Pyramid Princess and The Sad Mummy
[WP] You didn't expect to find a hidden pyramid never explored before. You also didn't expect your phone to try to connect to the pyramids Wi-fi and Bluetooth networks.
Oh god, could that be a building? Could I be saved? Three months of staggering through the desolate desert and finally, ahead of me, a towering structure.
I finally made it!
...or not. Maybe, just maybe, it's a massive pyramid, miraculously unmarked on any map, miraculously unsurrounded by any kind of civilization.
Weren't these things supposed to be situated near great cities? What kind of sick pharaoh made all his slaves and minions haul ass out to the middle of the desert to build a giant tomb for him? There had to be some city or town nearby. Even the pharaohs weren't that fucked.
Or maybe they were. I know nothing about ancient Egypt. I'm a lily-white businessman. Or I was before the northern African sun decided lobster red was a better look. I wasn't supposed to end up in the desert, though like, neither was the Mumbai-to-London-direct flight I was on.
I used to think those 'survival in the desert/island/mountains' shows were such bs. No one could survive a fiery plane crash, right?
Sometimes I wish I hadn't. Like now, stumbling upon a massive pyramid with not a single sad, abandoned stone hut to indicate life used to exist here.
And the more I think about it, the creepier it seemed. This is a crypt after all. I stumbled upon an unknown, never-before-discovered graveyard in the middle of the desert.
What a hoot.
But I don't really have another choice but to at least check it out, so I wheel my drink cart full of survival gear up to the base of the pyramid, and after a moment of indecision, knock.
After a moment of feeling stupid, the pyramid blows my proverbial socks off and opens.
Neat. Either I'm crazy, dead, dreaming, or life just got very interesting. With literally nothing to lose, I enter the giant triangular door that had slid down.
Inside it's pretty dark. This is where I gotta make a snap decision. Do I pull out my phone, waste precious battery life to use the flashlight? Or do I conserve it in case-
In case what? In case I happen across a cell tower in the middle of the desert?
Good point, me. Flashlight it is.
The entrance chamber is pretty underwhelming. No mummies or treasures or anything. Just smooth green walls with symbols etched in, hieroglyphics or whatever. I do look around a bit more before considering the first chamber a wash.
Before progressing to the next, though, I check my phone's battery and notice something interesting, with interesting being a hot understatement.
My phone has connected to Pyramid-Princess-Wifi.
I'm gonna be real here, I forgot about the pyramid pretty fast, and legit did not consider the weirdness of the WiFi. I was saved. I frantically began dialing 911.
I didn't hear any creaking or spooky shuffling or creepy moaning as I frantically and hysterically began trying to tell the phone operator 'no no, it's a pyramid no one's ever heard of. Yes. No. In Egypt. I don't know where in Egypt. Can't you just track my phone? Like legit, I'm pretty sure Facebook knows where I am just cause I'm connected to Wifi, can't you just-"
***
Cue creepy moaning, this time from my dried lips as my vision slowly begins to take in the very small, dark, cramped space I've woken up to. I say 'my vision slowly begins to take in' because I didn't really open my eyes. I'm pretty sure I don't have any. Shit, I definitely don't. Shit man. I'm toast.
With a scraping groan, the solid object in front of me, making up the front of my new little prison, shifts and pulls away. Sure nice of my captors/murderers to free me so soon after kidnapping/killing me.
As light floods into my vision receptors, I'm greeted to a small, comfortably furnished chamber. It's probably still in the pyramid, given the Egyptian decoration. It's the less interesting of the two things I noticed upon entering.
The more interesting of the two is the woman sorta that is peering at me. She's a sorta woman because she's mostly a mummy but has like, a wig and eyes with a lotta makeup painted on her ornate mask. Technically she could've been a dude cause I think they also wore wigs and makeup, but my knowledge of Egypt comes from Miss Frizzle and Prince of Egypt, so I might be missing a few details.
"Don't you know pyramids are booby-trapped?" she (definitely she) asks. "Gods. I didn't expect that to work. My first catch, and I got him in about thirty-eight seconds." She sounds both proud and disappointed. "All the others are gonna be really impressed but Gods I was hoping for a more interesting catch."
I did a blink like action to indicate surprise. "Uh. The WiFi was booby-trapped? How'd you know about WiFi when your slaves built this place?"
Her mask frowns at me. "The Visitors told us. The ones from the stars."
"Oh man." Oh man. It had been aliens all along. Now I owe some 4chan no lifer 10 bucks. Good thing I'm dead and he can't collect. "I knew it," I lied.
