After a violent skirmish that lasted almost an hour, without any explanation, the terrorists had fled and disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, leaving the squad of American soldiers and the members of the archaeological team in the complete misunderstanding. Apart from two of the pilots, no other deaths were to be deplored, only two wounded soldiers and also Dexter Loomis who had had one of his legs grazed by a projectile and now bore a slightly bleeding scratch on his skin. Sitting on a rock, Dexter let the squad medical officer examine the wound.

_"Hmm, it will be fine, the muscle and the bone have not been affected, it will be necessary to at least disinfect and apply a bandage."

Dexter was relieved, he who had started to panic when he felt the pain. However, the situation was still catastrophic for the group. One of the choppers was a smoking carcass, and the other two choppers had suffered substantial damage in the shootout and neither of them was able to take off despite attempts to repair them. The radio operator had set up his equipment and was struggling to send SOS to Al-Asad air base, hoping that Colonel Burns would respond and send reinforcements to evacuate them urgently. Meanwhile, Corporal Campbell, who had shown exemplary composure during the confrontation, had dragged the dead body of a terrorist killed during the shooting and examined it with one of his men and Jonathan from Mirand. Something was wrong with what had just happened.

_"I don't understand... How did those motherfuckers know where we were? It was like they were waiting for us." Campbell growled.

_"That's not the only strange thing, corporal, look..." added Jonathan, who with an observant eye had examined in detail the dead terrorist's equipment. "Do you see his weapons? They are not Iraqi-made. They are very sophisticated models and far too expensive for terrorist organizations...More than that...these weapons are American."

Campbell observed in turn and actually recognized this model of assault rifle, one of the last models recently put into service within the American army, and nowhere else. This discovery left a bitter taste in the corporal's mouth.

_"Mr. de Mirand, you think that..."

_"Alas, yes. Someone provided weapons to these terrorists, and I would not even be surprised if our position has been also disclosed."

_"But... I thought you were the only one who knew all the details of this expedition." Campbell said, confused.

_"I thought so too." Jonathan breathed, his eyes dark. "But the question now is: who would do that, and why?"

Meanwhile, Professor Sandra Winters had stood on the edge of the gaping hole that had been left open by the impact of the rocket. She watched intently, trying to break through the bottomless darkness of the chasm.

_"Mathias? Can you hear me?!"

For long minutes, she persisted in calling the young man in the hope of hearing an answer from him, but silence remained master. Her student, Dexter, joined her, limping slightly after the doctor applied a light bandage to him. Seeing Sandra grit her teeth and more than worried about Mathias, Dexter felt bad for her.

_"That's enough, I'll go get him." she finally said with resolution, but Dexter's arm held her firmly.

_"Stop, madam, all you're going to do is to break yourself. We don't even know how deep it is, or even if Mathias is still..."

He couldn't bring himself to finish his sentence, but Sandra guessed perfectly what he meant. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but deep down, maybe he was right. Sandra blamed herself, but there was no point complaining. The woman then turned to Jonathan and decided to talk to him in person.

_"Monsieur de Mirand! Tell me, what do you intend to do for Mathias? We can't leave him in this hole, something has to be done!"

_"What do you want us to do? All our climbing and abseiling equipment was in the helicopter that exploded, we have nothing left!" Jonathan reminded her while trying to stay calm.

_"I understand sir, but Mathias, like us, came at your invitation..."

_"I know it perfectly!" whispered the heir nervously. "Do you think I don't feel guilty for Mathias? I was the one who enticed him to come and I already feel guilty enough that he probably died because of my excessive ambition! Everything I wanted it was to help you, each of you, to take part in something great, to offer you success and glory in your future projects."

A remorseful throat could be heard in Jonathan's voice, and Sandra felt a bit silly for speaking to him so harshly. Despite all his wealth and influence, in such a situation, even a man like Jonathan de Mirand found himself powerless. Sandra excused herself and stepped back, joined by Dexter who supported her with a pat on the shoulder. Then the squad radio operator hurried up to the corporal.

_"Corporal, I was able to establish contact with the base! The colonel sends a Condor-9 plane to evacuate us. Estimated arrival in two hours. Unfortunately, they report to us that the radars of the base have detected a violent storm of sand heading straight for us. The timing is going to be very tight."

_"Understood." Campbell replied, keeping his composure. "In this case, we will have to hold out until the shuttle arrives, we have no other choice."

************

As he continued to run in the darkness without knowing where he was going, bumping into the rock walls several times, Mathias kept running, at least as fast as his injured leg could carry him and fighting against the searing pain that gripped him with each step he made. Despite the extraction of the bullet and the bandage around it, the thigh continued to bleed, drops sometimes beading and falling behind the young man. Sweaty brow, face contorted by exhaustion and pain, Mathias didn't give up, however, drawing on his resources to continue.

"I wouldn't die here..." he thought. "I refuse!"

But the physical pain wasn't the only thing eating the young writer up inside. Several times, and each time with a blink, he saw these flashes again, these disconcertingly realistic visions. She continued to appear to him... Princess Ahmanet... Sometimes out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw her at the bend of a tunnel.

"Setepai..."

Her soft voice, as volatile and distant, like a ghost, kept echoing in his mind, continuing to say that word he couldn't quite understand.

_"Leave me alone... Stop, please..." groaned Mathias, holding the sides of his head as if to try to silence this incessant voice that tracked him wherever he went. Ahmanet's face and eyes, however, continued to erupt in front of him like intense flashes only to disappear just as quickly, staring at him and continuing to speak to him, and sometimes he could even feel invisible hands touching him or a warm breath caressing him on the face. The ethereal voice of the princess echoed again in the head of the young man, but for the first time, spoke in the same language as him.

