The gleam of flashlights shone off the stone walls, footfalls and muffled voices filled the long hall. It had been several centuries since anyone had set foot inside this ancient burial chamber. Around the corner came three men, caked in the dust of a thousand years. Following ancient accounts they came to an antechamber, which was sealed by a giant stone door that was covered in inscriptions of languages that were dead long ago. One of the men pushed his way to the front of the group.
"Make way, let me see!" a smaller bookish man fought his way to the head of the bunch. With a loud thump he dropped his pack to the dusty ground, sending up a small cloud of dust in the light. Closely inspecting the scrawl on the door, he quickly started rifling through his bag and eventually produced an ancient looking black bound book. Frantically flipping through the pages he paused when he came upon a certain section.
In the dim light the pages shone with a zeal, betrayed by the outdated and weathered cover.
"This is the passage, the one that will open the door for us and allow us to pass in peace. Now I need complete silence, any change or mistake in the incantation can have disastrous effects."
With that, the man began to start a low, throaty incantation in some language lost to the winds of time. The words rose and fell in an unearthly fashion, making those in its audience to believe they may have never been spoken before. As the incantation was nearing completion, an odd luminescence stated emanating from the gigantic door in front of them. With a final lurch of otherworldly speech, and all was silent. Puzzled the bookish man started leafing through the book, exasperation marking his features.
"It was supposed to work, it was all right here!!!" The man screeched as he threw his book down in an angry spectacle. Then, loud grinding sounds came from the door, with an unnerving squealing that followed. A loud hiss sounded when the seal of the doors broke, air escaped that had not been free in thousands of years. Torchlight emanated from the antechamber, after a millennium had come and gone, these chambers were again viewed by human eyes. Inscriptions lined the walls, so much so that you would be hard pressed to find room to write anything new. The group of men stared for what seemed like hours, unsure of their next move and transfixed by the scene beyond the doors. The antechamber was sparse, there was no gold sarcophagus, nor was there any other signs of wealth or luxury. Instead of a lavish final resting place for some long dead king, they found a chamber that had but one thing in it, a lead box.
The bookish man took of his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt. With a new clean lens he scanned the room, disappointed at what was contained within.
"This was supposed to be some secret site, unknown and untouched." he said, flabbergasted by the amount of work that had been done just to obtain a small box.
One of the other men spoke up, "Well it looks pretty touched to me. At least they left us one thing." he finished as he walked toward the box.
"What do you think is inside; gold, jewels, statues...?" he trailed off as he began to open the lid.
As the lid opened a blinding white light emitted from the small box. The light struck the walls and simultaneously a part of the inscription upon the walls started glowing. The bookish man pulled out a pocket sized book and quickly began to translate.
"Only those fool hardy enough to not heed these warnings will be consumed by a spirit of vengeance and hunger. Those cursed will be forced to roam the Earth in search of sustenance, but always will they hunger for more."
The bookish man began to scream something, but it was too late. A thick black smoke was swirling out of the lead chest and quickly consumed the man holding it. The smoke remained there momentarily totally eclipsing the man holding it. After a few minutes there was a scream and the sound of a rather hearty breath inhaling. The black smoke disappeared into the body of the man holding the chest. When the rest of the team looked at him they shuttered.
For when he opened his eyes he stared back at his companions with black soulless eyes. For what seemed like an eternity, they had a standoff, except for the bookish man thumbing through pages frantically.
Then the possessed man smiled and launched himself at the nearest worker, biting and tearing him to shreds as the man screamed for his life. Seeing this the other workers pulled out their blades, while one removed a hidden revolver from its hiding place.
"Hey", the man with the gun yelled, the possessed man looked at him his face Covered in blood. The gun went off, echoing loudly in the small antechamber. The man with the gun was pouring sweat down his brow by the time the second and third bullet erupted in the possessed man's chest. With the bloodthirsty look of a caged animal bent on revenge he launched himself towards the remaining men, tearing and biting those in his wake.
The bookish man, frantic to escape the terror and carnage, slung his bag over his shoulder and bolted for the exit of the antechamber. When he reached the next chamber his bag hit the ground with a resounding thump, and using a sarcophagus as a makeshift table he quickly started fanning through the pages of the musty old tome, looking for a way to reverse the madness that had been unleashed. The sounds of the dying men in the other chamber only raised his anxiety and sweat soon beaded on his brow.
"Come on, Come on!!" the bookish man screamed as he hysterically searched for the passage to save himself. An eerie silence broke the bookish man from his search, he looked up and saw the possessed man. The last couple of men were facing off with him, they looked tired, but determined to make a last stand against the abomination. The man with the gun shoved in his last few bullets, the other man was armed with a machete and a boot knife.
"We can't let you leave you know, you cannot be allowed to roam free in the world. There is already enough hate and sorrow in the world without your ilk running amuck."