"If you knew it, why did you ask?" She turns and walks back to the center of her chamber. "You're allowed out of the sarcophagus by the way. I'm not supposed to bring back all my victims but you're my first and it's been tens of thousands of years. I'm not gonna wait and hope more show up, especially since you came alone."
I nodded stupidly. "Uh."
"Yeah, and you did a bad job of conveying your whereabouts." She sighs and throws herself on the bed. "Oh well! Guess I just have to hope more people show up."
"Right." I've got questions but it seems kinda weird to just brute force them. Then again, being dead but also still alive has a lot of unknowns, so I may as well ask before I dissolve into powder. "I have questions."
"Oh do go on. I need someone to talk to."
"Am I dead?" I start.
"Yeah. We both are. The bandages and general lack of organs didn't give it away?" She rolls onto her stomach and props her head on her hands.
"I didn't notice." My lack of a stomach dropped at her words though as the image of someone rooting around in my increasingly emptying abdominal cavity flashes in my head. "Just my eyes. I don't normally take stock of the other organs too much." I swallow before asking my next question. "How am I still alive?"
She laughs. "The magic of the Visitors. Osiris probably."
Ahh, so the Visitors, the Aliens, were what we thought were their Gods. I nod. "Ok. Is it permanent?"
She blinked at this, more literally than my blink, given her mask has eyes. "I guess? You aren't going to dissolve into powder but you could probably be destroyed. But even that's not too hard to undo, unless all your organs get destroyed and no one gets you back in the sarcophagus. But that's probably pretty unlikely."
This makes me think of pharaohs. Not the princess, maybe pharaoh or daughter or wife of one (question for later) but the other ones. The ones we've found already.
"Are all pharaohs alive? Like undead alive?"
She nods. "That's the whole point of the pyramids." Then she narrows her eyes. "Why? Haven't you wondered where all the looters and explorers disappear to?"
I pull a face. Then I actually feel my bandaged hands up to my 'face' to figure out exactly what's here. It's not much, so there probably wasn't much effect when I make a nervous expression.
So I switch tactics. "Uh, so, the thing is, people don't really go missing in pyramids. We send in expeditions to discover but no one really gets jumped and mummified like I did." I stop, thinking back, as hard as I could, to all the countless news articles written on pyramid exploration that I definitely didn't study. "Yeah, I feel like that'd make headline news."
She sits up suddenly. "You're saying none of the big guys are pulling numbers? What are they doing then?"
If I had any kind of functioning nervous system, I'd have broken out in a cold sweat. "Uh. So the thing is, we kinda remove them a lot from the pyramids. To museums and stuff. For kids and families to see."
Her mask is making an angry face that no human could manage. It's absolutely terrifying.
"So they're pillaged and robbed? Did their traps do nothing? Did the charms and wards accomplish so little?" She looks around her bedchamber, nervously. "Could my security be so easily dismantled? The WiFi was simply an alarm. I haven't checked the other traps in millennia. Could all my godly brethren be captured and held in these museums?"
I could point out the hypocrisy of her being sad about her mummy friends being captured when she'd both killed and captured me, but I refrained. After all, I was technically a home invader.
So instead I offer a solution. "Should we... Do you think we could free them?" It's an absolutely terrible idea but I'm also kinda drawing a blank on how to proceed with my general life. Or lack of one. I can't really go back to my firm in London. Maybe we can dress up in Egyptian clothes from the pyramid or something and go rescue some kidnapped pharaohs.
She's on my suggestion like white on rice and within moments she's pulled out a computer and started typing, which, let me tell you, is a weird look for a mummy.
"Hey, if you've got one of those, how'd you never know about the other pyramids being ransacked?" I ask.
"It was for emergencies only," she says, her voice distracted as she scrolls through lists of hieroglyphs. "But this is an emergency. Neferuptah is leaving her pyramid for the first time. I think this warrants some heavenly blessing." At this, she gestures at the laptop, and I nod.
"Right. Right. This is alright."
It's not really because I'm dead and about to accompany an ancient Egyptian princess on a rescue mission to a museum to free some corpses and, likely, resurrect them. This is kinda a worst-case scenario for a business trip.
But then again, it's also kinda the most exciting thing that's happened to me in my entire life, so I'm not abjectly opposed.
I walk next to the bed, peering over her shoulder.
"So," I say, "what can I do to help?"
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OpheliaCyanide to
TalesByOpheliaCyanide
