No Day but Today

27 May 1935
Dear Diary,
We have searched the tomb tirelessly for days, but we still have not found the burial chamber. There must be something I am missing. Some fact that I overlooked. The locals tell us everyday to abandon our search, they warn that to disturb the grave of Menisi is to invoke the wrath of the Serpent Queen. They tell us of traps and enchantments that lay in wait for us, but I cannot stop now. I refuse to stop now. If they think that I am a woman to turn back when I am so close, they are mistaken. I will not allow another to take credit for all of my years of hard work. Not again. I will find the missing piece to this puzzle.
Linda deShawe

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Chris's POV
It was pitch black in the library as a result of the power cutting off. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, the universe had to bite me in the ass. "Really?" I demanded to whatever lame God of karma had decided to torment us. "Brilliant, now we can brawl in out in the dark!"

"Okay, everyone remain calm," Claire's voice said.

Kyle scoffed at his sister's remark. "What are we, seven? We're not gonna run around screaming just 'cause the lights are out."

I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. Little did he know that a certain curly-haired band nerd—whom I will not name—is a tad dark-aphobic. But Nat wasn't about to let anyone know that, least of all Kyle deShawe.

Ryan laughed quietly for unknown reasons. "Do you have any flashlights somewhere?"

Just then a small light flashed in the darkness and shone over each of our faces, during which time Natalie quickly detached herself from where she clung to Ryan's arm, obviously hoping that none of us had noticed. Hence Ryan's laughter. Silly Nat.

The ray of light flashed to Tia's face, and we could see that she held her cellphone in her hand. "You asked for flashlights, and we've got them. If it's not too hard, check in you pocket and you might find one, Cole," she said, a little too sweetly.

Even in the dark room, I could sense that Ryan was glaring at Tia as he stuffed his hand in the pocket of his jeans and produced his cellphone. The rest of us followed their lead as the storm raged outside. Yep, whatever God of karma was watching over us was pissed.

Suddenly there was a loud crash and a gasp—Natalie jumped and shrieked despite herself—and we all turned our cellphone light towards the commotion. And what a sight it was.

On the ground there was a toppled over chair, obviously the source of the crash, and right in the line of fire was Jake and Andrea.

Andrea was leaning heavily onto Jake, her hands splayed out on his chest and Jake had both his hands on her waist. From the looks of the scene, she had tripped over the chair and toppled into him. Their faces were inches apart and they were both looking at each other with identical shocked expressions.

It was a total deer in the headlights moment!

My jaw dropped in surprise, and I totally couldn't help my next impulse. I flashed the light from my phone over each person's face in turn to check out their reactions. Was it ever great.

Natalie's mouth hung open, her eyes wide while Ryan's eyebrows were raised as high as they could go. Kyle was actually smirking, Tia looked downright horrified and Claire was blinking rapidly with a stunned look on her face.

Definitely a Kodak moment. Thank God for camera phones!

The pitter-patter of the rain was unnecessarily loud on the glass sunroof as everyone remained frozen in shock for a moment, just waiting to see what would happen next.

Andrea blinked out of her stupor. "Okay, let go of me!" She pushed hard off of Jake's chest, and he actually staggered back. While she crossed her arms and scowled in his direction, Jake just looked confused. They both looked up at the "spotlights" they were in, as if suddenly realizing we were all witnessing their "moment". Immediately all the rays scattered and silence loomed over our heads.

I shifted my weight from the balls of my feet to my heels. "Awkward," I sang, echoing everyone's thoughts.

"Very," Natalie mumbled.

A bolt of lightning lit up the library for a brief second before a loud crack of thunder echoed through the whole building. It had become so still in the room that we all jumped a mile in the air at the noise. God of karma definitely needed a chill pill.

Claire cleared her throat, and everyone pointed their light in her direction. "The storm will probably last through the night, and judging by its ferocity I'm guessing the power will remain out as well. We should all get to bed."

To my utter surprise—not—nobody moved.

"Uh, I don't know about you guys," Tia cut in. "But I am not going back to my room now."

Ryan's phone flashed to her face. "Scared are we, Thompson?" He said mockingly.

Tia winced lightly at the light but quickly composed herself an smirked at him, shining the light from her phone right back at him. "Not scared, Cole. Just smart," she replied forcefully. "Power's out, it's dark, and I am not about to get lost in this huge monstrosity of a house at night."

