Chapter Text
They were several hours into the day and Sarah Collymore, an Aztec archeologist, was absolutely delighted by the progress they made.
While they had yet to find Illamatecuhtli’s tomb, they had uncovered a catacomb of sorts of the empress’s closest comrades, soldiers, lovers, servants, and even animals! All buried with her either cremated and placed in coffers or bodies wrapped in reed mats along with their tools of trade or their treasures. She was relieved no Spanish conquistadors had managed to find this temple and raid it as had so many others before.
They had busied themselves with extracting as many bodies and artifacts as they could without damaging anything. A long, meticulous process that was sure to take the rest of the month before they could continue their search. Oddly, there was one individual missing from the array of loyal followers. One that Sarah would’ve thought for sure would be included in such a personal collection. Although they had yet to uncover everything, she felt sure he would’ve been very identifiable.
Illamatecuhtli’s commander-in-chief and the greatest warrior of her army. Given the nature of their relationship according to a few manuscripts detailing their behavior, she would’ve thought he’d be one of the first buried with her.
But of course, Sarah! If he was the first, he would be stored deeper inside the cavern, if not in his own separate chamber.
Taking one last swig from her water bottle, Sarah wiped the sweat from her brow, plopped her headlamp helmet back on her head before scooping up her pickaxe and moving deeper within the catacombs.
“Going somewhere, Sarah?” Asked one of her fellow colleagues, Jaun, who was on his knees, working gently at the compact earth around a cracked jar.
“Just exploring a little. Got a few minutes of my break left.” She said with a wink, both of them well aware they weren’t getting paid by the hour.
“Alright, but be careful and don’t take too long. You know how Isaac gets when you go wandering off by yourself.”
Sarah grinned as she recalled the absolute apeshit panic on her husbands face when she had been stuck in quicksand for over thirty minutes when she went to use the bathroom. Poor guy thought she had been eaten by a jaguar or something.
“Don’t worry, I won’t be long. Just got a hunch I want to confirm.”
Jaun shook his head with a smirk. “You and your hunches, Sarah.”
Ah yes, her and her hunches had led her to both massive discoveries and major pickles. A gamble she was repeatedly willing to take.
Picking her way through the rubble, careful that every step didn’t land on something potentially substantial, Sarah followed the long stretches of tunnel. It twisted and turned, went down some steps and even dipped into some caverns she wasn’t prepared to go down without some climbing equipment and a friend, but she kept going, placing markers on her way to prevent getting lost.
Finally, just when she was about to drop the hunch and head back, Sarah stumbled upon a doorway, partially cave in by boulders. The walls around the area had been carved out with intricate designs, suggesting this was a place of importance. A potential burial tomb for someone significant?
Reaching inside the pocket of her cargo pants, Sarah pulled out another flashlight and shined it through the biggest gap she could find. It wasn’t big enough to slip through and while she brought her pickaxe with her, the risk of the whole ceiling collapsing on top of her when she moved them was too great a risk. At least, not without her crew.
Still, she tried to take a peak at the interior, rising on her tiptoes and craning her neck around.
At first, she couldn’t see much of anything, important or otherwise, so covered in rubble it was. Then, in the corner of the room, she spotted what appeared to be a stone coffin. Strange, she didn’t think Aztec’s used coffins. If they were rich, they were cremated, but the poor were simply buried in the ground. Why chose a nontraditional method of burial?
Sarah wished very much to be able to go in there and dig around for clues, but she doubt there would be much of anything to uncover considering how smashed it appeared. Caused by the cave in?
No, wait. . . were those claw marks?
Three deep slashes seemed to be carved into the side of the sarcophagus. Almost like a large animal had done it, although how and why it would, she had no idea. All she knew was that she needed to get in there to find out.
Sarah returned her flashlight to her pocket and was just about to make her way back when a terrified scream bounced along the walls of the catacombs in the direction she came from. There should be no one else here, so it could only come from someone among her crew. The archeologist sped up her pace, figuring one of her colleagues must’ve gotten careless with a chisel or pickaxe again.
However, when a multitude of equally terrified screams crashed into her next, the woman slowed to a stop, heart rate suddenly spiking in fear. Had the walls caved in somewhere? Were they trapped? Or worse, was it just she who was trapped? Instead of an earth shattering rumble often associated with cave-ins though, she felt more than heard a deep, sonorous, inhuman roar.
Sarah’s eyes widened. Had a jaguar followed them inside? She didn’t think jaguar’s made those kinds of noises, but what else could make those noises? She tried to scroll through her knowledge of central American native animals, as sparse as it was considering they had a zoologist in their group, but she couldn’t figure it out. Whatever it was though, it sounded mean.
Close enough to be able to see the lanterns they set up along the temples walls now, Sarah switched off her headlamp to hide her presence as she slowly and quietly approached their dig site. At this point, the screams had stopped an eerie silence settled in the tunnel as dense as the dust that had been kicked up in the air.
“Isaac?” She whispered. “Isaac, are you here? Jaun?”
Her heart leapt out of her chest when she heard something shuffle behind her. Before she could swing around with her pickaxe, the thing grabbed her in a rough, strong grip and hauled her to the ground. She would’ve screamed if a palm hadn’t slapped across her mouth right then.
“Ssh, keep quiet before it hears us.” Her husbands’ words against her ear was like a soothing balm, the tension promptly escaping her body. At least, until the words themselves registered.
It? What it?
Her eyes scanned across the cavern, trying to pick out shapes from the shadows, but it was impossible to tell what was a rock or a living being. Or maybe not so living. She noted with dread at the red sheen that glistened on the ground against the lanterns flickering lights.
Her panic ratcheted when she noticed a shadow much larger than any human, nor jaguar for that matter, could make. The deep grumble that leaked through its long snout sent a tremor through her body. Its long, deadly claws scrapped against stone as it crept closer. Deep huffs swirled around the dirt near her boots and she realized with horror that it was sniffing them out. A pair of angry, red eyes seemed to glow with all the fiery intensity of the sun as it peered around the rubble mound they had been hiding behind. Thick globs of saliva dripping past fangs as long as her hand.
The archeologists shock and fear kept her paralyzed to the floor as that murderous gaze locked onto her. She was certain her blood would’ve joined the rest of the already tainted floor if not for her husbands quick reflexes.
Isaac swung his pickaxe at the dark creature, its pain-filled shrieks just as unearthly and terrifying as its roars when the sharp metal impaled the side of its head.
While it writhed on the ground, miraculously not dead instantly, Isaac grabbed her hand and all but dragged her to her feet, the two of them running like bats out of hell for the temples exit. She didn’t dare look back once to see if it followed them.