Egypt - 1924
In November 1924, two intrepid investigators embarked on a perilous journey into the heart of Egypt's ancient mysteries. Professor Herbert Milgrew, a distinguished linguist, and a daring archaeologist arrived at the Valley of the Kings to explore a newly unearthed tomb. Their expedition, supported by local labourers, promised untold discoveries, but fate quickly turned against them. As they ventured inside, a chilling cry echoed through the air, and the tomb's massive stone door slammed shut, sealing them in darkness.
With no choice but to move deeper, the pair pressed on through dim passageways. Their flickering candlelight revealed walls adorned with cracked frescoes and faded hieroglyphs, hinting at long-lost secrets. They soon entered a treasure-filled chamber, where riches stretched to the ceiling - golden chariots, exquisite statuettes, ornate jewellery, and ancient artefacts lay undisturbed for millennia. Yet this room also bore ominous guardians: two mummified men impaled on spears, flanking a sealed doorway.
To the north, through a hole in the plaster, lay a smaller, modest room brimming with religious relics. A shrine stood against the eastern wall, holding an inverted golden ankh - a sinister, five-foot-tall symbol with golden tendrils that appeared to move despite their stillness. Unease mounted as the investigators studied the murals.
The southern mural depicted a black-robed pharaoh weighing a heart against dead animals, while a wolf-headed figure had its chest wrenched open. Hieroglyphs proclaimed: “The trial has been passed. Forever they shall be tied to this earth through their faithful beating heart, strong of body, awaiting the return of their master.”
The northern mural showed an apocalyptic scene: an Egyptian city besieged by horrific Children of the Sphinx, monstrous hybrids of men and animals. Black tendrils tore the city as a black-robed pharaoh sat atop a throne borne by these abominations, presiding over the carnage.
A scraping sound shattered their focus, followed by heavy, echoing footsteps. Peering through the hole in the wall, they glimpsed a hulking silhouette - a monstrous guardian clearing the way to a previously blocked chamber. Their breaths held, the investigators crept past the creature into the adjoining room, discovering the burial chamber.
Here lay a shattered sarcophagus, surrounded by splintered wooden casings. The golden coffin within was empty, but the investigators' noise drew the creature's attention. A hulking beast, it tore its way into the room: a grotesque figure of decay, with the head of a golden wolf glowing red with hate, its muscular body dripping with pus and bile. Driven to the brink of madness, the archaeologist succumbed to insanity, her final moments consumed by horror as the creature tore her apart.
In a desperate bid for survival, Professor Milgrew fled into the treasury, where even more treasures glimmered in the dark: golden models, fragile ceramics, and a chest containing five canopic jars. Four bore traditional animal heads, but the fifth jar featured the same inverted ankh as the shrine.
As the creature closed in, Milgrew seized the jar and smashed it, revealing a still-beating heart. With a final act of courage, he destroyed it, and the abomination collapsed lifeless to the floor. Exhausted and traumatised, Milgrew stumbled back into the world above, carrying both his life and the harrowing tale back to Oxford.
The tomb's secrets, however, remain - whispered warnings from the past, promising the Black Pharaoh’s inevitable return.
Handwriting?