“Do you really have to do this?”- Minkyung protests, shifting in Yebin’s arms – “It’s embarrassing…”

“Hush, it’s 2am in the morning and you almost gave me a heart attack, I deserve to pamper you a little”- Yebin answers, walking as silently as she could in the hotel halls while carrying Minkyung bridal-style. She was doing her outmost to avoid touching any decorations, which was not an easy task considering that there wasn’t much light in the corridors at that particular hour. – “Besides, there is nobody here to watch us.”

“But still…”- Minkyung pouts, endearing Yebin even more, though she couldn’t shake the uneasiness she was feeling product of what happened a mere hour ago.

Yebin doesn’t want to worry herself over useless thoughts but there was no denying that she almost watched Minkyung die in front of her. She had acted quick nonetheless, performing CPR as best as she could with the little knowledge she had of it.

She had been at it for like more than half a minute, desperately pumping Minkyung’s chest as the incoming tears clouded her vision. It was only after Minkyung had regained consciousness that Yebin allowed herself to both breathe and let those tears of genuine fear.

“Are you feeling okay?”- Yebin’s march was brought to a halt as she reached the door to their room, taking her keycard from her rear pocket –while she miraculously balanced Minkyung with her right arm- before sliding it in the scanner.

“I’m feeling… alright?”- Minkyung answered, but she herself didn’t seem to be sure of her current condition, which slightly frightened Yebin. - “I don’t even know; I’m feeling kind of weird… I swear it was water.”

The door closed behind them as Yebin went into the room, walking a little bit more heavily this time as she didn’t have to mind the thought of waking someone up. She strolled up to the queen-sized bed they both shared before carefully depositing Minkyung on it, as if she was made of some kind of fragile crystal.

“I could have walked by myself…”- Yebin chuckles, hearing Minkyung complaining again, as she flails her tired arms a little.

“Man… you sure are heavy”- The comment escaped Yebin’s mouth almost unconsciously. She regretted almost instantly as her wife, who was now seated at the edge of the bed, slapped her arm quite strongly.

“I’m going to change out of this clothes, humph”- Minkyung huffed, turning her face away from Yebin in faked annoyance.

It had been a weird night for both of them, getting even weirder as the ambulance arrived at the pyramid. Minkyung had vomited sand on the ambulance, earning herself looks of surprise and mild disgust from the paramedics.

Minkyung kept insisting that she had drunk water nonetheless.

It wasn’t like Yebin didn’t want to believe her, but there was no way that a fountain that had been out of use for more than a millennium would suddenly start working again. She had spent the whole trip to the hospital thinking about it, what exactly had happened back there?

But she had more pressing matters to think about so those kinds of thought didn’t last long, the medics had given notice to the police about the three random subjects that were inside the pyramid at such an hour. Thankfully for them, Eunwoo credited her identity as an archeologist and Yebin had taken the chance to do so too. Fortunately for them, the authorities let them go only with a warning, even if they were archeologist the entrance to the pyramids was forbidden after the evening.

It had been close, way too close for her liking, but at least Eunwoo looked relieved when the cops told them that they would let this one slide, the color had returned all at once to her best friend’s face.

Once they arrived to the hospital, the doctor did a few routine checks on Minkyung, luckily finding nothing abnormal with the girl other than the pale look on her face, so he let her go about twenty minutes later. She remembers telling the doctor that “Minkyung had swallowed sand” which elicited a snigger from the old man.

“I’m going home, I need some sleep after this or else stress is going to end up killing me”- Eunwoo said as she waved goodbye to the girls, before getting into her car and rushing off. She expected Eunwoo to be a little angrier at her, but it seemed the girl was too exhausted to even think about getting mad.

At least everything had turned out alright in the end, she still had six more days of vacations and she wasn’t exactly going to let a bad night ruin the rest of it.

The snap of fingers in front of her face brought her back from her thoughts, Minkyung was in front of her, already changed from the dirty attire she sported earlier. The blue dress Yebin had bought for her about a year ago laid now all dirty in the laundry basket near a corner of the room, such a shame.

