Once having finally obtained answers on the reason for his coming to Iraq, which is moreover in a period of civil war, Mathias Parrish had begun to take the first notes for the future book he would write. In particular, he took many notes about the story of this forgotten Egyptian princess, Ahmanet. He had to admit, the fan of mythology, history and supernatural that he was couldn't help but feel this desire to discover more. Eventually, this expedition took an unexpected but most intriguing turn and Mathias was already inspired to write a new story when would come back in France, of which Ahmanet would serve as the main model for the main character.

As he sat at a small table in a corner of the military base's rest room, hunched over his notebook or his notes, while writing, Mathias thought back to Ahmanet's life. Destined to be queen but dispossessed of her status in favor of a male heir. In ancient times, it was not very surprising that men's values were absolute over women, it was their law, their standard if you could say so. He didn't really know what to think of that, he who of course had always defended the cause of equality between men and women, but could one judge and question the mores of an era that took place centuries or millennia before we were even born? Anyway, the ink was already dry for a long time.

Once after putting his thoughts in order, Mathias was warned by a soldier that the departure of the expedition was imminent and so joined Jonathan, Colonel Burns and the rest of the team on the runway where three helicopters were waiting, armed, loaded with equipment and ready for take-off. Colonel Burns will remain at the base and it is a squad of 12 soldiers, under the command of a Corporal named Campbell who will escort Jonathan's team on site.

The men, well trained and disciplined, equipped and armed, came to settle in the helicopters. Helped by Jonathan who extended his hand to him, Mathias climbed into one of the three machines and sat down on the place assigned to him, checking that the safety straps were fixed. He was also given a helmet equipped with a microphone in order to be able to communicate with the others to overcome the infernal noise emitted by the blades of the helicopters. Once the take-off clearances were confirmed, the three helicopters rose slowly but surely into the air, to then begin their flight towards the desert, towards remote and hostile areas of Iraq. Seeing the city and the military base recede behind him and the unknown looming on the horizon, Mathias blew a deep breath. The adventure had begun!

Sitting next to Mathias, Jonathan couldn't stop smiling and expressing his impatience, like a child. Mathias was also able to meet the two people that Jonathan had hired for the expedition and who were sitting on the seats opposite. The first was a woman in her forties, with semi-long blond hair and the second was a man with a medium round body, youthful chubby face and shaggy beard, glasses in front of his eyes and who was busy cleaning the lens of a camera. The woman looked up from a notebook she was reading and smiling friendly shook hands with Mathias while introducing herself.

_"My name is Sandra Winters, Egyptologist and professor at Cairo University. Nice to meet you, and this is Dexter Loomis, one of my students."

_"Yep, I'll be in charge of filming the expedition." asserted the chubby student with a certain pride.

Mathias also greeted him politely and introduced himself.

_"Mathias Parrish, writer. I have been hired to write a book that will relate the expedition. And your names will be mentioned in it of course... By the way, forgive me this question Mrs. Winters but did you know... about this princess Ahmanet?"

_"To be honest, until Mr. De Mirand comes to see me, not at all." confessed the woman. "However, and without wishing to brag, I am a specialist in ancient Egypt and its history and I can affirm that there has never been any mention of a princess of this name. If we have the proof of the existence of an unknown Egyptian monarch, it is our duty to discover it and make it known."

Although she remained much more serious than Jonathan, Mathias could also sense and guess the excitement in Winters' gaze. He understood her, which historian wouldn't dream of discovering something we had never heard of before? He respected that. Mathias then turned his gaze to Loomis and noticed his t-shirt which showed the logo of the rock band Motörhead.

_"Nice T-shirt. I approve." Mathias then commented with a smile.

_"Ah yeah, rock n roll is life." replied the student proudly. "Motörhead, often imitated, never equalled."

_"On that, there is no doubt." then added Mathias.

Giggling a satisfied chuckle, Dexter continued to check his filming gear. He seemed really nice, Mathias liked this kind of character and imagined the pride that this young student must have felt to take part in such an expedition. Meanwhile, Jonathan hadn't said a word from the start, remaining confident, and hunched over his cell phone. Mathias looked at him out of the corner of his eye but not daring to start a new conversation, decided to take a look at the passing landscape. A rocky and desert moor extending as far as the eye can see, under an extreme sun and heat. Mathias didn't say it but thought that this landscape was really magnificent and almost surreal, but deep down he was nervous when he thought about the fact that this territory was home to terrorist groups.

_"Tell me..." he then asked Sandra Winters. "You are not afraid that we will be attacked by jihadists? We are on their territory now."

_"I'd be lying if I said I'm not nervous about it, I admit." she said.

_"I told you, I didn't skimp on security. Everything will be fine, you'll see. Don't forget: we have rendez-vous with glory." Jonathan then told them, joining in the conversation.

