The Bucket List (A Niall Horan Fanfic)

Chapter 11: Never Normal

                I finally landed on my side with an uncomfortable thud. Trying not to panic too much, I pulled myself up, and looked around. The only source of light was the small flashlight on top of my helmet and a tiny opening that seemed like miles above me.

                “Niall!” I screamed at the top of my lungs with my neck outstretched… there was no response. “Harry!” I tried again, but there was nothing. “Liam! Zayn! Louis!” I continued to scream in desperation. “Anyone!”… still nothing. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no! This can’t be happening,” I whispered to myself as I started pounding on one of the walls. “Let me out of here!” I screamed, but there was still no response. I whirled my head as I caught a glimpse of a marking on one of the walls. I walked over to the wall, aiming my headlamp at the markings. I stood in awe as I skimmed the wall full of hieroglyphics. I tried to think back to when I learned about ancient Egypt in grade seven, six years ago, but all I could remember was me and my best friend making up our own language out of made up hieroglyphics. I smiled to myself as I reached out to touch the wall. I felt rebellious, as if it was something I shouldn’t be touching, but since I was the first to be standing here in the last hundred… thousand (I honestly don’t remember anything I learned in history) years, I figured no one would be around to tell me that I couldn’t. After all of the hieroglyphics, there was a series of pictures. I eyed each image cautiously. There was a snake, then two crowns and what looked to be a weeping girl. I stood there wondering if the girl had suffered the loss of her parents and was left to run the kingdom...like me. I bit my dry lip as I studied each picture. I wondered if this was the daughter’s own chamber that had been hidden away from everything else. Was it her own secret place that she had dedicated to her parents? I turned around and aimed my headlamp around the rest of the room to see how big it really was. It was small, maybe the size of a public washroom. But as I looked around, I realized that there was something else in the chamber. There was a stand and on it was a diamond necklace and a golden ring. I quickly walked over to the stand to get a closer look. Above the jewellery was the same Egyptian writing, which I couldn’t understand. I took a deep breath as I ran my fingers over the dusty pieces of history. I felt like I had been dropped into a sequel of National Treasure or Indiana Jones. “This can’t be real,” I said, brushing my hands against my prickly legs.

                Note to self: If I ever get out of here… shave!

                After what felt like an hour, I sat down, staring up at the whole at the top of the tall chamber. “Someone has to come by eventually,” I reassured myself, sighing. I didn’t realize how much I talked to myself until I really had no one to talk to. I started humming a lullaby that my mom used to sing to me to bring me comfort as I twirled my finger around in the dirt. “Why haven’t the boys noticed that I’m gone?” I asked the wall across from me. It stood there staring back with no response. I sighed as I got up, brushed my dirty hands against my shorts and started feeling against the walls. If there was a way in to this place, there must be a way out. I pushed against one spot of the wall and a small enough square that I could climb through began to move. I continued to push until I felt the block fall out of my reach as I stared into a dark tunnel. I took a deep breath as I slowly climbed into the small dirty tunnel and inched my way along the path. Since when was I an archeologist? But when I reached the end of the tunnel I was stunned by what I found. My mouth dropped open as I saw five more passage routs leading five different ways. “This is going to make some story,” I said, climbing out of the tunnel to stand in front of the five different routes. For all I knew, one could lead to a chamber of snakes and another could lead to a chamber of diamonds… how was I to know! Each passage had different writing above it. It was then more than ever that I wished I could read what each said.

                Niall’s journal: May 26, 2013

                Hope is gone. I knew that going into that pyramid was a stupid idea. She’s not the kind to just walk off in the middle of a tour. She could be anywhere! Someone might’ve kidnapped her! She’s probably starving… wherever she is. Just thinking about how hungry she must be is making me hungry. Since there were nine boys, Hope is fairly quiet compared to the lot of us and we didn’t even realize that she wasn’t with us until we got out of the pyramid. I feel terrible. If I was with her and not fooling around with Louis, this would’ve never happened. Plus, Simon will have our heads if he finds out that we lost Hope. They’ve sent a rescue team into the pyramid and Harry insisted to go in with them. We told him that it was a bad idea, but he seemed really worried about Hope too. I’m worried sick for her, but I can’t bring myself to go into the pyramid again. Being in there scared me half to death. I trust Harry… there is just no way that I’m going back in there.

                A normal girl would see these five passages and turn around to go wait for help. A normal girl wouldn’t have started pushing against the walls in the first place. No, a normal girl wouldn’t even be in Egypt on a world tour with five teenage goofball pop stars as an undercover journalist. Since I decided that I was far from normal, I picked the third passage at random and began slowly following it. As I crept through the dark passage, my head darted in every direction to make sure that I was actually alone. Once I reached the end of that passage I was stopped in awe to see every inch of the chamber filled with different pictures creating endless stories. I stepped into the room, running my headlamp across each image as I ceased to breathe for a moment. 

            “It’s like they left their story for someone to find,” I whispered, spinning in a circle to catch a glimpse of every picture. I sat down so I could concentrate on trying to figure out what each line of illustrations meant. I pulled my legs up to my chest as I sat wondering if anyone would care this much to read my story. I shifted to my knees while pointing my headlamp toward the ground. I took my finger and began to write my own story in the dirt. I felt such peace being there, as if my story was just as important as the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Then suddenly, as if a sharp needle had stabbed my ankle, a terrible pain went shooting up my leg. I could not panic, I could not even look to see what the pain was, instead I felt my eyes clouding over and my body going limp.

            “Hope! Wake up! Please wake up!” I heard a low voice shouting in my face as I felt two hands gripping my shoulders and shaking me. My eyes fluttered open as I stared into the brilliant green eyes of a dirty faced, curly haired boy. My vision was blurred like the way you can barely remember your dreams.

            “Who’s Hope?” I murmured, as I reached up to grasp a lock of the boy’s hair to make sure he was really there.

            “You, silly,” he said, smiling as he grasped my hand that was held out and kissed it. Finally I realized who was sitting over me.

            “Harry,” I whispered, “Something happened to my ankle,” I moaned as the pain returned. I watched as he went to my ankle to examine it.

            “She’s been bit!” he called over his shoulder in panic. I moaned again as I tried to roll over. “Hope, just stay with me!” Harry said, grasping my shoulders again in desperation as I felt my eyes fall and slow darkness surround me.