“You can go change out of those clothes now, I’m going to sleep”- Yebin nodded at her wife, feeling fatigue catching up to her.

“Sure…”- She answered back as looked for her pajamas, taking them and then heading for the bathroom. However, she stopped before entering, a curious question had popped up in her mind – “Say, Minky, do you remember why did you start drinking from that fountain?”

“I don’t remember that much, I was just thirsty… I think.”

“Oh, okay”- She expected something more to be honest. – “You can go back to sleep babe; I’ll be with you in a sec.”

“Wait, I also remember Eunwoo’s associate being there with me at first…”- Minkyung’s eyebrows furrowed as the girl struggled to remember - “Was he there when I passed out too? I can’t remember, damn…”

“Oh… associate?”- Yebin felt a shiver running up her spine.

“Yeah, the guy that was talking to me remember?”- Minkyung continued and Yebin held her breath, still looking towards the bathroom to prevent Minkyung from seeing her troubled expression - “I can’t remember if he left or not though… my memory is really fuzzy”

“Yeah… I know who he is…”- Yebin answered cautiously before hastily switching the topic - “J-Just sleep, alright? I’ll be right back, gotta… gotta call Eunwoo to let her know we arrived at the hotel…”

“Sure babe”- Minkyung let out a big yawn - “Just don’t take too long”

Yebin set her sights on the door that led to the corridor, exiting the room as fast as she could once she reached it. She looked for her cellphone hurriedly, her teeth clenching in frustration as she struggled to get the phone out of the tight front pocket.

When she finally managed to get it she dialed Eunwoo’s number, not even bothering to search for her contact in her list. The call connected and a sleepy-sounding Eunwoo picked up after half a minute or so.

“Eunwoo, we need to talk”- Yebin went straight to business, earning a groan from the other end of the line - “Go to the café near my hotel tomorrow at 7am”

“Wha…? Why?”- Eunwoo’s drowsiness was palpable from her voice alone, the girl surely understood nothing.

“Something weird happened back at the pyramid, Minkyung said she saw your associate”

“My associate? But I don’t have an associate…”- That exact piece of information seemed to wake Eunwoo up in a flash.

“I know.”- Yebin was scared to even say it – “I think someone has been following us”

-------------------------------------------------

“So you are telling me that some random dude was flirting with your wife yesterday? And then she told you he appeared at the pyramid too?”- Eunwoo raised an eyebrow, kind of baffled now that she knew what the whole situation was about - “Damn…”

“I know, right?”- Yebin bit into the croissant, taking a large chunk out of it, before taking a sip out of her already cold coffee to help swallow it - “He told her he was your associate… I’m actually afraid of that psycho now, how did he get in the pyramid without us noticing?”

“Maybe he was there before he arrived?”- Eunwoo raised a valid point, which didn’t serve to calm Yebin in the slightest.

“Like lurking in the shadows or something? That’s ed up girl”- The archeologist sighed, finishing her breakfast.

It was currently 7:23am, she had met with Eunwoo at 7 sharp to discuss this, updating her about the situation in general, being sure to provide her even the slightest detail. It’s not like she expected Eunwoo to help her overcome the feeling of being watched she now had but at least having a friend she trusted know about it was comforting.

“So what do you plan on doing now?”- Eunwoo asked after taking a sip of her own mocha latte - “I’d call the police if I were you”

“I don’t know… I’m really freaked out after last night”- Yebin rested her head on her hands, letting her gaze wander around the whole place. She hadn’t included their own personal stalker when she planned for this vacation.

“And what happened to the water thingy?”- After a few seconds of silence, Eunwoo changed the topic, now focusing on Minkyung’s incident.

“Minkyung insists she drank water… I actually entertain that idea more than the thought of her being crazy or something”- Yebin leaned back on her chair, sighing - “Like, if she were to have schizophrenia or something I would be devastated…”

“Hey, cheer up, there is no point in thinking about that”- Eunwoo encouraged her friend, taking Yebin’s hand in hers to reassure her which, oddly enough, seemed to work in making Yebin relax a little - “I’m sure there is an explanation, maybe that guy filled that small fountain with water and replaced it with sand once Minkyung out?”

