A Dagger and A Sphinx

Simon appeared walking out of the stairwell, panting. He shook his head and jogged to a door with a peeling frame. Once there put his head against the wall, gasping for air, as he fiddled in his pocket for a key. Upon their discovery he forced then roughly into the door. Scott too came out of the stairwell at a slow jog. His breathing was labored as well. Simon held the door ajar for Scott, who continued jogging into the room and threw himself onto discolored bed sheets.

“Whoo,” he cringed at a stitch in his side. Simon closed the door behind him, and flung himself at an uncomfortable-looking armchair. He regretted it immediately. Groaning, he sat up and withdrew a notebook from his back pocket and straightened it out. He flipped to a clean page and began scratching vigorously at it with a pencil. Bloody moving statues, he thought as he recalled what had happened little over an hour ago. He misspelled a word, and quickly scribbled it out,

“Gahh...” he threw the pencil to the ground and rested his forehead on his palm.
Scott sat up with the help of the bedside table, crossed the room, and slumped into a chair at the deck. He too rested his head in his palms for a few moments, and then searched through the pile of books and documents assorted untidily across the desktop. It took a moment or two for him to find what he was looking for amongst the clutter. He placed a hand uneasily on a documentary that was titled:

“Historical Records of Disputed Authenticity: New writings discovered in Crete”

Scott recalled memories from the discovery three years earlier. Simon had not been there, he had been sent to the Middle East to assist an Archeologist with a fossil dig. Scott had been in Crete for some time when he discovered inscriptions carved into the base of a capsized caryatid. But that was not all he had found.

Forcing the memories out of his mind, Scott removed the document from the table and read a passage aloud.

“'…Thus, the day shall meet death but shadows shall not devour the Queen, or her comrades. May doom befall those unworthy who enter her realm at this blighted hour on the Hills. May the gaze of She and that of her children inflict upon them an unbreakable curse. They shall never sleep, nor shall they taste until their dues are repaid. But in the due time of three days, to those of the curse who have yet to do so, I shall send my minion upon them, to destroy those foolish, and spare those wise.'” Scott stopped there and gave his brother an uneasy look. Simon raised an eyebrow.

“The never sleeping part may work to my advantage, but I dread being deprived of the taste of coffee in the morning.” He gave a weak smile, but Scott was oblivious to his sarcasm. He frowned at the page, in either dislike or deep thought. He skimmed through the passage, until he rested on another excerpt,

“…Also found in the text was a statement seemingly written by the sphinx itself, perhaps as a warning. And it is believed that…yada, yada,” Scott skimmed over a few more lines, “here,” he said, “'Not a man or a beast escapes my wrath, and my temper shan't hold long. And those unwise, who consent to sloth, shall answer to me. But punishment shan’t befall upon the one who thinks. Wise must he be to evade his death. It is three days I’ve give you, until you are led to me. And I, too, will be led to you, with the presence of the red.'”

Scott placed the document on the desk in front of him and sat with eyes affixed to it. He had never told Simon exactly what happened on the day of that discovery, and was not eager to do so. It was bazaar beyond compare.

Simon looked spacey; he picked at his thumb nail an looked off before returning to Scott,

“Was that the discovery from several years ago?”

“Yes,” Scott lied. There was far more to the story than Simon knew. And he would never retell it, least he be thought of as a mad man.

Simon observed Scott’s look. He was worried and saddened by something but Simon attributed it to the recent supernatural event. He puffed through his cheeks after a pause and shut his notebook with a snap. “Scott, you know me, I am no one to take chances. But neither do I believe in fairy tales.” Scott stopped staring at the document and placed it in a folder. A flat smile crossed his face.

“Are you blind? Or did you not just see a fifty-foot stone woman bend over and try to kiss us?” Simon flushed red if dully and thought of a retort. But thinking again he took a deep breath and calmed himself.

“So what do you expect us to do? Us, mortals, against the mighty wrath of Hera; upon whose land we happened to be standing on, admiring the grandeur, having not even picked a flower as a souvenir, as the sun set.” Scott snorted at Simon and his sarcasm, shook his head, and moved papers around without cause on the desk.

“And now we have been caught red handed doing what? Loitering. Perhaps she will file a report and sue us.” Simon attempted a horse laugh. Grumbling, Scott engrossed himself in another report. As the situation seamed to have been settled, Simon rose and decided to take a shower.

“I’ll be back in 10 minuets.” He said lightly on his way out the door with a pair of fresh cloths in one had, and a towel, bar of sick looking soap, and shampoo in the other.

As the door snapped shut, Scott set the report down. He hadn’t a clue what it was about. He leaned back in thought. The ceiling is very low. He said absently to himself. His eyes wandered around the room, and caught sight of shelves in a corner. There were Cheerios on the top shelf, along with raisins, and a rugged looking granola bar that had been repeatedly stuffed in bags for a snack, but strangely had never been eaten. A thought suddenly struck Scott, and he went and retrieved the bar from the shelf. He sat down on the bed, and peeled away its wrapper. Its contents were quite mangled.

Scott sniffed it to assure himself. It smelt fine, like it should. But when he placed in his mouth he immediately noticed the contrast. It had no taste.

....................................................
Simon returned, humming ‘Amazing Grace’, and was immediately confronted. Scott handed him the granola bar and gave him a look that said ‘eat it’. Simon immediately understood and gave Scott a content stare. Scott said nothing.
Simon snorted and tossed the granola bar on the deck, scattering dislodged food particles across it.

“Why would I bring this up if I had no reason?” Scott asked angrily as Simon sat down on the bed. The look on his face changed into uncertainty, and he looked at the bar with forced disgust.

“If you expect me to put this into my mouth, then you certainly must be hallucinating…” He began to pull a sock on, but Scott handed the bar to him again.

“Eat it.” He growled, waving the bar in Simon’s face. Simon snatched bar now showering him with granola and ripped off a bite. He chewed it twice, stopped, and, walking to a trash bin, spat it out.

“Tastes like gum,” he said as he turned back to Scott and whipped his lips with the back of his hand, “that I’ve chewed for an hour.”

Scott sighed; if he knew anything about Simon, he could interpret his next statement… The data collected is not suitable…

“The data collected is not suitable for stating a theory; we should analyze this situation more thoroughly.” Simon said rather humorously, as he discarded the remains of the granola bar. Scott rolled his eyes.

“We don’t have time to make an ‘analysis’,” he sighed, rubbing his forehead. “We only have three days.”

“Oh, but don’t forget, we can’t sleep either.” Simon grinned as he pulled a bottle of wine out of a crate on the floor and began inspecting the label. “So, in actuality,” he straightened up and reached for two filthy, chipped wine glasses in a cupboard, “we have about five days.” He handed a glass to Scott, who wore a faint smile as he dry washed the inside of the glass with his shirt. “That is, if you take into consideration that we usually sleep for eight hours. That limits our time to forty hours out of a possible seventy two.” Simon gently cut off the paper around the mouth of the bottle, and corked it with his knife. He poured Scott a glass first, and then himself. Scott swirled the white wine around in the glass and took a long whiff of its scent.

“Chardonnay.” He commented as he sipped his tasteless drink. Simon, on the other hand, drained his glass like a drunken man.

“Ten years old.” He replied, looking sorrowfully into his empty glass, wishing he could have felt the familiar kick of alcohol at the very least.