The desert sun of Ammith blazed mercilessly overhead, casting long shadows that writhed across the ancient stone like living things. Around fifty reporters crowded behind the barricade, their cameras clicking in a frenzy, their microphones extended like the antennae of hungry insects. And at the center of it all stood Alexander Kane.
He was around his fifties, though the desert had carved ten more years into his face. His family would have laughed to see him now. His white beard was trimmed short, practical, and his eyes—those sharp, calculating eyes that had uncovered more lost civilizations than any living archaeologist—squinted against the glare as he addressed the masses.
He took a deep breath, and cleared his throat.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Alexander began, his voice carrying that particular weight of a man who had stared into history's darkest corners, "what lies behind me is not merely another tomb. This is... something else entirely. Something you might consider groundbreaking, Earth shattering news."
Beside him, Asahi Tanaka stood with his arms crossed, he rolled his eyes. The younger man's dark eyes scan the crowd with the vigilance of a bodyguard disguised as an assistant. He was in his thirties. Asahi had learned that when Alexander spoke of "something else."
It meant trouble was just in the corner waiting for them.
"The geological surveys showed nothing here," Alexander continued, gesturing toward the entrance—a dark maw carved into a sandstone cliff that had been hidden for millennia beneath shifting dunes. "Satellite imagery revealed nothing. This tomb was not meant to be found. And yet..." He allowed himself a thin smile, pride could be seen in that gleaming smile. "I have a nose for the hidden things."
Behind them, the crew of five prepared their equipment. Ropes, torches, measuring tools, and—though the reporters didn't know it—three pistols concealed in waterproof bags. In Alexander's experience, the oldest tombs often guarded the most dangerous secrets, and not all dangers were from the past.
"How did you discover it, Dr. Kane?" a female reporter shouted.
Alexander's eyes flickered with something unreadable. "That, I'm afraid, is a story for another day. What matters now is what lies within. Don't you worry though" he raised his hand,"I would definitely reveal this information soon enough!"
A local woman from Ammith, her face weathered by decades of desert life, pushed forward against the barricade. "You should not enter, Doctor," she called out, her voice cutting through the chatter. "That place is forbidden. My grandmother told stories. The old ones knew to stay away."
A sudden thought entered his mind. The locals seem to know about this tomb?… well technically this place I guess.
Alexander shook his head and offered her a polite smile—the kind reserved for superstitious locals. "I appreciate your concern, madam. But history waits for no one."
The woman's eyes darkened. "History can wait forever. The things inside... they have patience you cannot imagine."
For just a moment, something flickered across Alexander's face. Then it was gone, replaced by the calm confidence of a man who had faced down curses and legends before.
"Prepare the entrance team," he told Asahi quietly. "We will enter the tomb within the hour."
Forty minutes later, Alexander excused himself with practiced diplomacy. The questions would continue whether he was present or not, and the truth was, he had already given them enough to fuel their headlines. The mysterious discovery. The hidden tomb. The intrepid explorer.
Let them write their stories. He would write history itself.
"Ready?" he asked his crew as they gathered at the entrance.
Five faces looked back at him, intently. Asahi, calm and competent. Marcus, the geologist, was sweating despite not having entered yet. The twins, Elena and Victor, who handled the technical equipment with the ease of people who had spent years crawling through ruins. And old Hassan, the local guide who had seen enough tombs to know that some doors should remain shut.
"They say this place is cursed," Hassan muttered, his weathered face betraying nothing.
Alexander and Asahi rolled their eyes, they were tired by this superstition.
"They say that about every place, Hassan," Alexander replied. "And yet here you stand."
Asahi nodded, agreeing.
Hassan muttered again.
"Someone must carry the bodies out when you fail."
Alexander chuckled darkly, though the sound carried no real humor. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."
They descended into darkness.
The air changed immediately. It was cooler, yes, but also heavier—as if the tomb had been holding its breath for centuries and had only now begun to exhale. Their torches cut feeble paths through the gloom, revealing walls covered in carvings so worn by time they seemed to shimmer and shift in the flickering light.
