe and duct tape.
Tiyana spoke up, “Hongo, did you really need to bring her? She probably should be lying down and resting, not hobbling around. That leg is clearly broken. You can’t carry her the whole way.”
Shenouda muttered something to Geb who translated it for everyone else. “She’s coming with us. She is very determined. We fought over it a great deal before agreeing to bring her.”
Tiyana ambled over and checked their makeshift splint. The leg looked much worse. The swelling increased, the skin took on a yellow pallor, and Shenouda grimaced hauntingly.
“Well, I guess it will do. I admire your spunk. Please tell her she is very courageous, Geb.”
Geb interpreted to Shenouda, whose determined face softened into a tenuous grin. Hunter’s heart sunk at the sight. He felt a deep pang of pity mixed with remorse. He kicked himself for plunging them headlong into this darkness.
“Alright Hongo, my man, let’s see your idea.” Said Hunter audibly.
With that, Geb and Andwele threw the boulder onto one of the stepping stones. The stone crumbled under the weight and hit the water. As the liquid splashed up onto the shore, it sizzled.
“That’s not right.” exclaimed Tiyana, who quickly bent over to examine the drops. She saw a small whisp of gas come out of a drop. Where the drop hit, it left a little indentation in the floor.
“It’s acid, something highly corrosive. If it can melt rock, then it won’t have a problem with flesh.”
“Oh great.” Hunter rolled his eyes. “Fantastic. What might be the only way out of here is across an aquifer of acid. Where are we?”
“We could always wait it out.” Tiyana offered. “I’m sure they’ve got a percussion drill set up topside. Your parents have more money than Bill Gates. I’m sure they’ve gotten wind of our situation by now. It’s hard to say how far we fell, but I would imagine they could have at least an air and supply hole down here in a day or so. In a few weeks they could have a hole big enough to get us out.”
“Yeah,” Hunter said distractedly. “they could find us, or they could miss this cavern altogether. I get the feeling that we fell down a slope. Plus, we have Shenouda to think about. Hongo, how many rocks are back there with the drill?”
“Many.”
“Let’s get them, all of them. I have a feeling that some of these stones really are for stepping on.”
With that they began carting rocks from the crash site to the shoreline. They began throwing boulders onto the stones and sure enough, some stones crumbled while others stayed firm. The firm stones apparently had an incorrodible base of support. In a few hours they worked their way across the acid lake, testing the stones as they went. They eventually found a firm path to the opposite shore. They could not risk taking Shenouda across. A couple of Egyptians stayed with her. The rest crossed.
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