“But that doesn’t explain the sand on …”

“True…”- Eunwoo gave up at trying to find a logical explanation, limiting herself to just drawing circles with her thumb in Yebin’s hand. Comfortable silence followed as they leisurely finished their drinks, at least until Eunwoo decided to speak up again - “Listen, I’m planning on going back to check the pyramid, maybe ask for a little bit more of security around the place in case that bastard wants to try anything else”

“Good idea, if he did something to Minky then he could do it again with another visitor”- Yebin could only hope that they’d catch him fast enough to let her enjoy the rest of her trip - “I’ll go check on Minky again, take this, my treat”

She guzzled down the rest of her drink despite hating cold coffee. Once she finished gulping it down she went to take her wallet; taking out a 50 £ Egyptian pound bill and throwing it in front of Eunwoo, who looked at it uninterestedly, not happy with her friend habit of paying for their outings.

“Don’t think too much about things”- Eunwoo said as Yebin turned around, heading for the coffee shop’s door.

“I’ll try”- Yebin answered, though her voice denoted insecurity.

-------------------------------------------------

Yebin wandered the hotel halls with her head hanging low, whistling a soft tune to fill the silence that accompanied her. It was 8am in the morning and she had just returned from her meeting with Eunwoo, there was probably no other person awake in the hotel right now, bar the staff of course, since most tourist either leave early in the morning to roam the Egyptian city or they sleep until late if they stayed up late the night before.

She had nothing on her mind at the moment and she’d love it if it stayed that way. She was following Eunwoo’s advice to heart, filling her mind with troubling thoughts would bring nothing but aching to her heart. Be it a psycho stalking them or the possibility of Minkyung having hallucinations for some reason.

She reached the door to her room and lingered on the frame a little, her right hand shooting for the back pocket of her shorts rather sluggishly to fetch the keycard. She was about to swipe it on the scanner when she felt something tickle her uncovered right ankle.

Her eyes went down immediately, scanning her leg only to find a little beetle climbing up her limb. She crouched, carefully picking the little insect up – avoiding grabbing it by its mouth - and watching it flail its minuscule legs wildly.

The “Scarabaeus sacer”, weird, she remembers when she learnt about them in her class and investigations. They were the model for the ancient scarab-shaped artifacts and amulets the Egyptian had, often referred as the holy beetle, and their name was well-earned, since they symbolized both regeneration and rebirth, often associated with none other than the sun god, Ra, and his subordinates.

They weren’t really that uncommon, but Yebin was still a little bit surprised to find one inside the hotel.

She observed the beetle a little more before deciding to end the poor thing’s suffering – which, to her eyes, seemed to be scared as hell - by leaving it on the floor again. And so she did but then, strangely, another beetle appeared. This time crawling out from the bottom part of the room’s door.

It wasn’t supposed to be that worrying but, in the state she was in, that miniscule thing raised the alarm in her head. She swiped the keycard at once, waiting for the system to beep before opening the door roughly.

What she saw left her in shock.

What seemed to be dozens – no, scratch that, thousands - of beetles running around the floor, the room, the bed.

And Minkyung, in the middle of them, soundly asleep with a smile on her face, giggling from time to time.

Yebin covered to suppress the incoming scream in some way, mostly to prevent Minkyung from waking up and freaking out at the immense amount of insects that were crawling all over her skin.

Still, the beetles didn’t seem to be actually doing anything to Minkyung at all and that was the only good thing Yebin could make out of the whole situation.

She didn’t waste more time, charging into the room and crushing scarabs under her feet as she did. She reached Minkyung’s side in less than a second, trying to surround the girl with her arms so as to pick her up and get her out of the infested room.

“Ouch!”- She yelped as she felt something sting her fingers.

The beetles had turned violent, dashing around Minkyung at twice the speed they were before, their tiny legs moving them speedily towards Yebin as they proceeded to use their small yet sharp mandibles to take bites out of Yebin’s skin.

