The Awakening ch.06

   In Northern Ethiopia the archeologist Dr. O’Conner, an old man with something of a beer gut covered up by his stereotypical archeologist outfit complete with pith helmet is inside an ancient golden temple examining the murals on the wall. The out side of this temple is still half buried in the desert sands, clearly only recently dug out as the gold plated exterior and its cat statues adorning the strangely Greek like columns are un-touched. Inside Dr. O’Conner is studying the large three wall mural that seems to portray a strange story or myth from long ago.

 

     A woman’s voice behind him draws his attention, “Dr. O’Conner,” the voice says, “do you need anything?”

 

     Dr. O’Conner turns to the beautiful woman standing behind him, a woman with pale skin that seemed even whiter by her long slightly wavy waist length jet black hair. Over her seemingly impossibly perfect frame are an all too tight orange top and jeans shorts. This woman is known to Dr. O’Conner by the name of Ophelia.

 

    “No,” Dr. O’Conner answers her, “but while you’re here I believe even with out yet translating the writings beneath the murals I have the basic story.”

 

    “Really” she says with a smirk “and what do you believe happened Dr. O’Conner?”

 

     “The mural” he replies, “starts here on the left wall then to the back wall and finishing clockwise on the opposite wall. Very much like a later Greek or Roman temple. Which did make me believe this temple wasn’t as old as your bosses had me believing, but then the content of this mural’s story as well as the unknown language made me think otherwise.”

 

     “Okay Doc long winded, wrap this up would you.” She thinks to herself while listening to his explanation as Dr. O’Conner continues, “In the first mural we see a powerful bat winged cat goddess who with a rather more normal looking male cat god had a daughter.”

 

    Ophelia thinks to herself the name, “Sart” as Dr. O’Conner un-aware she knows the name continues with his story, “Under each of their pictures is one word each so I figure these are their names. Now it seems that after the daughter grew up the father left to the sky. This next image shows the bat winged goddess talking to or looking at a bright orb of light in the sky, it could be the father or something else I am not certain at this time. Next it seems she goes on a rampage destroying cities and towns. Then was tricked into drinking some potion or poison by a fox, dog, wolf, or jackal like god and a large predatory bird like god, although the bird like one in the mural is the one that actually handed her the bottle or pot. After which she fell asleep it seems and the bird god carried her off to a cave or some other structure as this mural just shows a shadowy hole with a door in it.”

 

      Behind Dr. O’Conner another man by the name of Hadrian had been listening to the whole story Dr. O’Conner was telling. This man is wearing long black jeans and a long sleeve black shirt completely out of place in the desert’s hot and dry weather. This man could easily have been mistaken for Ophelia’s brother with his jet black hair and blue eyes, save that his hair was cut short at the shoulders and his skin was not nearly as pale.

 

    Hadrian interrupts Dr. O’Conner by asking, “So is this the final resting place of that bat winged cat goddess Doctor?”  

 

    Dr. O’Conner looks around at the murals for a moment, “No,” he answers, “I don’t think so. The mural isn’t complete at that point; from here it focuses on the daughter cat goddess. She seems to have been nicer than her mother here. In fact this image here shows her healing people and growing crops. Now this last one shows her going into a temple looking much like this one and turning into a statue.”

 

    He stops, thinking for a moment while rubbing the stubble on his chin, then points at the un-opened door going in further, “In fact” he says, “if the murals are true than she would be just on the other side of that door.”

 

    Dr. O’Conner stops for a moment smiling to him self with a short laugh before continuing, “This is absolutely amazing, a language no one has ever seen before that may be even older than the Gilgamesh tablets and the Sumerian language it’s self. You see one of the mysteries of mythology is that for the most part the major city gods are based on older gods only renamed, amalgamated with other gods for the purpose of uniting the various tribes and other groups with in the communities. I mention this as this mural seems to at least partially re-tell the story of the Egyptian goddess Sehkmet in that she was a cat goddess that had gone on a rampage almost wiping out humanity until the bird headed sun god Amon-Ra tricked her into drinking a sleeping potion. However this same goddess was also a peaceful loving goddess. It may be possible that Sehkmet was in fact a combination of these two goddesses here, which means these other two the jackal like one and bird like one may be for-runners to later bird gods and canine headed gods.”

 

    Outside looking in is an older Egyptian man with a short grey beard and bushy grey eyebrows wearing basic desert gear attire. This man is Al’Suad a long time associate of Dr. O’Conner’s.

 

    He walks into the tomb up close to Dr. Conner, “Dr. O’Conner” he says whispering to him, “I think even after we eventually find the key to that door we should wait before opening it.”

