Sentinel of the Sands

June 5th 1927

The wind howled and battered against our tents, the winds created a massive swirling sandstorm which made our camp all but invisible. Even with the discomfort of a sleeping bag and the noise of the wind outside I could not help but stay in slumber. My colleagues had sailed from London with me all the way to Africa, and yet in their long travel none of them could or would even dare to close their eyes and give in to sleep. For the reason for our unplanned venture into the Sahara was of the upmost importance.

Underneath the Great Sphinx at Giza a team of Egyptologists had discovered a passageway. It had been buried beneath the sands for an unimaginable 9000 years. The equipment held by the original team was not designed to cope with level of sand blocking the exit of the tunnel. That is why we were called in. I am the leader of one of the world’s best digging teams, Arthur McHobbs. Along with a select team of scientists my team of shovellers must clear the passage and explore it.

In the morning the sandstorm had eventually passed. I crawled out of my tent and stood up straight. The heat of the desert beat down on me and wiped sweat from my forehead and shielded my eyes from the blinding sunlight. I went around and woke my colleagues up one by one and calling them for breakfast. I had set up a silver fold out table and had our cook prepare a meal. As we ate we barely spoke to one another. We sat their stone faced eating our food. After a few minutes of silence I spoke to my men. “So” I said “what do you think we will find down there?”

The men looked at me like I had said something offensive and some scowled. One of them did look up and said “a Mummy”. Some of the scientists on our time dropped their food and desperately tried not to laugh in the poor lads face. The one who spoke threw a glance at the scientists and said “What? Isn’t that what you find in Egypt?” One of the scientists eventually did chuckle at the boys comment and spoke to him “It may be more than a man in bandages that we could find what about a spaceship?” His fellow scientists grinned it was obvious that they were trying to trick the young lad but I decided to let the boy figure it out for himself. The young boy was not pleased and knew it was a trick, he scowled and returned to eating his food.

After breakfast we unpacked our shovels and started digging into the passage. The scientists unpacked a chemical testing kit and started running tests on the rock around the passageway. After two hours of digging we were 5 metres into the passageway. Most of the men had grown tired and rested while the scientists kept doing tests on the rocks. But I couldn’t stop. There was something about the passage that intrigued me something that wasn’t quite right. After a few minutes I was close to giving up. The heat bearing down on me was too intense and I was beginning to become thirsty. I dug into it one more time. And hit what I think was cold hard steel.

COOL