They practically forced her to leave Minkyung where she was, taking a few steps back as she violently swept off the insects that had managed to grab onto her. Unusually, the beetles returned to their normal behavior once Yebin backed off, resuming their “work” once more.

Yebin was about to try again when sudden movement coming from Minkyung’s right side caught her eye. There, on her nightstand, laid the small wooden statue that the psycho had gifted Minkyung.

The Ba figurine was surrounded by lots of beetles that frantically tried to climb it. It’s black painting was now peeling down as the insects managed to scrape it off, leaving the original brown-ish color visible instead. Yet, as soon as a fragment of painting touched the ground, another scarab would form out of it.

Yebin drowned another scream. Unable to even comprehend what had happened right before her eyes.

She then clenched her teeth, vigor suddenly filling her soul, as she rushed to the bathroom. Once inside of it, searching the compartments of the bathroom’s vanity for a deodorant spray.

She returned to the main room, intentionally crushing more insects under her feet as she fearlessly charged. She scanned the whole place, looking for Minkyung’s bag.

“Eureka!”- She half-shouted once she localized it, centimeters away from the laundry basket.

It didn’t take that much time for her to find the lighter Minkyung used for her cigarettes. Then, turning back and aiming right at the wooden figurine, Yebin sprayed the deodorant as she ignited the lighter, slightly flinching at the sudden heat the combination emanated.

The fire roared, consuming dozens of insects as it rained upon the statue, setting it ablaze in an instant. Yebin was about to switch targets, setting her eyesight over the beetles that roamed the floor when a puff of black smoke erupted from the burning statue, blinding Yebin for a few seconds.

She coughed, feeling the polluted air rasping against and entering her lungs. She blinked, her eyes were stinging a little so she had to rub them before she could actually open them properly.

And surprises weren’t exactly over for her, once she finally managed to open her eyes her breath hitched at what she saw.

There were no more insects, only sand remained in the place where the little bugs were before. The only thing that lingered was the smell of burnt wood, as even the statue had disappeared, leaving nothing but ash behind.

Despite all of this, she could now breathe in relief.

A relief that didn’t last much longer nevertheless.

She heard a scream, a rather painful sounding one, that startled her. Minkyung had woken up and seemed to be in pain, screeching loudly and agonizingly.

“It hurts! It hurts!”- Minkyung shrieked and Yebin’s heart tightened - “Yebin! Please make it stop!”

“Babe! What’s happening?”- It was a stupid question, she realized it, but it was the only thing she could actually do.

“I feel like I’m going to die!”- Minkyung answered cryptically, giving no useful information and furthering Yebin’s growing desperation - “It burns; it’s burning my entire body!”

“I-I-I…”- Yebin despondently tried to answer, finding no words coming out of at first before she forced herself out of her inertia - “I’ll be right back baby; I’m going to find help!”

Having said that, she dashed out of the room, leaving the screeching Minkyung behind as tears of despair and anger threatened to spill from her eyes. She arrived at the lobby after a few seconds of intense running, finding a lonesome boy there, sweeping the front of the place.

“You! Hey! Please! I need your help!”- Yebin yelled at the worker, startling him – “Call an ambulance right now!”

She didn’t wait for the boy’s answer, turning back on her heels and running back the way she came from, she couldn’t bear to stay a single additional second away from her wife.

“He-Hey! Wait! What’s the problem?!”- She heard the worker shout back at her but she didn’t stop.

She arrived back at the room, which was now eerily silent. Something was wrong and Yebin could actually feel it in the atmosphere. The most logical explanation would be that Minkyung had actually calmed down, but she wasn’t too keen on following that train of thought after she just witnessed an army of beetles appear and disappear in a flash.

She wasn’t wrong, even the smell of burnt wood was gone along with the sand the bugs had left behind.

Minkyung wasn’t in the bed either.

She heard rushed footsteps growing louder by the second, the sound coming directly from behind her.

