He felt his pace quicken as he neared the corner. He peeked around it, wary that it could be a trap. All he could see was blinding sunlight pouring into the corridor. As his eyes adjusted, he stepped toward the light. Emotions fought to take hold of his mind. Relief filled his senses, along with feelings of regret, anger, and the shock of being left to die, buried alive in an ancient cave.
Dak stopped at the exit to the cave and all of those emotions crashed down around him. He braced himself with his right hand, holding onto the edge of the cave’s wall as he poked his head out. Just as quickly, he pulled back into the corridor, his heart full of devastating disappointment.
The passage exit perched dangerously on a cliff, sixty feet up from the desert floor.
Ten
Hamrin Mountains
Dak stared down the side of the cliff for a moment. He briefly considered climbing down, but that would be foolhardy. Most of the cliff's face was smooth without many narrow ledges or hand holds to make the journey down even remotely possible. He'd done some rock climbing in his life. A few of the climbs were difficult, bordering on the expert level. This, however, was a death sentence. He wouldn't make it halfway before he slipped and fell, or got stuck on the face of the rock.
"So close," Dak groused.
He thought hard for a minute, weighing his limited options. Since climbing down the cliff didn't appear to be a good idea, he needed a safer way to descend the mountain. Rope would be good, but there was none to be found.
Then an scheme bubbled to life.
It wasn't a pleasant idea, and the execution of it would be even less so. Still, it was his only chance. When faced with survival or death, he would always choose survival.
Dak spun around and hurried back down the corridor. He passed through the burial chamber and returned to the crawlspace, got down on his hands and knees, and began squirming through the tunnel again.
He emerged back on the other side and raised the phone to shine the light around the room. The bodies still lay there where he'd left them, and Dak wondered how long it would be before the room began to stink of rotting death.
He swallowed hard and pulled his shemagh up over his nose and went to work.
First, he set about scouring the room for more lights. He searched every one of the dead men and found twelve more phones. Most of them were flip phones, but every little bit helped and he would save those in his cargo pants to use once he was out of here, but that plan would have to wait.
Next, he took two of the smartphones and turned on the lights, placing the devices face down on the floor. He also found several flashlights that he also placed around the room in the darkest areas. Within twenty minutes, the entire chamber was bathed in a dim—albeit inconsistent—light.
He grunted in satisfaction upon seeing the entirety of the room.
"Now comes the gross part."
He started with the body nearest him and began the unpleasant process of undressing the dead man. This one had taken a bullet to the head, so most of his blood loss stayed off of the clothes. Dak knew that specimens like this were few, and he didn't look forward to dealing with some of the messier corpses.
He removed the man's outer garments, leaving his underwear and shirt, choosing to only take the clothes that hadn't been tainted when the victim's bodily functions relaxed upon termination.
Dak piled up the clothing next to the entrance to the crawlspace and then went to the next body.
He repeated the process, removing the garments from nearly all of the dead men in the room. Satisfied he had enough to use, he removed a knife from one of the bodies and started cutting the robes and tunics in wide strips. This step took nearly an hour to complete after the forty minutes of stripping the corpses.
Once all of the clothes were cut to his specifications, he tied one end to the other, then repeated the knots with all the strips. By the time he was done—almost two hours later— he'd produced more than one hundred feet of "rope."
After grabbing the rest of the phones and lights, he stuffed them into every available cargo pocket, then tied one end of his makeshift rope securely to his ankle. Looking back one last time into the room, he sighed and then began the long crawl back through the tunnel toward the burial chamber.
His stomach grumbled. His fingers ached from pulling and rubbing on the stone. His knees were scraped. Despite all of this, along with an overwhelming thirst, Dak felt a renewed sense of energy pulsing through his body.
He reached the burial chamber in record time and clamored to his feet. Then he trotted up the corridor to the opening in the cliff and looked down.
Dak bent down and untied the rope from his ankle, then retreated back through the passage until he reached the burial chamber. Most of the rope still protruded from the crawlspace. That was a relief. He'd initially thought he would need to bring one of the heavy chests or perhaps a statue closer to the tomb's exit, but having created more than enough rope, that wouldn't be necessary.
He pulled on his creation until the last of the rope appeared through the crawlspace. Ignoring the blood stains on his hand from the dead men's clothes, Dak tied off the rope's end to the leg of the Anunnaki statue on the right. He pulled hard on the fabric, leaning into it from several feet away to make sure the statue didn't topple over and also insuring the cloth wouldn't rip.
Pleased with his handiwork,
