by Jack Parker
Dara had been doing the same but she had found the answer, "The H-"
Dara was rudely cut off by the sound of something made of tin hit the overly sandy floor. Smoke flew out of it and diffused throughout the chamber in a matter of seconds.
Eyes stung uncontrollably as did throats. The wave of coughing only got stronger as more smoke began to rise from behind them.
Ash, not wanting to open his eyes to the atrocious smoke, felt around for Lari arm. She was doing the same and soon both were making their way out of the chamber with Dom and Dara already ahead of them.
They ran through the passages and through the hidden door until they were finally at the entrance of the pyramid.
Their coughing hadn't even come to an end when they were surrounded once more by soldiers with guns.
Chapter Nine
Falling
The numerous torches and flashlights held by the soldiers was a blinding sight. The circle that they created blocked any way of escaping for Ash, Lari, Dom and Dara. The soldier in charge came to stand before them; eyes looking as if they were on fire as they mirrored the torches that surrounded him as well.
"My name is Aric, and we have much to discuss." Before the four knew what was happening, they were whisked off to a helicopter that thankfully wasn't on. The ocean of course sand would have been very unpleasant to breathe in.
"I am sorry for the way that my soldiers have treated you, but it was needed," Aric's voice was deep and commanding, like a general or a sergeant.
"Nearly killing us was needed?!" Lari half-screamed at him.
"You have no idea what you have gotten yourselves into," Aric pulled a man out of the helicopter, his face covered by a black sack that seemed to blend in with the night, "You weren't the first we have come to with a proposition surrounding the map pieces."
In one quick and fluid motion, Aric yanked the sack off of the man's head, revealing his identity to all.
Only one of the group members wasn't surprised in the least at his identity. Dom knew that the captive man was John Zaztep from his time at the secret base with him.
Ash had to fight hard with himself not to do anything drastic, but it only got harder with Aric's strange proposition.
"I will release this man once all of the map piece's are collected, solved, and given to us as soon as possible," Aric said calmly, "So far it seems that you four are the only one's with any knowledge of where the map pieces are hidden in every location presented to you."
"Trust me, finding that last piece wasn't that easy, especially with your soldiers on our tails the whole time." Lari broke out of the hold of a soldier and pushed him away from her.
"Like I said before, I'm sorry for that." Aric managed to say sincerely. Lari was about to snap back at him before Ash intervened.
"If we get the map for you, do you swear to let my father go?"
"Yes," was Aric's one-word response.
"Then I suppose you want the answer to the next clue," Dara spoke up from behind he three exhausted friends.
The hushed chatter surrounding the soldiers ceased until only the howling wind could be heard.
"The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are impossible to find. There exact location has never been found. It would take us years to find it without a map pinpointing its precise locality." Dara said in vain.
"A map…of course!" Ash finally came to realize a very important item on the back of all the clues, "Lari give me the newest clue."
Lari searched her pockets for it but came up with nothing. That is until Dom remembered he had it in his hands.
Placing it in Ash's waiting hand; Ash viewed the section of the broken map on the reverse side. Taking notes in his mind that on the back was the location of the Hanging Gardens.
Aric, who had been looking at the map over Ash's shoulder, motioned for a few of his soldiers to collect the party of four once more and ushered them inside the stationary helicopter.
The immobile helicopter soon became mobile as the pilot started the engines. Slowly it began to rise off the ground and into the night sky, heading in the direction of Baghdad.
* * *
One by one, each passenger (except Aric and the pilot) fell to sleep with the gentle rocking of turbulence the helicopter endured frequently. But soon all were violently awoken when the gentle rocking turned into brutal shaking.
The wind wailed and whipped in all directions around the helicopter, causing a wave of sand to rise up from the sandy earth.
Inch by inch the sand rose to meet the flying contraption, enveloping it in sand and total darkness. Not even the full moon could break through the shield of grain.
The passengers could do nothing but hold on to their seats and anything else around them as they plummeted to the ground. And like a rollercoaster, it came to an overwhelming end.
* * *
The hot Egyptian sun rose slowly over the wavy sand dunes, making the sand appear to be high karat gold.
The once shiny gray helicopter now lay torn and dulled, deep in a coat of grains. A portion of the sand turned scarlet as it was stained with blood. The pool grew over a matter of moments while the first of the passengers began to awake.
Dom was far away from the helicopter, cast out from the force of impact to the ground. The propeller of the helicopter was only inches from his face, imbedded deep in the terra-firma. Dom leisurely picked himself up, dusting his pants and shirt as he did so. He heard no sounds of human life from the fallen helicopter and rushed to it in fear of what may have happened.