“I have already called an ambulance ma’am!”- The boy that was in the lobby had come running after her – “May I know who need help? I have some knowledge in medicine and… ma’am?”

Yebin didn’t answer, she wasn’t even paying attention to the boy at all.

Something else, something sinister, had caught her attention from the very first second she stepped back into the room.

There was a circle made out of sand near Minkyung’s side of the bed. Figures which represented ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs surrounded it.

One of them was the Ba.

“vzzzzzt”

The sound of a vibrating phone unglued her gaze from the sand. Minkyung’s phone was still on her nightstand.

“vzzzzzt”

It buzzed once more and Yebin went to get it without hesitating.

“vzzzzzt”

It buzzed once more in her hand, the screen displayed the ‘unknown caller’ message.

“Aren’t you going to get it ma’am?”- The boy asked but Yebin was already taking the phone to her ear.

“Hello?”- She asked, tentatively.

“The pyramid”- A voice she recognized very well answered her, yet she could feel something was off in the way she talked.

“Eunwoo?”- Her voice almost faltered, overtaken by anxiousness.

“Come”- Her friend said plainly - “Come to the pyramid”

-------------------------------------------------

After showing her archaeologist credentials to the security guard outside and impersonating an actual member of the researching team, Yebin arrived at the corridor that led to the pharaoh’s resting chamber.

It wasn’t easy getting out of the hotel. She had managed to lie her way out by telling the boy to cancel the ambulance, saying that she thought the friend that had just called her was in some kind of danger – although she was sure the boy remained unconvinced – before she just told him to request a cleaning service for her room since she was “going to be away” for the rest of the evening.

Thankfully, the boy didn’t inquire about the circle made out of sand and neither did Yebin address that particular subject.

And now she was there, inside the pyramid, looking for her best friend. Only two places remained, the burial chamber and the newly found one. The closest one to her was the former.

She mustered some strength to move aside the ancient stone door that blocked her path, the limestone made a scraping sound as it slid to the right, rasping against the stone foundation. Once inside she her flashlight – in contrast to the corridors, which had torches leading the way, the inside of the burial chamber was not illuminated – and the first thing she saw was Eunwoo.

Or what seemed to be a decrepit, pale and weird looking Eunwoo.

“Nunu?”

“Greetings”- Directly from behind Eunwoo emerges a figure, one that Yebin recognized and that filled her with anger - “Yebin, am I right?”

“You!”

“My name is Set”- He makes a little reference, unaware of the seething rage Yebin was feeling for him at that very moment - “And I would like to thank you personally for the great help you’ve been”

“Great help my !”- Yebin shrieks but Set remains unfazed - “Where is my wife you ing stalker?!”

“I’m going to ignore such a disrespectful behavior in light of how valuable you’ve been to me”- He says, taking a step forwards. Yebin just growled at the tanned man, clenching her fists.

It was weird, to say the least, the way Set was dressed. It looked like something that could come out of one of those Indiana Jones movies. He was cladded in a large white robe, complete with the gold and blue neckpiece and waist band. The strangest thing of all, however, was the hat he was carrying.

It was a jackal’s head, painted entirely black, and the mere sight of it scared Yebin out of her minds. The thing had red eyes and, worst of all, they seemed to be focused on her, almost devouring her with its sight.

“You see, I must thank you for finally returning my wife to me”- Set continued, taking another step towards a completely frightened Yebin - “Outside of this realm my influence is null, so only thanks to you I can finally reunite with my lover.”

“Lover? Wife?”- Yebin was confused for a moment, then her gaze settled on Eunwoo, who hadn’t moved at all ever since Yebin entered the resting chamber – “Are you talking about her?”

“Her? A simple mortal?”- Set sniggered uncontrollably for a few seconds, her deep voice resounding even more in the closed space – “No, of course not, I’m talking about Nephthys… or as you mortals seem to have named her… Minkyung.”

“You bastard! Where is my wife?! What did you do to her?!”- In spite of her fearless sounding remark, Yebin found herself taking a step back, glancing towards the door in case she had to run away.

