A Night Spent at the Museum of Natural History (Completed✔️)

Befriending the Undead

After I began to calm down and the lions had lost interest and wandered off, my head began to clear. I slowly became aware of my surroundings and the shound of muffled shouting poked an intrusive finger at the calm of my mind. Now aware of this tremendous racket, I glanced around and scrambled to my feet. I was in the ancient Egyptian exhibit. I looked at the hieroglyphics lining the walls in awe. I hadn't been able to see this earlier because Max said it was too creepy for him... I rolled my eyes remembering that he had actually just dumped me and left me here, potentially all night amidst this chaos. I glanced at one particular scene, of the judgement of the dead... The scales with the deceased person's heart on the one side and the Goddess Maat's feather of truth on the other. The idea being that if the person involved had led a peaceful life and done nothing wrong their heart would be as light as the feather and they could seamlessly pass into the afterlife, welcomed by Hathor, the goddess of motherhood who took in the dead and cared for them. If not then their heart was tossed to a foul looking creature, some combination of parts lion, crocodile and hippopotamus to be devoured and they would be dead forever...

Finally the fact that there was muffled shouting and rattling actually properly registered in my mind and my focus sharpened. I looked further into the tomb and saw not only two huge jackals eyeing me suspiciously, spears in hand, but also a beautiful sarcophagus... Which was the source of all the commotion.

I stepped cautiously forward. The jackals moved to try and block my entrance.
I looked back at the gates, which I had caused to lock simply by closing. There was no way out.
"Hey, uhm, so I know that you guys are jackals right?"
They continued to watch me but there was no response.
"I'll take that as a yes. Therefore, you are guardians of the dead, only he or she isn't so dead in this case... Can your, uh, master get out of the sarcophagus?"
They turned to look at the tomb, the inhabitant of which was still screaming and shouting incoherently.
"Well, I'll take that as a no then, please could you help me get out of here?"
They turned back in my direction but didn't move. I sighed. Now I was stuck in here instead. Great.

After some pause for thought, I removed the necklace I was wearing, I had bought it in a little museum in the town I grew up in a very long time ago. It was the first museum I ever visited and the ancient Egyptian section in particular had fascinated me. That's how I came to have this necklace with a very small golden model of Anubis on it. I doubted it would work but i tried to explain again that I wasn't there to do their pharaoh any harm, pointing to my necklace. Something seemed to persuade them, perhaps the sight of something more familiar - a similar looking jackal headed model of the ancient Egyptian god of mummification, the dead and the afterlife.
Hesitantly they let me pass, spears pointed at me the entire time. I paused once I was inside, holding my breath.

I was scared all of a sudden. If I did open that sarcophagus, what exactly would I find? Did I really want to see? Trying desperately to shake off my fear I edged closer.  I owed it to whoever was trapped inside to at least allow them to stretch out... I wondered what it would have been like to be trapped in such a confined space in total darkness... I shuddered slightly at this.

"Hello... Maybe you don't speak english, I mean, why would you... But, I, I'm going to try and get you out..." I managed to say, unsure of what exactly was the best way to approach this.
There was a pause as the rattling and shouting stopped.
"Thank you for being quiet, the noise was v-very unsettling" I said feeling slightly braver.

First I would have to shift the enormous stone slab from the outer stone encasement. I pushed it with all my strength, gritting my teeth from the pain of my protesting bruised hands. The scraping of stone on stone finally ceased when I managed to tip it and stand it against the side of the wall of the tomb. I didn't want anything to get damaged, it was all several thousand years old and priceless after all. After I recovered from the effort of shifting that I fumbled with the pins on the actual sarcophagus. My fingers were so painful I had to bite my tongue to stop from crying out. When I had undone them all I took a deep breath and gently lifted the lid. The detail of the decoration on it was breathtaking. So much gold with countless stone fragments set into it in neat shapes forming intricate patterns. My legs wobbled and my muscles were strained as I struggled to set it down safely to the side, it was mostly made of solid gold after all and not exactly light weight.
When I managed not to drop or break anything I sighed with relief, almost forgetting about the occupant i had just freed.