Tales of Arkion, story #1.
I saw the vast desert before me. The hot sand scorched my feet. The heat burnt my skin on the face and body, but it was worth it, surely. Up ahead were the ancient caves, which had the treasures beyond imagination. Would I become the richest man in the world?
Yes! I finally saw it! It was no mirage. I came up to the entrance and felt it around with my hands. The strong old stones which withstood the times. They were ancient, beautiful, with carving of various images upon them. Obviously I did not understand the carvings well, but as I lit my torch and entered the cave, weaving down, one image kept showing up over and over again. It was a winged creature of some sort, the carvings were primitive, so details were scarce, but I suppose they used to worship this thing.
I went deeper and deeper into the cave, the corridor split into several pathways. This wasn’t written in the texts I found. Hmmm….
I chose the most left path. After a few more minutes the silence seemed to broken by a slithering and hissing sounds behind me. Chills of terror ran down my spine and I began to run frantically, realizing something was right behind me in the darkness.
I ran, stumbling, getting back up again, turning corner after corner, entering corridor after corridor. The sound was always behind me. Suddenly up ahead a light appeared. I ran towards it and made it into a giant room filled with gold. There was a lever on the side of the wall and I quickly pulled down on it. The level broke, but a giant stone door came down and blocked the path from whatever was following me.
I looked around at all the gold, jewels, treasures, rubies. There was an opening high up in the ceiling from which a ray of light came and hit special mirrors which illuminated the whole room. I laughed hysterically almost disbelieving my luck. Suddenly I heard the sound again. It was coming from a statue of a beastly head located on a wall, with multitude of holes in it. I came closer and examined it. It seemed that something was spinning inside of it, taking in the air and creating the sound. Was it sending the sound through the corridors? Did anything really follow me?
Then my face became grim as I looked back at the broken lever and blocked door. I searched the room for another way out, there was none.
I slowly sunk down leaning against the wall. All the gladness has left my body and I now felt all of the pain from the journey.
At least I was the richest man in the world
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