City of the Dead

Chapter 7

I wake up to the sound of horses whining as we come to a halt. My breaths were rapid and shallow as my thoughts were still clinging to the nightmare of my mother. I shake it off and to see where we were. To my left I see the ridge of a cliff as we were standing at the bottom of this canyon, and to my right, I see a vast sea of sand and desert enveloping the land.

I looked out towards the distance and noticed objects in the distance that took the shape of camels. As they inched their way closer, there were people riding them. It was O'Connell, along with three more individuals riding behind him. One being Jonathan, and the other two being a woman with long curly brown hair and eyes that can pierce any man's heart, and the other a man who was large in appearance but seems to have a scowl on his face, possibly due to the heat of the desert, but you can tell he does not keep up with himself as far as hygiene goes.

The two parties meet at the ridge of the mountain, where Beni and O'Connell exchange a conversation. Meanwhile I guided my horse to the front of the group, bringing my horse next to Isaac's as we gave each other a concerned stare as Beni and O'Connell talked to each other. David saw this and you can tell he was frustrated as he said. "What the hell are we doing?!"

In which Beni replied saying, "Patience, my good barat'm, patience." Where Isaac interrupts to say "You remember our bet O'Connel. First one to the city, five hundred cash bucks ." Isaac then turned his attention towards Beni and David commented, "Hundred of them bucks are yours if you help us win that bet."

"Oh my pleasure." replied Beni.

I look at Isaac as he still wanted to wager with O'Connell and his group for this bet. I was upset as we lost some of our money when the boat sank, so why would he risk whatever money we had left for this silly bet? I rolled my eyes to the notion of this bet, thinking to myself, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Until Beni's voice pierced my ears to say, "Hey O'Connell, nice camel," and I could not help feeling annoyed by the sound of Beni's voice.

We looked to the empty desert as we were anticipating an event to occur. I overheard O'Connell talking to the woman next to him as he said,

"Get ready for it."

"For what?" she replied

"We're about to be shown the way."

As dawn was just about to break, I couldn't believe my eyes. A city of ruins appeared before us, as the mirage of the desert broke to reveal the ancient city of Hamunaptra. I was in awe as did my group, as we couldn't believe what we had just witnessed.

"Would you look at that" commented Issac.

"Can you believe it" replied David.

"Hamunaptra" said Bernard

"Here we go again," O'Connell stated.

When all of a sudden Beni whipped his horse to start running as this is now the start of the race to Hamunaptra. I riled my horse to start running as both groups were trying to outrun the other. I see O'Connell and his group gain distance between me and their group as they seem to have the better advantage with their camels. As we get closer to the ruins, I see in the distance a dust cloud in the front of the pack. When I got closer, I saw Beni who looked like he just fell off his camel and appeared to be dazed, probably from the fall. I ended up stopping my horse from the race to see if Beni needed help. Even though he obviously deserved it, the little voice in my head said otherwise. I get off my horse and walk towards Beni to assess him. "You ok?"

In which he replied, "Damn O'Connell! He pulled me off the camel!"

"How hard did you fall, Beni?"

To which he gave me a cold stare and said, "Eh, I've had worse."