Again, the billionaire heir was absolutely not worried, completely confident of the success of the expedition. Mathias admired self-confidence, but an excess could be harmful. Deciding nevertheless to put his trust in the experienced soldiers to keep him safe, Mathias decided to try to get some sleep, knowing that there was still a long way to go and that his sleep on the plane had not been very restorative. Settling into his seat as best he could, lowering his dark glasses over his eyes, Mathias closed his eyelids and tried to let himself be lulled by the sound of the helicopter to gradually fall asleep.

_"Mathias?... Hey Mathias, wake up!"

Jonathan's voice, at first blurred and distant, then more and more clear, pulled Mathias out of his torpor and it was with his mind still clouded by sleep that he opened his eyes to see that the helicopter no longer flew and had landed on the ground, in the middle of the desert, not far from rocky hills and what appeared to be the ruins of a very old village. The other two helicopters had also landed and under the orders of Corporal Campbell, the soldiers were already busy establishing a security perimeter. Unable to tell if he had slept for several hours or just a few minutes, Mathias rubbed his eyes and looked at Jonathan.

_"What's going on? Why don't we fly anymore?" asked the young writer.

_"Our helicopter had a malfunction, we had to land in urge." Jonathan confessed.

Indeed, Mathias saw one of the pilots busy trying to repair a problem with the propellers, while the other pilot had remained in the cockpit and was trying to contact the base by radio, but judging by the curses he uttered, the network seemed to be noisy. A malfunction? This revelation did not really reassure Mathias, who nevertheless decided to get up from his seat and get out of the helicopter a bit, putting his feet on this hot and rocky ground, while Jonathan went back to see the pilot to talk to him. Sandra Winters and Dexter Loomis had also come out and remained nearby, the student being filming some shots with his camera and Sandra carefully observing the surroundings with binoculars. Mathias walked over and joined her.

_"Well, you're a heavy sleeper." she commented in a rather mocking but not mean tone.

_"I didn't know that myself." Mathias replied pensively, looking around him, really having trouble bearing the stifling heat. "The expedition is off to a bad start. I hope they manage to contact the military base quickly. If we're stuck here, we're in deep trouble."

Sandra shared this opinion and continued to scrutinize this desert landscape through her binoculars. Then, at first perplexed, she thought she saw something in the distance... Adjusting the zoom of her binoculars, she saw better what it was... At the top of a large rock formation several hundred meters away... It was like... a reflection of the sun on something metallic!

_"What the...?"

_"SNIPER!" then yelled the voice of Campbell who with a powerful leap threw himself on Sandra and Mathias, making them voluntarily fall to the ground with him, just before a sniper projectile struck right at the place where Sandra was standing for two seconds. If too late and she would have ended up with a bullet to the head.

Everything then happened very quickly and barely after I had time to realize what was happening, a rocket, fired from an unknown position, came like a rocket from the air and blew up one of the three helicopters in a column of flames, killing both pilots who were inside instantly and the shock wave knocking everyone to the ground. From the rocky hills and the ruins of the ancient village, several human forms, darkly clad and armed, emerged and began to fire deafening bursts.

_"The Jihadists! Ambush!" one of the American soldiers yelled, taking cover behind one of the remaining choppers.

Jonathan, totally distraught and taken by surprise, was quickly evacuated from the helicopter and escorted by one of the soldiers who took him to take cover behind some nearby rocks.

Heart pounding, rendered half deaf by the detonation of the rocket, seeing one of the helicopters completely destroyed and devoured by the flames, Mathias was confused, unable to think. Campbell had begun to open fire with his gun, as had several of his men, against the enemy who remained hidden in the rocks and ruins.

_"We can't stay here, we're too exposed! We have to take cover, come!" then ordered the corporal and pushing Mathias and Sandra to run as fast as possible to the nearest rocks and hide.

Sandra ran ahead, as fast as she could and further, Dexter, scared to death and hidden behind large rocks, beckoned them to join him. Mathias was running a little further behind, being able to feel bullets whizzing near his ears. But suddenly, with horror, looking up, he could see that another rocket had just been fired by the terrorists and was going to hit not far from his position. In a desperate act, the young man jumped as far as possible to the side. The explosion was powerful, as was the shock wave, but the impact literally collapsed the ground over a radius of several meters. Unable to hold on to anything, Mathias, heavily stunned and disturbed by the explosion, slipped down the rock and began to fall into the bowels of the ground, under the horrified eyes of Sandra and Campbell.

In the midst of the darkness, sliding and slamming against rock walls for minutes that seemed like an eternity, Mathias saw himself almost die, until finally his chaotic race ended on sandy, cold and hard ground. His whole body numb and bruised, the young man coughed loudly, trying to sit up as best he could. Miraculously, he felt no broken bones. However, he couldn't see anything except total blackness.

_"HEY! CAN YOU HEAR ME?! HELP ME! I'M HERE!" he yelled with all his might hoping the other members of the expedition would hear him, but no response came.

Desperate and already wanting to be able to move without risking killing himself by accident, Mathias searched blindly and took a lamp he had in his bag and which luckily still worked. But as he pressed the small button, Mathias gasped in terror as the beam of light from the flashlight revealed something only a meter away from him... A face... The gigantic, upturned face of a statue of sphinxes...