Eternal Elements: Chapter 4

May 6 2010 1:37 PM UK: Surrey

Only the dead sleep here, waiting for anyone foolish enough to disturb their final resting place. She would have to be very careful not to awake them, not until she got what she came for at least.
The things she had seen, dark evil beings, monsters, creatures that you wouldn’t even find in your most terrifying nightmares. Somehow, the undead always got to her more than any other mythical abomination from the underworld.

These dark corridors were no different from any other tomb she had ever visited; empty walls, caved in passageways, treacherous soil, booby trapped ceilings and coffins. Dozens of them were pilled on top of each other. It was hard to tell how many there were, if she would have to take a wild guess she would say there were over a hundred. The best guardians you could ever find for an ancient lost tomb.
She held her torch a little higher but couldn’t see what else could be hiding behind these musky walls. She wasn’t frightened though, because she wasn’t just your average grave robber.

She had somehow found her way into this old buried church, she looked up and saw the robe she had used to climb down. Around her coffins filled the empty walls, and in front of her darkness invited her to investigate. Her torch was flicking around wildly, but it wasn’t the wind she was feeling. It was the lack of oxygen down here. It seemed the undead wouldn’t be her only enemy.

She started to follow the path and noticed how uneven it was, apparently she was descending. The further she went into the darkness the harder it became to breathe. That wasn’t so bad though, as holding her breath at least kept the decaying smell from making her nauseous. Eventually she could make out a shimmering light source, she knew she had found something interesting.

She had reached an old closed gate. On either side two torches were emanating a rather peculiar light. One was light blue while the other flame was dark green. She didn’t bother looking for a key hole or switch. This mysterious light was without a doubt the key to unlocking the gate.
She tore her eyes from the mesmerizing flames and started searching the narrow room. She didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, but she did feel something irregular. She held her torch a little lower and distinguished four coloured crystals on the ground. One was light blue while the other three were dark green. Surely they would all have to match the same colour for the gate to unlock. She squatted down and pressed the lone light blue stone. It turned dark green, but two of the other stones turned light blue in response.

She let out a sigh. “This could take a while.”

She had no intention of randomly pressing these crystals hoping she would open the gate by accident.
The started searching the room anew and noticed an inscription above the gate. It was an old long forgotten language that even most archaeologists couldn’t decipher. But she wasn’t like most archaeologists, she knew exactly what it said.

‘To open the gate leading to hell the envious heart must become the key to salvation.’

It was clear to her now, clear as day, the answer couldn’t be more obvious. She absolutely, without a doubt, had no idea what it meant…

“But is this hell gate prepared for some good old dynamite I wonder?” she said out loud.

Less than ten seconds later the age-old gate was blown out of its archway, revealing a path leading further into the darkness.
No, she definitely wasn’t your average grave robber. This was Sophie Idon, grave robber extraordinaire!

May 6 2010 1:58 PM UK: Surrey

Delighted and in high spirits she continued, surrounded by the dead spirits. She didn’t get very far though, the darkness in front of her turned out to be nothing more but a solid concrete wall. No clues, no crystal stones, not even the dead. Sophie looked around and felt a slight draft trickle over her boots. She held her torch down and saw a very narrow passageway heading deeper down. She let out a sigh, she wasn’t in the least bit claustrophobic, but she still didn’t like crawling through small dank holes. Especially without having any clue about what could be awaiting there. What made matters worse was that she couldn’t possibly take her torch with her. Instead she placed her torch in a socket on a nearby wall. If she had to crawl back at least this would eventually signal her the way out.

She pressed herself flat on her stomach and squirmed her way through the dark hole. Luckily her breast weren’t as big as from a certain other well known archaeologists so she didn’t have to fear getting stuck. Her long blonde hair which she had tied in a ponytail for this occasion wasn’t so lucky. It got stuck on rough edges just like her clothes. Her shorts made crawling significantly more painful. Her knees kept scrapping over the ground and her matching auburn coloured top wasn’t exactly prepared for these kinds of conditions. Her sweat quickly started to mix with dust, some of it landed in her dark blue eyes and caused her to tear up. Which she absolutely hated. She couldn’t have been happier when she finally caught a glimpse of light.