"Stay close," Alexander whispered. "Watch your feet. These old builders had a fondness for surprises."
Victor asked, curiosity gleaming in his face.
"What… makes you say that?"
Alexander glanced at him, he didn't respond to that question, he just gave out a small devious smile indicating he has been experienced in this type of situation.
The corridor stretched before them, a throat of stone leading into the earth's belly. The carvings grew more elaborate as they advanced—scenes of daily life, of ceremonies, of things Alexander could not immediately identify. Men and women dancing. Figures kneeling before something tall and shadowy. And everywhere, carved into every available surface, a symbol he did not recognize: a circle with nine smaller circles arranged around it, like planets orbiting a sun.
"What do you make of this?" he asked Elena, gesturing at the symbol.
The young woman paused, running her gloved fingers over the carving. "Never seen it before. And I've seen a lot." She frowned. "The style is wrong for this region. Too old. Much too old."
"How old?"
She hesitated, and lingered before spitting it out. "Older than anything should be here."
They were slowing, and patiently walked forward. Yes, there were turns and small punctures on the walls but they ignored it for now.
The first trap was elegant in its simplicity. A pressure plate disguised as a decorative tile, indistinguishable from hundreds of others they had already passed. When Marcus's boot came down on it, there was a soft click that seemed impossibly loud in the silence.
Everyone froze, sweat was clear on their faces even though the tomb atmosphere was chill and piercing akin to cold storages.
Then the floor beneath Elena opened like a maw of creature.
She didn't even have time to scream before she vanished into the darkness below. The sound of her body striking stone echoed up from the depths, followed by a silence that was somehow worse than the scream.
Victor lunged forward, his face twisted with grief and rage, but Alexander caught his arm with surprising strength. "She's gone," the older man said, the words like stones in his throat. "She's gone, Victor. We must keep moving. It's what she would want."
Victor's eyes were wet, he lost his sister, she was his only family he had left.
Victor felt like a cold whip of reality had lashed at him, he was on his knees staring at the abyss down, his hands shaking violently, he wanted to scream to his heart's content.
But the voice didn't reach, he couldn't scream, he just knelt in front of the deep pit that went on endlessly, staring at it intently.
After a while the tile returned to its original state and was like the other tiles.
Like it was never a trap in the first place.
Marcus held his shoulder with a firm grip and tried his very best to apologise, but all he could was mutter it desperately.
Victor gave him a quick glance, he knew that it was not Marcus's fault. But he couldn't do anything but to blame him to satisfy himself.
After a while they were on their way again.
The second trap was less merciful.
Another pressure plate—or perhaps the same mechanism, triggered by their passing. This time, the walls themselves came alive. Hidden slots slid open, and arrows filled the air like a storm of ancient wasps. Marcus took three before he could even cry out—one in the shoulder, one in the thigh, and one through his neck.
Hassan dragged him behind a pillar, but the geologist's eyes were already glassy, his breathing shallow and wet with blood. The arrow in his throat made horrible sounds with each attempted breath.
"He's done," Hassan said quietly. It was not cruel. It was simply true.
Marcus's eyes found Alexander's. For a moment, there was fear there, and pain, and then something else—an acceptance that broke Alexander's heart more than the arrows ever could. Marcus nodded once, a small movement, and then his eyes went still.
Alexander closed his own eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, they were hard as flint.
"We go on," he said. "For them. We go on."
Victor was in a dilemma, he lost his friend and sister in this cursed tomb. He tried to blame Marcus for the death of his sister, but now… who he had left to blame?
But the tomb was not finished with them.
A grinding sound echoed through the corridor, deep and terrible, like the bones of the earth shifting. Stone doors began sliding down from the ceiling, separating the group with inexorable finality. Alexander turned to see Hassan and Victor trapped behind a wall of solid rock, their shouts muffled to nothing.
