1001 Sins | ✔

anubis

The streets of Cairo was art and it made Leila want to whip out her sketchbook and scrawl every hidden nook, every alley and every secrets the sands held. The feel of the ground itself told a story, some well known, others erased from the minds of men and their existence long forgotten.

She was walking hand in hand with her best friend and occasionally, they would stop in front of a stall to oh and ah at the wares on the table and the merchants would beam and invite them to buy. Leila was sure that if if were up to Randy, she would have bought everything she lay her hands on.

Randy was the typical tourist, fascinated by every new place they traveled to, excited to see everything and excited to buy everything, despite the fact that this was probably the tenth time she had been in Cairo, she was still as restless as a first time visitor.

Leila supposed she could understand, after all, Cairo was the city Randy and Jackson had fallen in love, it had taken two years of working together for both archeologists to realize that the love they had been searching around the world was right in front of them. Cairo was about to become the city that they would get married in.

Jackson had called Leila aside after breakfast at their hotel this morning, blabbing nervously before showing her a stunning diamond ring that Leila was sure her best friend would fall in love with. Jackson had also spoken of them getting married in the city too after the excavation they were setting out for tomorrow — as soon as Randy said yes.

"This is all thanks to you, Leila,' Jackson had told this morning with his small shaky smile.

Leila supposed it was, Jackson and his team had been recent wide eyed graduates of archeology from Cambridge and fresh from several failed excavations, when she had come along, joining the team even though she was nothing of an archeologist but because of her strange abilities — discovering lost cities and treasures as soon as she set foot on land. The whole team had gone from disgraced to one of the best archeologists in the United Kingdom, all thanks to her.

They had become millionaires at twenty three, even college dropout Leila. And at twenty seven, they were living the life their peers envied, so why was she still feeling this way, like something was still missing.

Leila had woken up this morning with a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, she knew something bad was going to happen, she knew it like she knew the back of her hand.

She knew if she raised alarm, Randy and Jackson would believe her, after all, it was already strange that she was able to know what was buried beneath her feet, it was how she had discovered lost treasures and buried empires, but how could she warn them about this feeling of foreboding if she didn't even know what was going to happen.

"Are you even listening to me?" Randy nudged her back into the presence.

"Let me guess, you want to buy the whole Cairo city?" Leila murmured, and she knew she wasn't too far off from the truth. Randy probably wanted to buy the colourful kaftan displayed from the windows of the boutique they had just strolled past.

"Hey, it is a pretty dress," Randy whined playfully, stomping her foot in a manner that was a very convincing act for a spoilt brat.

"Kaftan," Leila corrected on impulse, sometimes she hated Randy's ignorance when it came to remembering other cultures, she was well learned and well traveled yet sometimes she was so ignorant about some basic things she should know.

Maybe it irritated Leila the more because it had to with her culture, for heck sake, Randy had seen her wear a kaftan many times.

"What's up with you?" Randy asked suddenly, breaking her arm link with Leila to glower at her best friend. She had to crane her neck to look up at her because Leila was a good foot and some inches taller than her best friend. It wasn't that Randy was that short, she was five eight, but Leila was six three, — even taller than some of the men on their team.