The Anubis Plague полностью

He exited and quickly examined the adjacent room from the corridor, finding it essentially the same as the previous one. More rooms dotted the path, leaving Khaliq with more questions than answers.

He had never heard that Anubis' followers had lived beneath the surface. If that had been the case, it was all news to him.

And what does it mean?

A chill ran up his back. He recalled the bodies back in the laboratory. Were they the ones that had once inhabited these rooms? If so, why did they succumb to a fate that amounted to torture?

More questions, he thought, stopping when his light dimmed and went out.

He growled in frustration but noticed something odd. The tunnel wasn’t entirely dark. There, up ahead, was a pinprick of orange and red light. The aura of his flashlight had been drowning it out, until now.

Could it be?

Khaliq discarded his dead flashlight and ran, dragging a hand across the wall as he moved.

He could feel it.

This was it.

“Oh my God,” Baahir said. “We’re in a torture chamber.”

But Zahra wasn’t sure he was right. Sure, everything about the scene before them was vile and hard to look at, but there was something… clinical about it.

She didn’t argue. It was a strange room, either way, so she kept her eyes moving as she led the way into the high-roofed room. It seemed that this room had also been naturally formed by time and then later retrofitted for use.

Zahra gave the nearest body a thorough inspection. Based on the narrowness of its build and thickness of its hip bones, it was actually a she. The woman had her hands and feet nailed to the stone slab. Zahra didn’t think this person had been punished, or even tortured by some maniac.

It just didn’t… fit.

Though a maniac had been responsible for this place, for sure. Still, Zahra believed that the spikes had been used to merely restrain the subject — much like the straps on a hospital bed in a mental health facility.

For their own safety…

“They were experimented on,” she said, gaining everyone’s attention.

“How can you tell?” Ali asked, standing on the opposite side of the slab.

Rabia moved into position above the woman’s head, while Baahir stepped up to her feet.

“Think about who we’re dealing with,” she started. “Let’s say that Anubis really did cook up some plague. That makes him sound an awful lot like a scientist or doctor, right?” Nods all around. “My guess is that these people,” she motioned to the multitude of bodies, “were Anubis’ test subjects, not just his victims.”

“It’s still disgusting,” Baahir said.

Zahra nodded. “Absolutely.”

“What was he testing?” Rabia asked. It was the next obvious question.

“His plague,” Ali replied, sneering.

Zahra stepped in. “Which means we’re about to find the origin of his infamous hellstone.”

The death-filled chamber fell into an eerie silence.

“Come on,” Zahra said, stepping away, “let’s find Khaliq, and then get the hell out of here.”

They looked around at the rooms connected by corridors to this larger space. It appeared as if people had lived in some of the rooms.

It surprised her, of course — she hadn’t known of any Egyptian population that had lived underground — but what she was really interested in was why?

She stopped short, in front of another room, then snapped her fingers.

“This is it,” she said, putting it all together.

“This is what?” Baahir asked from behind her.

She shined her light into the room. “This is where the Scales of Anubis began.” She eyed her brother. “Think about it. A secret society of Anubis followers… where would they gather? Where would they live?”

Until now, Zahra hadn’t spent much time thinking about it.

“When do you think they abandoned it?” Ali asked.

Zahra shrugged. “No idea.”

“The bodies,” Baahir said. “The Scales of Anubis did that.”

Maybe.

“Or,” Rabia said, her voice low, “Anubis did that to them.”

Zahra squinted. “Hang on. Turn out your lights, will ya?”

They did, and the sudden darkness was infinite.

But slowly, a new light source started playing tricks with her eyes. A hellish glow from farther into the cavern caught her eye.

Zahra sighed. “I think we’re about to get the answers we seek.”

Walking through the Temple of Anubis should have been an exhilarating feeling for Khaliq Ayad. After all, this is what he’d been dreaming of his entire life. This was where his bloodline had started. The Scales of Anubis — his ancestry — had been Anubis’ first disciples. He didn’t feel any joy, however. Khaliq was scared.

Something about the place was off. Initially, he had thought it was a lost kingdom. Now, as he walked its streets, seeing the structures up close and personal, Khaliq thought the appropriate description of the subterranean cavity was that of a labor camp. It looked like an archaic detention center. The only way in or out was the stairs he had just descended.