This potential new sighting made her move through the small hole with ease, she had suddenly forgotten about her discomfort and hurried on. Still, it was nice to be able to stand again and stretch.

She looked around her new surroundings, this room was just as small as the one she had just left behind. Nevertheless, it was quite different. For starters, it was completely made out of gold. The floor, the walls, the ceilings, and the massive door that had signalled her the way out thanks to its sparkling texture. If this was already completely made out of gold, the treasures behind it would have to be worth more than anything she had ever seen before. The door however, had no handle or keyhole. The lack of locking mechanisms in this church were beginning to frustrate her. Somehow she didn’t feel like she needed to find a key, a switch, or solve a puzzle for that matter. She held out her hand right before the door, but couldn’t feel anything. No heat, nor cold, it was as if nothing was in front of her. It had to be some sort of gateway or transportation device, she felt excited just thinking about the possibilities. She touched the solid door and was blinded by the golden colours suddenly flashing past her. When her eyesight returned to normal she saw that she had entered another room, also completely made out of gold, the only difference being that it was just a ‘tad’ bigger.

Sophie smiled, the room she had entered didn’t seem to have a ceiling, and if it did, it was up so high that she couldn’t see it. It was a perfectly square room with four statues standing in each corner. She could barely make out the facial features from the first statue as each one appeared to be taller than the other. The smallest was almost outside of her sight. It looked like a mystical horned beast. Its mouth was opened in a terrifying screech, thankfully it wasn’t making any noise. One of its enormous claws looked like a platform that you could stand on. While the other claw’s palm was held outwards, as if it was telling you to stay away. The biggest rubies Sophie had ever seen filled its eye sockets. They definitely made the beast seem even more frightening. Surrounded by these mythical beasts, gargoyles were gazing down on her. They almost seemed to look intrigued… maybe they really were.

She wasn’t about to recklessly run around the room touching stuff here, instead she inspected the floor, making sure nothing was about to be triggered by her weight. The golden floor she was standing on was reflecting her image, Sophie stared at her dusty self for a moment until she noticed something was glimmering high above her. It could be a source of light, maybe even the sun. Something inside of was telling her it was neither, it was the reason she was here. It was as if it was calling her, waiting for her. Sophie looked around and saw no other solution, she needed to use the gargoyle statues to advance to the top.

After several gravity defying jumps she made her way onto the first statue, or to be more precise, its claw. She inspected the open claw and looked at her own hand. Maybe it wasn’t telling you to stay away, but to come closer. She placed her open hand on its claw and immediately the claw clenched itself around her hand. For a second she thought her entire arm was about to be ripped off, but instead the claw moved up like a lever. It made a confirming clicking sound like it had fallen into place before it released its grip. Rumbling noises could be heard coming from behind the walls, like something was being released. The venting sounds disappeared as fast as they had appeared. Sophie looked around, nothing unusual seemed to have happened.

“Spoke to soon,” she said even thought she hadn’t said anything out loud.

Her reflection that had been seen on the floor before was gone, instead she was looking at a small pool of water. The gargoyle statues she had used to climb up here were flowing water out of their eyes, like they were crying. Or quite possibly laughing from the inside that someone had been that dim witted to use the first chance she had to activate some sort of ancient trap. If there was something she really despised, it would have to be being under a strict time limit. Like a discount that was only available until a certain date or a breakfast menu that you could only order in the morning. Granted, this situation was a little more serious than breakfast, but it still annoyed her.

She had no choice but to press on. Again she used the gargoyle statues to advance. The gaps between each statue was starting to get bigger, and the distance between her and the floor became bigger as well. Sure, she didn’t have to worry about snapping her neck on the cold golden floor. Losing consciousness while hitting to water surface -only to drown later- didn’t appeal to her either though. With that added pressure jumping around from statue to statue didn’t seem so easy and fun anymore. She cursed at herself for not bringing any climbing gear with her. The only robe she had brought with her was half a mile away where she had left it.

