May Hawaii and the Dreamhunters

-Don’t touch anything and step where I step -she told them.

May led the way. Her flashlight had stopped working, probably because the nightmare was closing in on them. Little by little all their resources would fail, until only the most primitive of instincts remained. Now he wielded a bone, the end of which was wrapped in a towel. She had set it on fire and was feeding it with her own aerenna, which made the flame a scarlet red color, highlighting the color of the walls.

Romulus was after her, stepping where she stepped. May had warned them that the ziggurat was full of traps. One false step could mean death in their dreams, something they didn’t want to experience. May could hear him breathing anxiously. Behind him walked close behind Barreto, one hand resting on his shoulder. Both were proving to have a lot of stamina, but they were at the edge of their strength. It was difficult to estimate how long they had been wandering the corridors and stairs of the ziggurat. May did not remember precisely all the nooks and crannies of the labyrinth. The march had been very slow and heavy. The blood trail had been lost long ago, but there was only one room left to explore.

At the tail end of the group, shrouded in shadows, followed Ember. His red eyes with square irises glowed in the darkness like two sparks. Her presence was reminiscent of an animal lurking in the night. It was both menacing and reassuring.

Before them opened the largest room they had ever been in. It was the deepest room in the old pyramid. The stone from which it was formed seemed darker and older than that of higher levels.

-There’s something in there! -said Romulus. And he ran out into the center of the room.
-Stop! -May shouted.

Romulus’ fatigue, or perhaps impatience, had caused him to make the mistake of stepping on the wide tile where there seemed to be a backpack. A clicking sound announced the activation of some kind of mechanism and, in an instant, Romulus’ body had separated into a pile of small fragments that flew off in all directions. The fragments then gently evaporated into free aerena, which finally disappeared into thin air.

The horrible image had made Barreto scream in terror, and she had turned around and started running in the opposite direction, towards the exit several levels up.

-Stop! -May shouted again, watching in frustration as the rookies were about to ruin the expedition.

But Barreto was in no condition to listen to warnings. In his headlong rush, he collided with Ember, who hit the wall with his shoulder, activating some other mysterious mechanism, which caused a heavy slab to fall to the bottom of the corridor, leaving the group isolated in the large room. Barreto reached the end of the hallway and pounded it again and again with her fists. Finding herself trapped, she stopped screaming and curled up on the floor. Ember looked at May in bewilderment.

-Thank you! -May shouted. Ember shrugged her shoulders.
-It wasn’t my fault!
-I told you not to touch anything and to follow in my footsteps.
-I didn’t touch anything! She pushed me.
-What an excuse!

May turned to the grand room. In the center was a backpack and some of Romulus’ remains still evaporating. Ember came to her side.

-What happened to it?
-It seems that the tile containing the backpack triggered a thread trap.
-What is it?
-Some steel wires are hooked and taut, so that when you step on the tile you release them and when they return to their position they pass through you. As it is so dark they are difficult to see. The good thing about these traps is that once activated they must be armed to work again.

And saying this he stepped on the tile and picked up the backpack. Nothing happened.

-I hope poor Romulus wakes up in his bed with just a start, but if not, his life could be in danger.

May rummaged through the backpack as she spoke.

-Is it Marcus’? -Ember asked.
-It looks like his, yes.

The backpack contained only a notebook. May examined it closely. It was Marcus’ handwriting. However, although she expected to find his notes on Nirman hieroglyphs, the pages were only scrawled with series of numbers that did not seem to have any apparent meaning. May put the notebook in her own backpack and handed the other to Ember.

-Keep it, it’s good quality leather.

Ember slung the backpack over her shoulder without much enthusiasm. Then they headed for Barreto, who was still curled up on the heavy slab that prevented them from leaving the great hall.

-Barreto, Romulo is not dead, this is just a dream – the young woman did not seem to respond to May’s reassuring words-. Listen, he most likely woke up in his bed. You can also wake up now if you want to -Barreto looked at May with glassy eyes, without understanding-. But if Romulus has suffered a trauma from dying in a dream, and hasn’t fully woken up, he may have been in a coma – Barretto nodded. She was beginning to understand-. If he’s alone, he could die of starvation. Someone should check his house. You know each other at Vigil and dream together, don’t you?

Barreto nodded, but was unable to do anything else.

-Let’s let him recover a little, we can’t leave anyway- said Ember, heading to the center of the great hall.

May gave up and went to him.

-You can see well with those eyes, can’t you? -she said.
-In fact, the torch dazzles me.
-I’m not turning it off.
-I didn’t ask you to.

They looked around the large room with no doors, except for the entrance hallway. The space was occupied by a series of stone sarcophagi arranged very neatly in rows. They were the size of a person and were closed with slabs. The shapes were also like those of people, but they had a structure that seemed much more ancient and rustic than the elaborate drawings that adorned every nook and cranny of the monument. In fact, it was the only structure they had seen so far that was not carved. The smooth stone contrasted by its simplicity, as if they didn’t belong there. May had been there before, but it was clear that things had changed since her last visit. Someone was using the ziggurat. The backpack had been a trap for them… or perhaps for May exclusively.

-Do you want to open one? -said Ember.
-I don’t think that’s going to help us get out of here.

Ember nevertheless approached one of the sarcophagi, while May tried to decipher the hieroglyphs on the walls in search of a clue. While she was concentrating on trying to remember whether the owls represented nobility or clergy, she heard the sliding of stone on stone. When she turned around, ember had finished pushing one of the slabs, which fell to the floor with a clatter and cracked.

May closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Let it not be sand,” she thought.

She watched as Ember frowned. And then from the open sarcophagus sand began to gush relentlessly. It was a fine, red sand. Ember looked at it in bewilderment. May looked at him angrily. The sand would not stop gushing.