We were up before sunrise most mornings. I drank my coffee in silence, watching the horizon shift from deep blue through layers of pink and orange as another long day began. Within three days, the dig's rhythm had settled over us, and I'd grown used to the fine layer of sand that coated everything.
Eldon was absorbed in the site. Aside from a few exchanged pleasantries, he spent most of his time locked in arguments with Cassie. He was running into the same issues that the previous team had, and his focus had now shifted to the rotating stream of officials from Cairo that seemed to appear daily. Heated discussions echoed across the camp, but by the end of the day, like clockwork, they always ended in handshakes and satisfied, glazed expressions.
He had to be paying them off, I realized. I thought back to the man on the plane and the way he'd fled, still trying to make sense of it. Maybe Eldon pegged him as homophobic and leaned into it, but that didn't explain his eyes dilating like he had been drugged. The longer I thought about it, the more far-fetched my ideas became.
None of it explained the problems we kept running into at the dig site. Cassie floated the idea that there might be other entrances buried beneath the sand. She still hadn't warmed to me, but it was clear they needed every extra hand. So, once my primary work was done, she started sending me to the trenches during my downtime.
The hours stretched out in quiet, measured segments. I spent most of them hunched over folding tables arranged in precise rows, each tied to a specific grid section of the excavation. Now and then, I was called away to help move the sand that had been carefully cleared from the pits. The routine settled something anxious in my chest. It reminded me of working in the back room at the college bookstore; just infinitely more interesting.
The officials that came today, left almost as soon as they arrived, clearly disappointed to learn that both Cassie and Eldon were still in Cairo. Without proper authorization, the sealed antechamber remained untouched so they had left early this morning hoping to speed things along.
It was Marcus who broke the silence as we worked. "They were pissed. Wanted to see Cassie... because, you know, Cassie...and Eldon because he's the one with the wallet." He tossed another shovel of sand into the wheelbarrow before wiping his brow.
He grinned at me. "What? I'm just saying-"
I cut him off with a laugh, raising a hand as I gripped the wheelbarrow handles and heaved it up. The weight shifted unevenly, but I managed to steady it before heading off toward the growing pile of sand, a good thirty feet away. "You mean that's just how things work around here."
Marcus chuckled and stuck his shovel into the sand, then waved me away from holding the wheelbarrow. "Yeah. They don't give a shit about the artifacts. It's always been about paying for access and greasing the right palms." He started to push the wheelbarrow toward the massive pile at the edge of the site.
A short distance away, two Egyptian laborers worked in silence. Their movements had become mechanical and eerily repetitive. At first, I chalked it up to a language barrier, or maybe the cool reception I'd gotten for being a foreigner, but now their detachment felt deeper than that. They didn't speak to each other or acknowledge us. Their eyes had taken on a distant, glassy look, as if they weren't fully present anymore.
After returning with our empty wheelbarrow, Marcus noticed them and tried to get them to take a break, gesturing to the shade and holding out some water bottles. They ignored him completely. Their shovels continuing to hit the sand at regular intervals.
"Maybe they don't understand English," I said as we walked back toward camp, seeking shade.
"No, I think what I was suggesting was pretty universal, " he said crossing his arms over his chest. "It's not just them. Four workers collapsed yesterday from heat exhaustion. The pace that Cassie is demanding isn't safe."
I knew the locals depended on the wages but I agreed that this behavior just seemed extreme.
"Maybe Eliza could talk to Eldon about it," I said, though the words felt empty even as I spoke them. I hadn't seen her all day. She'd stayed behind that morning, and even Marcus didn't know where she'd gone. The night before, she'd looked worn down, dark circles under her eyes and a faint tremor in her hands she tried to hide during dinner. Eldon did spend most of his time with her and Cassie, surely he noticed that something was clearly wrong with her.
At least Marcus was a bright spot in all of this. He was easy to talk to, quick to laugh, and genuinely excited about the work we were doing. After we finished lunch in the shade, he stood up, brushing the sand from his pants. "We have some time before they get back," he said. "Grab your camera and I'll take you down."
"You sure this won't cause any problems?" I asked, checking my camera and sliding an extra battery into my pocket.
"If he got his way, and we all know he did, then he's opening the chamber tomorrow. He's going to need you down there." Marcus paused and looked at me. "The lighting conditions are terrible. It's inconsistent, and even with the flashes, they haven't been able to get clear photos." He tapped open the tablet he had left on the table. "Everything has some level of blur."
He was right. It was strange. Even when comparing shots taken from different angles and under different lighting, the blurred areas stayed the same. Maybe it was just dust on the lens. More likely, sand had worked its way into the camera's internal mechanics; grinding into the focus system or settling somewhere it shouldn't. Out here, it found its way into everything.
The tomb entrance was a narrow shaft cut directly into the bedrock that descended at a forty-five degree angle. Marcus led the way with his headlamp and I followed, trying not to think about the tons of rock and sand above our heads.