She finally reached the resting claw from the second statue and took a deep breath. She looked down and saw that the water level was rising faster that she would have liked. The first statue was already up to its platform like claw. She didn’t have time to take a breather. She looked up trying to spot the next gargoyle she could use and noticed she had bigger problems. Unless she could fly there was not a chance she would be able to reach the next gargoyle, or the one after that for that matter. They were bigger, but also further apart. A sudden horrible realisation struck her, if she wanted to continue her ascent she would have to use this claw as well. Without thinking it over she placed her hand on this claw as well, and just like the previous statue it embraced her hand and moved up. Another confirming click could be heard and more gargoyle statues started to cry.

At this rate the room would be completely submerged within minutes. Luckily for her she had guessed right, this death trap at least gave you a fighting chance at survival. Flat thin scaffold like stone objects appeared out of the walls, barely big enough for her to stand on. She didn’t hesitate for a moment and continued her climb. Using these scaffolds she made the third statue in no time at all. If this was all she had to do this would turn out to be a walk in the park. Confidently she placed her hand on the third claw. It clenched its fist around her, but to Sophie’s surprise and horror it didn’t move up. Instead it moved down, clicked into place just like the others and released its grip.

“Oh bugger!”

No platforms appeared, instead the eyes from the second statue lit up. Her confidence quickly disappeared. Still, determined to reach her goal she started to climb down again. By the time she reached the second statue once again the water had already swallowed both of its claws. The claw she had used before was now closed like a fist, her only hope was that its sparkling eyes were now movable. She pressed both her hands against the pair of eyes and they sunk backwards. The beautiful golden statue turned completely black and its eyes lost their shine. Hopeful Sophie looked up, but no more scaffolds had appeared, and the eyes from the third statue weren’t glowing bright red either. Sophie shook her head in disbelief and looked down. The first statue couldn’t be seen anymore, but something red was shimmering deep under the water surface, its eyes were glowing.

Sophie took a deep breath and dove down. There was no time for guessing or thinking it over. She had to trust her instincts, thankfully her instincts were usually right. This time was no exception. As soon as she pressed her hands on the eyes from the first statue they sunk backwards. It turned black as well, Sophie looked up but was now too far down to see what had happed to the third statue.

Accompanied by loud coughing she reached the third statue, that was by now almost completely submerged as well. She pressed her hands and once more the eyes sunk back. Another row of gargoyles started crying while at the same time shifting forwards, creating a path for her. Soaking wet the climb was a lot more difficult. Still panting from holding her breath so long didn’t help matters any. After slipping several times she finally reached the last statue. The water level had nearly caught up with her. The ceiling was still nowhere to be seen.

“Oh no, I’m not panicking at all,” she said while placing her hand on its claw. As she had expected it moved down. She obviously had to press the eyes from the third statue as well.

Sophie was starting to get frustrated by this simple, yet very effective mechanism. “Right, I don’t like the odds from this slot machine.”

She dove down once more hoping that by the time she would swim up again there would still be a surface left to return to. She pressed the eyes from the third statue and swam up again without looking if anything had happened. She knew it would turn black, just as she knew she still had to press the eyes from the last statue.

After the last statue finally lost its golden colour she headed for the surface again. She passed the last row of gargoyles, by the look of the rippling water around their eyes they were crying as well. She couldn’t be sure though, as they were already completely submerged. Her lungs were burning inside of her, begging her to take a breath of fresh air. Her legs that she kept kicking were tired from the jumping, climbing, and frantic swimming.

Again she made the surface, coughing louder than ever before. She had no idea how she had managed to make it back in time. She looked up and saw that the walls were closer together here. The water was now carrying her to the ceiling. The bright light she had seen before was actually starting to dim now that she was getting closer, allowing her to take a look at it.

She was looking at a gemstone, shining as bright as a burning flame. Filled with power and life. It was enclosed by a mouth from a monster like creature that was suspended from the ceiling. The creature had five rows of teeth, four of them had pulled back. Certainly her activating the different statues had caused that. There was still on sharp layer of teeth blocking her from taking the gemstone out.

“Well, that’s just great, a death trap is fun and everything, but a dead end is just wrong.” She splashed her fists around  in ager before noticing something.

