Liquid Mercury

Avoiding Death

She ran as fast as she could out of the tunnel and never looked back. I looked back to Nick as he pulled me through a door and shut it behind us. I looked back at the zombies of death as they tried to use their boney fingers to get through the chicken wire on the fence, not succeeding. Nick pulled me away from the door with the Book of the Living clutched in my other hand he led me further into the maze underground. As we were walking, Nick was clutching my arm for dear life. A stray mummy popped out of nowhere and pushed us through a no crossing barricade and through the bricks that made up the wall. It ended up pushing us into some water. As I sunk I slowly realized where I was and tried to swim towards the surface, the Book of the Living holding a significant portion of the weight on my other arm. I watched as Nick took the Book from my hands and pulled me upwards towards the air. A mummy grabbed my ankle attempting to pull me back down, Nick noticed this and hit the guy with the Book of the Living. We breached the surface, the first words out of my mouth being;

"NICK! That's the Book of the Living!" I yelled at him.

"Are you okay?" He asked me clearly concerned about me and not about the precious artifact.

"Where are we?" I asked him confused about where we had fallen into.

"I don't know." Nick replied not too sure of himself. "Are you okay?" He repeated, grabbing my face pushing my hair away from my eyes.

"I'm scared." I told him truthfully, still gasping for air.

"Just look at me. We are gonna figure this out. Just, I need you to just stay with me, please. We are gonna figure this out.. I need you to just stay with me. Just stay with me. We'll think of something." He told me rapidly, repeating himself to make me feel better.

"Nick, I'm sorry... I know it's not the right time, but I might not get another chance to say it... " I told him as he shushed me looking past my shoulder at something behind me. "Nick." I whispered out. Just when I was pulled out of his grasp and back below the surface I reached out for him but he just slipped through my fingers. As Ahmanet dragged me towards blackness. I tried to fight her off but to no avail. Her grip on me was unbreakable. The need for air overwhelmed me and I let go. I can't explain the pain I felt losing my last bit of oxygen. It was like my lungs had collapsed and the crushing pressure that was on my shoulders was gone. I was gone. My surroundings changed almost dramatically.

I was in my childhood home. My deceased family were there in chairs surrounding me.

"Hi love." Jonathan Carnahan smiled at me.

"Jonathan, let the girl breathe first." Evelyn told him as I looked around at where I was. The wallpaper was the same as I remembered it as a little girl. I took a deep breath of air and slowly just took it in. Ardeth Bay smiled from beside her caressing her hand as she talked to me.

"What happened? Where's Nick?" I asked them as I tried to get a hold of my shaky hands. I knew what this was. Josephine had explained her death experience to me once before. It was something she wishes she would get back for just a minute.

"Nothing. Honey, this is just a visit. Nothing permanent, yet." She told me.

"Oh Evy don't scare our great grand niece. She's only just got here and by god if you ruin another one of these for someone else." Jonathan all but burst out of his chair with annoyance.

"Okay..." I breathed out trying not to panic.

"Sweetheart. I'm going to teach you a thing or two." He smiled at me as he knelt down in front of me.

"Oh Jonathan, not another one of your 'money is the key to life' stories. The girl might as well just be here by herself." Evelyn burst, dropping her husband's hand and walking over to me. "Listen to me. You have done an eloquent job keeping our family name out of the rubbish. I'm so glad you found Josephines and I's journal that we co-wrote together. It was one of my prized possessions, I'm so glad you put it to good use." Evelyn told me. I nodded at her not believing she was really here.