Tombquest: Book of the Dead

A Deadly Secret

Alex Sennefer was about to die for the first time.

He was in the Arms and Armor section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art when the pain hit. The stabbing sensation was so sharp and sudden that for a moment he thought he must have accidentally walked into one of the medieval spears. The museum had closed an hour earlier, and as he stumbled forward, the slap of his sneakers on the polished tile floors echoed through the deserted room.

He'd run out of medicine, and there was no one around to help him.

Summoning all his remaining strength, he pushed through the wing’s dimly lit main hall, heading for the elevator that would take him to his mom's office. He’d felt this way before, but never this bad.

The pain that had started as a sharp stab in his center fracture into a million pinpricks, spreading out into his limbs. Along the walls, six-hundred-year-old suits of armor watched his struggle through empty eye holes. A troop of knights gazed down on him from replica horses, immobile, indifferent.

He shook his arms out and tried to breathe deeply,tried to relax and let the pain pass through him. Sometimes the doctors said the problem was his circulation; sometimes they said it was his digestion. But the truth? Nobody knew what was wrong with him.

With every step, he was afraid another wave of pain would come and level him. He slowly entered the American Wing and saw the elevator.

Almost there, he thought.

Breathe.

He’d been stupid not to ask his mom to oder more medicine as soon as he'd ran out. But he thought he could bear it, and he was afraid his mom would get worried and take him to the hospital. He hated the hospital. HATED it. And his mom was seriously stressed out with work this summer.the last thing she needed was to have to worry about him.

That seemed unavoidable now, though. He needed the spare bottle of meds that she kept for an emergency.

If he could even make it to her

Alex reached the elevator and palm-smashed the DOWN button. After what felt like fifteen years, the elevator arrived. He fell into it. The words STAFF ONLY were printed alongside the button for floor G, but he flipped through his keys and found the little one that unlocked the elevator. He crumpled against the wall as it began to move. The cool metal felt good against his flushed face.

Alex didn't pass a single person on the way to his mom’s office. It was beautiful summer evening, and no one wanted to work late unless they had to.

I have to tell Mom, he thought. He couldn’t see any way around it now. The him of pain in his body made it hard to focus, but thoughts of the hospital flashed through his head: the tests, the needles the size of Magic Markers, and the stupid paper robes. They’d been poking and prodding him for all twelve years of his life.

There was the name tag outside his mom’s office: DR. MAGGIE BAUER. The door was open. The lights were on. “Mom?”  he said . . . but she wasn’t there when he walked in.

Panic shot through him. The thoughts came one after another.

The museum is huge.

She could be anywhere.

I need the medicine now!

Just as he begun to turn back around, he saw her purse on a chair and felt a massive surge of relief.

He tore the purse open. A wave of nausea made him squeeze his eyes shut, but he pushed his hand around inside, feeling for the smooth plastic sides of the bottle of meds she always carried for him.