The head from the monster wasn’t the only thing sticking out, it had claws as well. Opened up just begging to be pressed. Sophie had to admit she felt a little doubtful now, if they wouldn’t release their grip she would drown. Seeing as how the water level had almost reached the ceiling anyway, it may not make any difference. She placed her hands on the claws, but they didn’t seize her. That was a relief in one way, but mostly bad.
“Oh, no, not panicking, still fwine.” Water had now reached her mouth.
She pressed down hoping they would react in the same way as the ruby eyeballs. Thank heavens they did just that, releasing the gemstone from the monsters mouth.

Sophie reached out and grabbed the gemstone before it would sink down, lost forever. Before she could wonder how she was going to make it back down the mouth from the statue opened up and started to drain away the water. A giant whirlpool of water was created dragging her through the mouth of the monster. Her scream was muffled by the gallons of water surrounding her. She imagined being caught in a washer would feel similar and closed her eyes firmly.

It didn’t take her long to realise she wasn’t swirling around in water anymore, or floating… or even wet. She opened her eyes and saw that she was standing on the floor again. The four statues were still standing in each corner, although they looked more like miniature versions of their big brothers now. Sophie looked up and could see the ceiling. The bright light had disappeared. The monster was gazing down on her and looked to be smiling, as if it had found a worthy keeper for the gemstone she was now carrying. It was also pointing its claws at the door. Sophie looked at it and it shot forward. She didn’t have time to react, move, even blink. The door slammed against her, or more accurately, through her.
A blinding golden flash followed. She rubbed in her eyes and could make out the outlines of the small golden chamber.

She had made it, now she just needed to get out of this church. “Easy as pie.”

Although, when she thought about it, she was horrible at cooking, or was that baking?

May 6 2010 2:39 PM UK: Surrey

Hastily she started crawling through the narrow passageway, in the direction of a faint light she knew was coming from her torch. Sophie was still energized from her find that she liked to call ‘borrowing for all eternity’ that she didn’t even notice she was scrapping her knees open on the edged floor. She also didn’t notice the walls crumble and crack over her accelerated breathing. More moaning joined her, at first she thought it was just an echo, but when something grabbed a hold of her ankle her euphoria disappeared.

Something was coming out of the walls, and that something was bringing many, many friends. In the distant she heard the loud thuds from coffin lids being smashed against the floor. The unbearable decaying smell was now surrounding her completely, seeping into her every pore.
She tried not to panic just yet, but when she felt the strength that was holding her ankle starting to pull her back she couldn’t help but let out a high pitched yelp. She burrowed her nails into the ground trying to get some sort of resistance. Without seeing or wanting to see what was behind her she started to kick. Hoping that she would hit and quite possibly fracture something. Her dimly lit torch light was starting to disappear behind rows of legs walking up to the passage way. She heard bodies fall on the floor, ready to climb through the passageway. If they would surround her she wouldn’t be able to escape. Suddenly drowning didn’t seem so bad anymore.

She dared to look back, but couldn’t see what was holding her, which she was thankful for. She twisted and turned and was able to get her hand around her ankle and the hand that was holding it. She tried to pull it away and was relieved when it let go… completely. She tore of its entire hand and was flung backwards, hitting her hand against the low ceiling as she fell back. The pain was nothing compared to the relief she felt of being able to move freely.

More rotten hands worked their way through the dirt and tried to grab her shoulders, hair, face, just anything they could get a hold of.
Eventually she reached the other end of the passageway and was able to avoid the brain dead corpses. They were all laying on top of each other, failing to find the passageway. Sophie thankful for that grabbed the torch and made a run for it. From every corner loud moaning followed her, now that she was running they seemed to have no problem tracking her down. By now every dead body in this sunken church was awake, and even worse, chasing her. Sophie ignited every single dynamite stick she carried with her torch and threw them behind her. Hoping it would destroy them, slow them down, or cut off their path.