Ash was also thrown from the helicopter at impact, but not as far. When Dom reached him he was already beginning to come back into consciousness.
"Where's Lari?" he said almost immediately. Dom looked around briefly before spotting her next to the pilot's seat. His breath caught when he saw her hair soaked in something that was unmistakable: blood.
Chapter Ten
Falling – Part Two
Dom and Ash surrounded Lari as fast as their weakened legs would take them to her side. The pool of blood around Lari's head sucked into the sand like a sponge with water.
Ash lightly shook her eerily still form by her limp shoulders, softly calling her name. Dom looked around the crash site, eyeing that all the other passengers were beginning to wake; all but one.
The pilot had a tremendous number of wounds near his neck, each trickling a steady flow of blood that reached the course sand and Lari's head.
"Ash, look," Dom pointed out the now dead pilot, making Ash sigh with relief, especially when Lari's apple green eyes fluttered open.
"Wha- what happened?" Lari's voice was hoarse and weak, like she had been sleeping for a week.
"We encountered a sandstorm. The harsh winds had caused the pilot to loose control of the helicopter." Aric appeared from out the helicopter, his three soldiers following their commander, "The only good news is that we have crash-landed near the site of the Hanging Gardens."
"So where exactly are we?" Dara asked, stepping in front of Aric to join her friends.
"We are right next to the Tigris River." Aric informed.
"Does the Tigris have crocodiles?" Dara asked him warily.
Lari was standing now, shaking blood out of her hair while answering, "It does have crocodiles but only in certain areas."
"Then this is a certain area." Dara was walking backwards while still facing the river and several crocodiles making there way toward the helicopter.
Each crocodile looked to be at least six feet in length and getting bigger with each step they took toward the group.
"They smell the blood," a soldiers said in a shaky tone of voice.
Aric and one other soldier opened fire upon the five crocs, only killing two before needing to reload their overused guns.
This moment of the gunfire ceasing was all the remaining crocs needed to attack.
* * *
Lari and Ash took the crocodiles as their cue to run; using the crocodiles as there distraction.
&nb
sp; The two didn't get far before being pursued by the other two soldiers who abandoned there commander and comrade who now fought hopelessly with broken metal parts of the helicopter against the crocs.
Lari and Ash ran faster now but stopped when they heard the strangest sound behind them.
As they turned around they noticed that their pursuers had disappeared into thin air. They walked cautiously back to last place they were seen, only to find a hole in their stead.
They had no source of light to see into the hole, their last source was taken by the soldiers after Lari clobbered one over the head with her flashlight.
They strained there eyes to see past the first foot of darkness when they heard that strange sound yet again. This time its source was below their feet.
A large crack in the floor of golden dirt and sand stretched away from the hole and toward Lari and Ash, making the floor crumble like debris beneath them.
* * *
The closest of the three crocs went for Aric, who was just finishing loading his gun, but it was all in vain. Aric soon dropped the gun once the crocodile went for his right foot.
With his leg useless, he fell to the ground along with his soldier who was also being mobbed by the other two crocs.
Dom and Dara, not wanting to stick around to become dessert for the starving crocodiles began running after the remaining soldiers. It wasn't long before they suddenly disappeared from their sight and replaced by Ash and Lari.
Making double time, Dom and Dara rushed to their friends who appeared as small specks in the distance. When they were nearly twenty feet away, Ash and Lari disappeared much like soldiers had.
"Dom!?" Dara called after him is shock.
"I know!" he yelled back as he reached the hole that seemed to have swallowed four people alive.
* * *
As Ash and Lari plummeted into the darkness, they frantically felt for some sort of object that could stop them from falling. Ash was the first to catch hold of something and instinctively grabbed Lari's arm before she fell out of reach.
The vine from which they now hung from swayed back and forth, ramming them into the sides of the hole.
"We have to try to climb back up to the top." Ash said while trying to get a firmer grip on the vine.
"What's wrong? Don't you like hanging out with me?" Through the darkness Ash knew that she was smiling when she spoke to him and he couldn't help but smile either.
"Not literally."
They began their climb for the light that hung in almost a perfect circle above them. They only stopped when they heard familiar voices echoing down to them.
"Ash?! Lari?!" Dom yelled and squinted his ocean eyes as if to pierce through the darkness. They received the faint answer of 'yes' and their fears were assuaged; if only for a moment.
The vine, which was held tightly by Ash and Lari, snapped in two from the weight it held. They fell a mere two feet before falling flat on their backs.
"Well, we found the bottom." Lari informed Ash.