“I’m afraid I cannot tell you, nor it will matter once you are dead”- A chill went up Yebin’s spine - “Even after being of such help to me, I cannot let you run around freely now that I’ve shared my identity to you… it could bring some unwanted visitors…”

“W-W-What?!”- Yebin stuttered, unable to take another step as she terror had now paralyzed her entire body - “Back off! I’m warning you I’m dangerous! I-I had some karate lessons in highschool…!”

Set chuckles, her laugh filled with disdain this time.

“I’m not going to kill you myself, wouldn’t stoop so low”- He extended his hand and, out of nowhere, an ornamented gold staff that ended in a jackal’s head with two rubies by eyes materialized in it - “I’ll have someone do it for me instead.”

He pointed his staff towards Eunwoo, chanting something weird in a language which Yebin could not understand before a red spark emerged out of the eyes of the jackal.

Eunwoo did not even attempt to move as the bolt of energy travelled towards her, apparently still sunken in some kind of lethargy. The spark made contact and fused with Eunwoo’s body. A few seconds later, Eunwoo’s body started to contort painfully, the sound of bones snapping making Yebin closer and closer to puking out of the sheer impression the sound produced on her.

With a final “CRACK”, Eunwoo’s face was violently thrown back, probably breaking the girl’s neck as it did, and a faint, white trace of smoke could be seen from Yebin’s position emerging from the girl’s mouth.

“Another soul to be devoured by the dead”- She heard Set muttering as he raised his staff once more and pointed it at the line of smoke that lingered in the air.

After a swift arms movement and another chant, the trail of smoke merged together, forming a cloud this time, before enveloping the sarcophagus in the middle of the room, using every crevice it could find to enter.

“PUM”

The coffin lid moved a little as if something were pushing it from the inside, startling Yebin.

“PUM”

It happened again, although this time with more force.

“I’ll be taking my leave now… enjoy yourself”- Set spoke once again before bringing up his adorned cane only to bring it down with titanic force.

The room was filled with a flash of red that blinded Yebin, Set wasn’t there anymore by the time she opened her eyes.

“PUM”

But that wasn’t the end of her problems, with one last push, the sarcophagus lid burst open in an explosion of black smoke and hit the ceiling. Yebin brought her arms up, covering her eyes but losing the grip she had on the flashlight, which fell to the floor with a soft “thud”

Now without a source of light, Yebin’s anxiety triplicated. Once the smoke cleared a little, the girl practically dived towards the floor, desperately trying to find her flashlight. She didn’t exactly find her flashlight, only the pieces of glass that belonged to the lens.

She heard a groan, followed by the sound of bones clattering against a surface.

Her shaky hand carefully travelled towards her front pocket, taking out her phone.

Another ethereal groan filled the chamber.

Yebin the cellphone’s flashlight, aiming it at the now open coffin.

Yebin took a step back towards the door as a bony hand emerged from amidst the black smoke that hovered around the sarcophagus, and soon the rest of a decrepit body followed, there were some pieces of dirty old cloth hanging from it but its body was almost now.

“The pharaoh raises AGAIN!”- That THING bellowed with an otherworldly voice devoid of any substance. – “Bow down to your king, peasant!”

-------------------------------------------------

Not quite happy with how the last scene turned out, I feel like I could have worked on it a little bit more. The previous three are good tho.

Warning, as you may have seen already, this was not proofread at all, I will do it tomorrow when I have time. It’s currently 2:46 am and I wanted to finish the last scene to get it out so I don’t have to continue writing tomorrow because I have to study for a couple of exams.

I’m really sleepy so I don’t have anything else to say. Enjoy the read, hope I didn’t actually up the last part.

I have to stop writing so late at night, drowsiness s up my writing skills. Might rewrite the last scene, will let you guys know in the next chapter if I do so you can read it again.

Just a clarification before I go, the actual pharaoh sarcophagus isn't inside the pyramid anymore but in a british museum, but for the sake of the story let's just imagine that they never shipped it out of Egypt lmao.

I’m hitting the bed, goodnight peeps!