 

    Before he has a chance to continue a woman with the same strikingly beautiful body design as Ophelia walks in behind him, this woman is wearing a grey business pant suit and has metallic looking silver hair.

 

   This woman interrupts Al’Suad by addressing the doctor in her higher than thou professional tone, “Dr. O’Conner I trust we have some results by now? My boss did provide you with the location of this tomb and two extra assistants too boot. Not to mention my self as well to maintain and provide the proper funds and supplies for you.”

 

     “Miss Silver” Dr. O’Conner responds, “I still need to decipher the language on this mural and understand its meaning.”

 

     Silver looks at him in a manner that one would have thought she was a C.E.O frustrated with an employee, “You should focus on that door” she says pointing at the great gold platted stone door, “and how to open it with out breaking it. We brought you into this project to help solve the riddle as to where the key is. Our own people found out enough from this room to know that a key is needed to open that door and that that key is somewhere in this room.”

 

     “I already know this Miss Silver,” Dr. O’Conner says in response, “there is no reason to worry, you’re going to get your treasure. I just want the credit your people promised I would get for finding this tomb, however for that to mean anything to the archeological community I need to know what all this written and drawn on the walls means.”

 

     “Just checking,” Silver responds, “seeing as your assistant seems to want to protest and hold this project back at every turn.” With that she heads out to leave Dr. O’Conner, his assistant, along with Ophelia and Hadrian to work out the problems of the tomb.

 

     Dr. O’Conner turns to Al’Suad pulling him in close as though in a huddle whispering to him, careful that the other two in the tomb with them are focused on the murals, “Al” he says, “I know we are sacrificing some of the pricier findings to these people but all they seek is gold. We will get the real treasure, the very history of this place.”

 

     As Al’Suad looks around himself at the murals and the gold plated stone door sitting their as ominous to him as if they were the gates of Hell themselves he can’t help but think, “There may be more here to worry about than you think doctor.”

 

     Later that day Dr. O’Conner with Ophelia and Hadrian in tow came out of the tomb excited. Dr. O’Conner walks over to Silver announcing to her, “Miss Silver we have found the key, it is a small statue of a cat goddess sitting on a throne behind a panel. From what I can tell all we need to do is turn it 360 degrees to activate an ancient mechanism to open the door.”

 

    The three of them walk into the tomb where Al’Suad is just standing alternately looking at the statue key in the now open hidden hole in the right wall and to the inner door. Dr. O’Conner walks over to the key and announces in a proud voice, “With the turn of this key I present your treasure.”

 

    With that he turns the little statue which alternately opens the inner door, albeit a lot more smoothly than Dr. O’Conner had expected.

 

    Dr. Conner, Ophelia, Hadrian, and Silver walked over to the now open entrance while Al’Suad stayed back, “This is not good.” he thought, observing the scene before him.

 

    Dr. O’Conner walks into the inner chamber towards a large life sized gold statue of a cat headed goddess sitting on a gold throne unaware the other three stopped just short of the entrance watching him. As Dr. O’Conner approaches he can’t believe the detail on this ancient statue, even the hands look like a cross between a human’s and a cat’s with visible signs of fur as though it were pressed beneath the gold. As Dr. O’Conner leans in close to the face its golden eyes suddenly shoot open causing him to stagger back towards the entrance, which is now blocked by the other three who had come to the entrance with him.

 

     Dr. O’Conner in his shock doesn’t notice that the other three with him don’t seem to be surprised at all and that Al’Suad has fled the tomb altogether. The statue changed from gold to flesh with fur that became a dark grey in color. The goddess style robes she is wearing turn a striking shade of dark sky blue with purple ropes holding it all together as the seams. As she stands and walks forward towards Dr. O’Conner her dark yellow eyes change to a deep shade of purple. At this time Dr. O’Conner topples over in pain holding onto his head. This pain ends the instance the ex-statue’s eyes change back to yellow.

 

     “I now have your language.” she says, “Now bring food and drink for a celebration is in order, for Sehkmenta lives once again!”

 

    Outside the tomb the entire scene with in is seen by Al’Suad who quickly gets on his cell phone and types in a very long, long distance number. He listens for a moment to the voice on the other end before saying into the phone, “The golden cross must be bared on the backs of those who defend it.”

 

     He continues after a moment of the person on the other end asking the purpose of the call, “I have very bad news, it seems these H.E.P. guys were up to something hiring Dr. O’Conner. Unfortunately it wasn’t to find some mystical artifact like we thought, I am sorry to report that Sehkmet the destroyer goddess of Egyptian mythology has arisen. I will greatly need assistance on this one. I don’t think I alone can defend the world against this ancient evil.”