"No matter where you go, you can't escape who you really are... After an eternity of waiting, I finally found you."

Who I really am? Finally found? What the hell was she talking about? No matter how hard Mathias tried to find meaning in these words, his mind was foggy, disoriented. The blood loss was starting to set in and he felt his senses clouding and his strength slowly leaving him. He walked again and again in the dark, using his flashlight to guide himself, and each step became an ordeal to overcome. To continue, not to stop, he repeated himself constantly to encourage his body to move forward despite the pain.

All his life he had waited for the call of adventure, of the unknown, all his life he had been rejected for his dreamy and curious spirit of the impossible. We had tried many times to stop him in his dreams deemed absurd, but he had never given up. And this time again, he refused to let go. He would survive! But as he convinced himself to keep walking, his injured leg finally gave way under the weight of the pain and Mathias fell to the ground violently, hurting himself and having great difficulty breathing. Exhausted, lying on his back on this rocky ground, the young man was struggling to recover his breath. He had lost too much blood, he couldn't move on.

_"I must not... sleep..." Mathias breathed weakly, feeling his eyelids becoming heavier and heavier.

If he lost consciousness, it was the end. Then, as his eyelids blinked, he found himself back in that huge expanse of sand dunes, under the same twilight sky. He could feel the heat of the sand under his back, feel it under the palms of his hands...

The form, at first blurred and increasingly clear, of Princess Ahmanet, still as beautiful and dressed in the same loose dress, arrived and leaned slowly towards Mathias.

_"You have no right to be weak. You have no right to die here." she then said in a voice imbued with a certain judgment. "I forbid you... Your time has not yet come."

Mathias listened to him but could no longer speak as he was so weakened. Ahmanet, or rather the vision that she was, then grabbed Mathias by the wrist and pulled him with surprising force to get him up, which he did without being able to prevent it. Standing again, he was back in the dark and eerie tunnel, and once again Ahmanet was gone.

But what caught Mathias's attention was... yes, further in the darkness, a little higher up, it was... like a point of light, and also, he could feel it on his face... . air! The outside!

Galvanized by the new hope to return to the surface and finally get out of this hell, Mathias hurried, leaning against the walls to push his body forward and get closer and closer to this light which turned out to be effectively a moderately wide crevasse, located high up and leading to the surface. As if pushed by a force he hadn't even suspected, surely moved by the instinct of survival, Mathias climbed on the rocks and other support he could find, ignoring the pain, to always climb higher and higher. towards this light of day that he thought for a moment he would never see again.

Meanwhile, on the surface, the weather was becoming more and more threatening, with the day falling as clouds covered the sun and an increasingly violent wind rose over the area, kicking up clouds of dust and sand. On the horizon, a gigantic opaque cloud was coming, covering and sweeping away everything in its path. The storm was here, and it would reach the area in a few moments.

Jonathan, Sandra, Dexter, Campbell and the rest of the team had been forced to duck behind one of the damaged choppers to protect themselves from the flying sand. Fortunately, the cargo plane sent by the airbase had also arrived, and despite the strong winds sweeping the area, the pilots had managed to maneuver to land the aircraft and the rear cargo hatch was opened!

_"Come on, everyone aboard, quickly!" Campbell yelled.

No one hesitated and everyone rushed, while supporting the injured, to climb aboard the plane and get to safety. But as she walked up the ramp, Sandra had a premonition and looked over her shoulder. Through the clouds of sand raised by the wind, she thought she could make out a solitary, staggering form that was trying to come to them. Finally, she managed to recognize him despite the very restricted field of vision and she gasped. It was Mathias, who, with a face hollowed out by exhaustion and an injured thigh, was drawing on his last strength to reach the plane.

_"Mathias! Hold on, I'm coming!" Sandra yelled, turning around and running up to him.

The others, having also noticed Mathias' return with amazement, tried to hold the plane back a little longer. Jonathan rushed to help Sandra support Mathias and the two brought him back on board to safety. With everyone on board, the plane took off just in time before the devastating storm engulfed it and began to devastate the area.

On the plane, a semblance of calm had returned and everyone was relieved to have narrowly escaped this hell. However, this was short-lived as Mathias collapsed to the floor, moaning and struggling to keep his eyes open.

_"Oh no! Mathias, look at me and listen to my voice! Do you hear me?!" insisted Sandra, shaking him by the shoulders.

But as the voices of the team members became more and more blurred and distant, Mathias, unable to hold on any longer, fell into unconsciousness and everything went black.

************

From the top of one of the great sand dunes that overlooked the area, Ahmanet, her body covered in linen bandages, stood tall and strong, silently gazing at the immense sandstorm that she herself had summoned in devouring everything in its path. She also glanced at the military cargo plane that had managed to escape, flying away. Mathias... he was on board, she could feel it, and that made her smile gently.

Scattered behind her were the corpses of other terrorists who had had the misfortune to cross her path and whose vital energy she was delighted to devour to regain her former strength. Contemplating through the strips her flesh and her skin which were regenerating and finally regaining their consistency, Ahmanet heaved a deep sigh of delight, feeling her strength and her powers resurfacing within her after all these millennia in this infamous tomb that was her prison. She grabbed the remnants of the bandages that covered her head with both hands, ripping them off and tearing them into shreds which she let the wind blow away, releasing long, wavy, black hair floating in the air. Skin pale and silver as death, a face of dark and angelic beauty, and monstrous and mesmerizing eyes...

Then, slowly raising her arms in a cross, Ahmanet displayed one of her powers. The shriveled and desiccated corpses of the terrorists then convulsed, their limbs dislocating in horrible bone cracks and were brought back to life, their jaws opening in inhuman rattles. Thus arose the first soldiers who would constitute the future great and new army of the dead. Ahmanet was finally back, ready to finally claim her due!