She was ready for the blast that followed, and the impact that knocked her forward. She broke her fall with her hands and tried to ignore the ringing noise in her ears. Every single part of the church was starting to shake. Mud and dust obstructed her view… or maybe not. It clearly showed her a source of light. She smiled as she saw the rope she had used to climb down seesaw over her head.
Her legs felt extremely heavy as she jumped for the robe. The living dead smashed through the soil like walls like it was nothing. Her legs felt like lead, and her arms didn’t have enough strength to pull her up quick enough. It didn’t take the corpses long to reach and grab her ankles once again. They started to pull themselves up, heaving and moaning forcefully.

“Get off me deadbeat dried up jerks,” she screamed.

She tried to shake them off, but her legs were covered in rotten hands, and she couldn’t let go of the robe either. One corpse was able to break out of the pack and hoisted itself into eyesight. It was a revolting figure, most of its flesh was still hanging on its body, even though maggots were crawling out of every orifice and laceration. It appeared to have been female at some point. They were now seeing eye to eye, or rather eye to eye socket.

It opened its stench filled fleshless mouth and spoke: “Wake up you useless nitwit!”

Sophie struck out with her hand like it was a knife. “Take this, you zombie filth!”

She heard something fall over, an awful ruckus followed. Wooden, metal and plastic objects were knocked over… plastic?
Sophie opened her eyes and saw a middle aged woman, laying over a desk that had fallen over, covered by a chair and office supplies. Her dress was hanging over her head, revealing her pink underwear.

She smirked at the sight of her mother tumbled over. “You know, it’s Thursday, you really shouldn’t be wearing your Friday undies. Unless of course you had them on for the entire week… yikes! Just had a visual of that.”

Her mother pulled her dress back and pulled herself up again. “It seems that’s all you do around here, getting wild visuals.”

She pointed at the clock behind her. “It’s not even three o’clock Sophie, why don’t you do some real work for a change?”

She ranted on but Sophie wasn’t listening. That was some nice dream she just had, except the zombies of course. Every chance she had she would doze off into some nice daydream, or in this case, real lifelike dream. She would travel somewhere other than her boring office. Exploring ancient ruins instead of selling ancient cars that her parents ‘tried’ to sell. No, her life was anything but extraordinary. Being in her mid twenties and having to work in her parents car dealer shop wasn’t exactly how she had ‘visualised’ her future.

She yawned as she looked at her mothers pulsating forehead, her usually small nose could match a rhino right about now. She could swear she could see steam coming out of her nostrils and ears. Her badly permed hair hat lost all its shine, probably from shouting at her precious daughter so much.

Her eyes drifted off to her mothers mouth and noticed that she had stopped talking, this was probably the part where she expected an answer. “Do some real work, like what? There is nothing to do.”

Her mother let out a tired sigh. “Look, business is slow, find something to do. Go wash the cars or something.”

Sophie looked out of her office window at the parking space filled with antique cars, above it a sign read: ‘Classy Cars For Classy Prices.’
“If I clean them any more the paint will come off.”

Her mother turned the desk back over. “You work here, that means you should be working.”

Sophie shrugged. “So, that’s why you woke me up? To fume at me again?”

Her mother saw Sophie’s cheeky smile and decided to not even bother. “Oh dear, what did I ever do to deserve you.”

Sophie smiled. “It’s just luck.”

She helped her mother pick up the office supplies. “I guess I could find some lonely evil dust particle that you have missed somewhere and clean it before it can multiply, spread and take over the world… or just make me sneeze.”

Her mother hit her over her head. “Oh for heavens shake. But no, that’s not why I woke you.”

Sophie frowned. “It’s not?”

“As a matter of fact, there is someone here to see you,” her mother said sounding surprised, like that had never happened before. Which was actually true.

Sophie raised her hands into the sky like she was channelling energy. “I can feel it flowing through me, this is a life changing event! Destiny, fate, divine intervention-“

“-Oh just go see the man will you.” Her mother walked out of her office mumbling something that sounded an awful lot like ‘bloody kid.’

Sophie chuckled. “Mission accomplished, mother frustrated and confused once again.”

She made a fist and talked into it like a radio. “Now, onto my next assignment, fearless archaeologist Sophie Idon goes to investigate. The unfamiliar is ahead, unknown dangers await me. But she doesn’t worry, oh no, for she is a grave robber… extraordinaire.”