"I've noticed." Ash felt something cold and made of a kind of a metal near his right hand. Lifting it up, he realized that it was Lari's confiscated flashlight.
Light emerged from the small contraption, lighting up the many tunnels around them.
Lari was the first to notice the dark forms of the fallen soldiers and felt a shiver travel slowly down her spine. Ash reached for the other flashlight held by one of the soldiers and handed Lari's flashlight back to her.
"There has to be another way out of here if we can't climb up." Ash explained, picking a path and following it.
Lari walked after him, checking their surroundings and coming to a realization, "Ash, we're inside the remains of the Hanging Gardens."
Ash paused and looked around as well, spying columns of stone stacked upon one another and nearly each one contained an ancient tree, each dead from lack of water and sun.
"Lari, the clue must be down here."
Behind them, one of the soldiers stirred. The other followed suit and soon both sets of black eyes snapped open.
* * *
A ripple of 'Lari's and 'Ash's echoed through the hole once more, this time from Dara.
Dom had gone back to the helicopter in hopes of finding rope and not finding crocodiles. He returned with a large black suitcase, its contents unknown to Dara.
"What's inside the case?" Dara asked while trying to open it herself before Dom beat her to it, revealing rope and much more.
"We have all the things one would need for a rescue mission," Dom took out three flares, mountain climbing equipment, night-vision goggles, the rope and something that hadn't been in the suitcase before, "Let's see what's at the bottom," Dom gave Dara a wicked smile, "After you."
Chapter Eleven
Trust No One
"Where's Dom when you need him?" Lari asked herself as she inspected the strange, yet colorful carved writings on the wall before her.
"Hopefully trying to get us out of here," Ash answered, trying to make out the writings' meaning as well.
"You know, I'm curious about something," Lari said, her full attention on Ash.
"What's that?" Ash questioned distractedly.
"The other four wonders are on the opposite side of the Mediterranean Sea. How are we supposed to get there when the only form of transportation we had is buried in two feet of sand and mud?" Lari's expression turned grim, "There is no way to get out of here."
"The helicopter wasn't damaged too badly; nothing that a few hammer strokes won't fix," Ash replied confidently.
"Well if we do manage to fix it, who's going to fly it?"
* * *
Dom slid down the rope after Dara's not-so-perfect landing. Lighting one of the orange colored flares, he looked for the two sets of footprints that belonged to his friends, but what he found were four; not including Dara's and his own.
"Looks like Ash and Lari have some company," Dom said trying not to sound too depressing but failing in his attempt.
"The soldiers survived that fall?" Dara asked in wonderment, seeing the indentation their bodies had made in the sand.
"Well if Ash and Lari survived, why wouldn't they have survived as well?"he reasoned, though hating the logical part of his brain.
The two began to follow the fresh tracks that would hopefully lead them to Ash and Lari before it was too late.
* * *
The soldiers walked soundlessly behind the clueless pair of Ash and Lari, dodging into the darkness every time the light radiating from their flashlights shown on them.
They were hiding behind a giant marble pillar and listening intently to the conversation going on between the couple.
"Ash, look!" Lari called to him, pointing at a strange symbol in the wall. Ash looked it over with amazement. Its sequence reminded him of a checkered board.
"It's some kind of lock--like there was for the last clue in the Great Pyramid."
"But we don't have a key for this one." Lari spoke sadly as if their quest had quickly come to an end.
"Ash! Lari!" Dara came running out from the darkness that seemed to have engulfed everything.
"Dara! I never thought I'd be happy to see you!" Lari nearly screamed with happiness.
"I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or as an insult," Dara said in confusion.
Dom came out of the darkness soon after Dara but not quite as happy as she, "You're being followed, Ash." he informed rather bluntly.
"By who?" Ash knew the soldiers were dead, who else knew where they were?
"The soldiers."
"That's impossible, I saw them dead." Ash tried to sort out the information he knew and the new information given to him.
"And all I saw was two sets of footprints tracking you!" Dom practically yelled, trying to knock some sense into his best friend.
One of the two soldiers left the cover of darkness and entered the light and sight of the four friends, "I mean you no harm," Dara jumped back and Ash was stone still, "I wa
nt to help you."
"That's what they all say, what makes you any different?" Dom snarled.
The soldier pulled off his mask and took out an object from his pocket, "I believe you were looking for this,"
He handed it to Lari, who looked at it suspiciously.
"It's the key," the soldier informed politely. The group looked dubious, but nevertheless, Lari fitted it perfectly with the small indentation in the wall.
"It's the key..." she echoed.