With a low raspy voice he replied, "I am the death that walks in the night, I am the destructor, all fall in my wake. Woe to your world, woe to the vanquished." The possessed man wailed as he flung himself towards the duo. Two more shots rang out, finding their mark. The possessed man never flinched as the shots dug into his flesh, as he landed on the man with the knives a vicious struggle ensued. The man with the gun struggled to find a shot, having great difficulty as both men struggled on the antechamber floor.
The bookish man furiously fanned the old pages, desperately searching for the passage to seal this devil in darkness for eternity. Finally the bookish man uttered a sigh of relief as he scanned the exact passage he needed. His joy was short lived, for as he looked up from the book he saw the hellish scene that was unfolding during his research. The man with the knives lay bleeding out on the ground, his throat ripped out, and the man with the gun was slowly backing away slowing taking aim on his quarry. He fired his last two rounds into the heart of the possessed man, hoping that would stop him, but he just kept advancing, nothing was stopping him.
The bookish man yelled, "Hey, this way!!!!" The man with the gun turned to run as the bookish man started his deep incantation, the possessed man caught him from behind and hit the man with the gun in the back with his fist, causing him to fall to his knees. The possessed man grabbed his head on either side and with a forceful twist, broke his neck as his body fell to the floor. With the sickening twist still reverberating in the chamber, the bookish man continued the incantation, the possessed man crushed his fallen opponents head beneath his heel. He began to slowly make his way to the bookish man, laughing a long maniacal laugh as if to disturb the incantation and finish this last obstacle to his freedom. As the incantation continued, the giant stone doors began to creak and swing back into their resting place. The possessed man quit laughing and started to run toward the doors, at a supernatural pace he raced for the door.
When the bookish man finished the incantation the doors slammed shut, and he let out an exasperated breath, the bookish man picked up his pack and started to head towards the entrance. Then he heard a scream, some wild scream of a tortured soul, nothing like the wails he heard earlier. He heard the man speak from behind the wall. "Don't leave me in here with this thing, I can't survive in here, please let me out!!"
The bookish man just said, "I'm sorry"...and turned to leave.
Then he heard it's voice again, "Let me out of here, and I'll give you anything you want, I'm sure we can work a deal." The raspy voice croaked from behind the closed doors. The bookish man started walking away, knowing that he would never make a deal with that unholy monster. Then the bookish man heard a low thud, that stopped him in his tracks. Then it happened again and again, louder and louder, dust fell from the ceiling.
The bookish man walked faster as the possessed man pounded on the doors, each beat resounding loudly off the stone walls of the crypt. Depending upon his own memory, the bookish man made his way towards the entrance to the crypt, and his freedom. Down the narrow hallway he scurried as fast as he could move, trying not to think about the monstrosity locked behind him. With dust filling his eyes and the torches dying before him, the shadows themselves seemed to reach out to consume him, having to use his hands to guide him as the darkness overtook him. Stumbling in the dark, he heard a sound that made him pause, and by the time the second loud boom sounded down the hallway the bookish man knew what had happened, the possessed man had broken free. Frantically the bookish man scrambled towards his freedom, behind him he heard a low ragged breath, deep from within the possessed man was pursuing him. Rounding one last corner the bookish man squinted as the corridor was filled with sunlight, the bookish man sped toward the light, finally able to traverse the tunnels.
Just before he found himself in a sea of sand, the possessed man grabbed his leg, causing the bookish man to fall and lose his satchel, the bookish man fiercely tore away tearing his pants in the process. The possessed man poked his head out of the crypt into the sunlight, as soon as the sunlight touched his flesh, it began to smoke and sizzle. "Ahhh, Michael's fire!!!" the possessed man screamed as he recoiled into the safety of the crypt.
"You can't leave these behind can you?" "How ever will you seal me within?" the possessed man smiled as he held up the bookish man's satchel. The bookish man pulled a book out from under his arm.
"All I need is right here, this book can seal you inside forever." "At least you'll have something to read as you rot away." the bookish man sat cross-legged a few feet from the entrance, his low chant echoed off the walls of the crypt. As the bookish man methodically incanted the ancient words into existence, the wind began to pick up and blow harder and faster. The possessed man looked on as the sand began to pile up in front of him, a green sheen covered the entrance, which the possessed man recoiled from every time he touched it.
The bookish man's incantation began to rise on volume and intensity, as the crypt began to vibrate with an otherworldly hum, and it began to descend into the sand sea. The crypt soon disappeared into the dunes, as the incantion died down so did the gusts of wind. At its completion any trace of the crypt had vanished. The bookish man stood up, and after surveying his surroundings, headed for the nearest village.
In a fancy restaurant the bookish man set, with four other well dressed men. The man at the head of the table said, "What were your findings on this recent expedition?"
"The rumors of an unexplored burial chamber were exaggerated, there was no evidence of any hidden chambers or crypts." "Furthermore the crew that was hired soon disbanded after there was no findings and they ceased being paid." the bookish man said as he swirled his drink in his hand.
"Well I guess we can close the book on this one and look elsewhere." The man at the head of the table sighed.
"Actually, I'd like one more shot at finding that chamber, I have a couple of ideas on where to look." The bookish man replied, as he laid his hand on the dusty tome on the table.