"I didn't realize we'd be going down this far," I said, looking back over my shoulder. We had descended at least fifty feet in a diagonal line, and as we went deeper, the temperature dropped noticeably.
"Yes, it's unusual," Marcus said. "After the first carbon dating results came back from the lab and confirmed that the artifacts are all from different dynasties, Cassie suggested that this was either a storage area or dumping ground of some kind. Maybe part of a tunnel system that connected back to the main complexes or they had other complexes in the desert that we haven't found yet."
"That would be miles of tunnels," I said, looking doubtfully at the rough walls around us. Whoever had carved this passage had left the walls completely blank. "Maybe it connected to some of the nearby funerary complexes?"
"Could be."
I rubbed my arms as the cool air raised goosebumps on my skin. "I can see why the three of them spend so much time down here. This is much better than the heat up there."
Marcus didn't reply, he had stopped just before the opening to the main chamber. He traced his fingers over some gouges in the wall, then pulled his hand away, rubbing his fingers together. His expression grew concerned as he examined the white, chalky residue coating his fingers.
"Doesn't that mean it was made recently?" I said, looking over his shoulder at the damaged section. Three vertical slashes about a foot long were at chest height. "Maybe someone hit it with equipment when they were bringing things down here. Or hanging up the lights."
He didn't look satisfied with that explanation. He pulled out his phone and took several pictures. "I know I'm not supposed to use my personal phone for this," he said. "But this wasn't here three days ago. The workers know they're supposed to be careful about this kind of thing."
"I won't say anything." I mimed zipping my mouth shut.
I step out into the large rectangular chamber and stop abruptly. The walls were covered in elaborate murals painted in colors that remained surprisingly vibrant. This wasn't like the muted colors I'd seen in museums or even on the pottery shards above. As I moved deeper, painted eyes seemed to track my movement.
I stepped closer to the nearest wall and leaned in. Something didn't seem right. Beneath the rows of carved hieroglyphs, etched along the base of the mural, was a cuneiform script.
"That can't be right, can it?" I pointed towards the tight, wedge-shaped markings. "Cuneiform was developed by the Sumerians. Why would it be an in Egyptian tomb?"
"There was limited contact between Mesopotamia and Egypt during the Bronze Age," Marcus said as he joined me. "Diplomatic letters written in cuneiform have been found in Egypt, but this is the first time it's ever shown up on the wall of a tomb."
Marcus scratched the back of his head. "It's another thing that has everyone confused. It could be evidence of an unknown sect, or maybe a regional variant." He wandered toward the back of the chamber and pointed at another mural, partially hidden in the shadows. "There's also a strange emphasis on Osiris throughout the space, so maybe that ties into it somehow."
Remembering why I was here, I raised my camera. After framing the shot and pressing the shutter, I checked the preview.
"No blur," I said, turning the screen toward Marcus. "Theirs probably got damaged by the sand."
"Five cameras?" Marcus said, he gives me a sly grin. "Maybe it's a mummy's curse."
I rolled my eyes and, after working my way through both side walls, headed toward the back. I recognized Osiris immediately. In this mural, he was drinking from a chalice while the figures below him bled, their hands raised toward him in what looked like desperation, or worship. In the next panel, he stood over what appeared to be a mummified corpse.
By the time I finished, my hands were shaking. The underground chamber was at least thirty degrees cooler than the surface, and after getting used to the relentless heat, I was freezing. When we returned aboveground, Marcus went to check on the rest of the crew while I uploaded my photos. After printing and filing the images, an idea struck me. I pulled out my phone, opened the translation app Eliza had insisted I download, and pointed the camera at one of the sections I'd labeled as part of Osiris's mural.
It took a few minutes before the translation finally appeared: ...and Osiris did not merely dismember his fathers, but drank deeply of their divine essence...
Well, that couldn't be right.
I stared at the screen and had it scan the same section again. The result was identical.
Trying a different printout, I waited for the app to process. ...but through the blood of the living, so that immortality is granted, their life force weighed against those of the gods...
Okay. That wasn't any better.
Clearly the app still had a long way to go. Eliza would probably get a laugh out of this when she got back to the tent tonight. There was a reason it was still in testing. Either the software was completely unreliable, or this tomb had once been a training site where apprentice scribes carved blasphemous nonsense into the walls.
That night, just as I began to drift off, I heard footsteps outside the tent. I opened my eyes a sliver and saw Eliza slip inside. She didn't say anything. Just moved quietly to the end of my cot and stood there.
She didn't move.
So neither did I.
She watched silently, then turned and stepped out of the tent.
It was more than strange. It was unsettling in a way that made the fine hairs on my arms stand on end. I stayed where I was for a few more moments. Then I sat up and reached for my shoes. The rational part of my brain was telling me to stay put, but I couldn't sit in the dark and wonder. I had to see where Eliza had gone, I had to understand what was going on.