"Asahi!" he called, his voice echoing in the sudden silence.
"Here!" The assistant's voice came from ahead, not behind. They had been split, but at least they were together.
They pressed forward, two men alone in the belly of the beast. The corridor twisted and turned, leading them deeper into the earth, and with every step Alexander felt the weight of ages pressing down upon him. This was no ordinary tomb. The architecture was wrong, the symbols unfamiliar, the very stone seeming to breathe around them.
"Doctor," Asahi whispered, "what is this place?"
He lingered, even if he did know about it he couldn't express it out.
"I don't know," Alexander admitted. "But I intend to find out."
Then Asahi's foot came down, and the world roared.
Asahi now was in deep trauma, his legs were shaking as he stepped on it. He had lost both of his comrades due to this cursed Tomb. The only thought he could think of was how terrible his death would be, would he die by another endless pit or by the skewering arrows?
But he shook his head, he had to live in order to see the next day, in order to meet his family, his wife, his children, and the ones he loved.
The sound was like thunder given form—a grinding, crashing roar that grew louder with terrifying speed. Alexander looked back and felt his blood turn to ice. A massive boulder, perfectly round and larger than a man, was plummeting down the corridor toward them, having smashed through some concealed ceiling mechanism.
"RUN!" he screamed.
They ran. Through darkness lit only by their bobbing torches, through corridors that twisted and turned without mercy, through air that grew thick and hot with their desperate breaths. The boulder thundered behind them, gaining, always gaining, a death sentence given form.
The corridor split. Left or right?
"Left!" Alexander shouted.
"Right!" Asahi shouted at the same moment.
There was no time to argue. No time to think. Alexander lunged left. Asahi went right.
The boulder thundered past the intersection a heartbeat later, slamming into the stone wall between them with a sound like the end of the world. When the dust cleared, the path between them was sealed with tons of rock—solid, impassable, absolute.
Alexander heard Asahi's voice, muffled and desperate through the stone: "Doctor! What do we do?!"
Alexander pressed his palm against the cold rock,he then started to punch the rock multiple times, wishing he could reach through, wishing he could undo everything that had brought them to this moment. But wishes were for children and fools.
He lost two of his comrades, two trapped, only God would know what had happened to them. And now his assistant and him were trapped.
His punching stopped.
"Find an exit!" he roared back, his voice cracking. "Stay calm and find a way out, Asahi! I will find you! Do you hear me? I WILL FIND YOU!"
Silence answered. Then, faintly: "I hear you, Doctor. Be safe."
Then nothing.
Alexander stood alone in the darkness, surrounded by stone and silence and the ghosts of his crew. Victor. Hassan. And now Asahi, somewhere in this nightmare, alone.
He pressed his forehead against the rock and allowed himself for a minute or two to grieve.
Then he straightened his shoulders, raised his torch, and walked forward into the unknown.
He wandered for what felt like hours. The tomb was a labyrinth, each corridor leading to more corridors, each chamber revealing more mysteries he had no time to investigate. He saw rooms filled with pottery, with weapons, with the bones of creatures he could not identify. He saw murals depicting scenes that made no sense—men with animal heads, women giving birth to stars, children dancing in flames.
Then a sudden thought appeared, his mind was clouded with it.
'Why did I do it, is this what you call curiosity gets the cat?'
He shook his head and tried to study the walls of the tomb.
And everywhere, that symbol. The circle had nine smaller circles. Watching him from every wall, every ceiling, every floor. Accusing him.
Finally, he found a room that was different from the others. A staircase led down, spiraling into depths that seemed to swallow light itself. The air that rose from below was cold—colder than it had any right to be in this desert—and carried a scent that Alexander could not place. Ancient. Heavy. Wrong.
"Curse this tomb!" The words echoed back at him, mocking. The tomb didn't care.
He had no choice. No other path presented itself. He took a fresh torch from its bracket on the wall, lit it from his dying one, and descended into the dark.