Indiana Jones and the Empire of the Sun

Chapter 8

The bullet stings like acid. My body feels like it's being burned from the inside out. I lose my grip on what's happening around me and just fall to the ground slack. I clutch my left shoulder with my right arm, writhing in pain.

Alice is crouched on the ground with my head in her hands.

"Indy, Indy! Stay with us, we can't do this now!" she says, frantic.

Marcus pulls my hand away from the wound and examines it.

"It's not very deep, Indy but it needs to be treated."

"Gee, you think?" I say in a strained voice.

He pulls my right arm over his neck and drags me along as he runs to the nearest entrance of a building. When we finally reach one, I'm relieved to see that it's not a temple. Alice and Marcus drag me into a corner where he continues to examine the wound.

"Henry, I'm going to remove the bullet. It's going to hurt." He places the strap of my satchel in my jaws. I brace myself for the pain. When it comes, I realize nothing could have prepared me for it.

It's as though someone is stabbing me with a red hot poker and jabbing it around inside my body. I try to focus on biting down on the strap and feel my teeth digging into the leather.

When Marcus finally pulls his hand out of the wound, the pain subsides, but only slightly. I hear the clink of the bullet on the stone floor. The injury is bleeding at an alarming rate now.

"M-Marcus," I manage to say through the pain. "Wrap it tight." I point to the sleeve of his blazer with my good arm.

He tears off his right sleeve and begins to wrap it around the wound, going over my shoulder and under the armpit. I have to bite down on the strap of my satchel again as he does this, but he eventually ties it in a knot and I can move again.

"We should get going," I say once the pain has sufficiently subsided.

"Indy, you've just been shot," Marcus states.

"Yes, and if we stay here, we will ALL get shot."

"Good point," Alice says.

I open my satchel and look inside at the stone. What am I gonna do with that?

We step outside of the building, treading carefully.

"Where are we going?" Alice asks.

"I don't know."

"What, so we're just making this up as we go?"

"Kinda my style, honey."

"Wow. Laying it on kinda thick, aren't you?"

Brushing this aside, I figure the first thing we should do is find weapons. There's no use in trying to disguise ourselves, every soldier in the city is looking for us. As we sneak around the narrow streets for what seems like the thousandth time in the past several hours, I think about the writing in the tomb.

Beware. For he who disturbs the holy stones shall feel the fiery wrath of the sun.

It's a warning. A curse. It has to be real, it vaporized a man. But it can't be that easy to avoid, can it? Just not letting it touch your skin? There has to be another part of it.

And the sun...it's so important. So how could such a civilization thrive without it for so many years with just the stones as substitutes? Where and how did they worship the sun?

Then I remember. The statue atop the temple...it's not just a representation. It's a place of worship; an offering altar. The most important of them all. If we want to survive and find out the answers to these questions, we have to get to the top of the temple.