"Point taken," I said, raising a finger in the air. Wandering the vast halls aimlessly all night during a pitch black, badass storm was not at the top of my list.

"Seriously?" Kyle scoffed. "It's just a storm, you people are wimps!"

Andrea, who had remained quiet the whole time spoke, "I don't know... huge creepy house, power outage, raging storm. This is like the makings of a teen horror movie."

"Oohohoo, spooky," I said, not realizing I was thinking out loud again. I always seemed to have that problem... "Cue the serial killer!"

Natalie laughed, even though I'm positive she was more than a little freaked. "Yeah, and the stupid pretty boy who leaves the group always goes first. " She paused. "On second thought, that wouldn't be such a bad thing. By all means deShawe, pretend you're a macho man and go off by yourself."

"If I do recall, its always the retarded girl who thinks she knows everything that gets everyone killed—"

"Peace and love, dudes," I reminded. Geez, no wonder karma God was so crabby. Way too much negative energy in one room. Very bad juju.

"Alright, it's settled then," Claire said almost cheerfully, although she had to raise her voice over the sound of the rain. "We'll all camp out here in the library tonight."

Jake, who had—ironically—also been quiet the whole time grunted something unintelligible, while everyone else groaned or sighed dramatically.

"Come on, it'll be fun," I added, trying to lighten up the mood.

Tia surrendered first. "Fine, but if we're going to be stuck in here all night, I call the blue loveseat," she declared, before stalking off to the fiction section.

~:~:~:~:~:~

Natalie's POV
As if this house couldn't get any creepier. Now we were all in the library with a frenzied storm going outside. As soon Tia went for the loveseat, it turned into a mad dash to find a comfortable chair. Eight teenagers dashing through a library when its dark is not a good idea.

While Claire and Chris made it out unscathed (go figure), Kyle had a pretty mad awesome wipe out when someone completely unknown to me (wink wink) "accidentally" tripped him. From the sounds of it, Jake ran into a book shelf, me and Andrea had a full on collision coming back from the history section, and Tia knocked Ryan over with the loveseat she was pushing to the center of the room.

After mumbled apologies Chris forced us to give to one another, we formed a large circle with our chairs and sat in silence for a while. We'd given up on the cellphone light and stayed in the darkness, which I wasn't liking at all I might add.

"Oookay," Kyle broke the silence, propping his feet up on the foot rest he had snagged (from me). "I'm not going to get to sleep anytime soon."

Much as I hate to admit it, deShawe had a point. As if we could sleep with the thunder booming like a freaking bomb raid all night. I brought my knees up to my chest, trying to get comfy in the single seater I had claimed.

Andrea held her phone under her chin and shone the light on her face. "Lets tell scary stories," she suggested—much to my dismay.

Ryan chuckled from where he sat on the floor in front of my chair, his head resting against the armrest. "Sure, nothing else to do."

The room flashed from the lightning outside just as an earpiercing crack sounded through the whole house. I'd been working so hard not to shriek like a little girl whenever the thunder went off, but I couldn't keep myself from jumping at the noise, and kneeing Ryan in the head. Yep, sleep was definitely o-u-t.

Tia was lying down on her loveseat across the circle from me and Ryan, her legs thrown over one of the armrests and her hands behind her head. After the thunder passed she looked up at the rain through the sunroof. "The storm is here..." she said quietly, sounding surprised. Leave it to Tia to go nuts during the storm.

"Huh?" Jake beat me to the punch.

She sighed impatiently and sat up. "I said the storm is here," she repeated.

"She's talking about its location," Chris said from where he sat in the couch he was sharing with Claire. "When lightning flashes during a storm you count the number of seconds it takes for the thunder to sound. However many seconds you count how many miles away the storm is." He paused, and when he spoke again he sounded as confused as Tia had. "The lightning flashed at the exact same time that we heard the thunder, meaning that the storm is right above the house."

Well, of all the rotten luck! Here in this scary/cursed house with my enemies during a storm. Someone somewhere has got it in for me. Big time.

"What are the odds of that?" Jake asked. "Don't storms usually move around? Why is it stopping here?"

"Why indeed..." I mumbled, even though I'm sure everyone heard me.

"Anyways, Kyle was telling me about your great Aunt Linda earlier," Andrea said to Claire.

Suddenly very interested, Ryan added, "Yeah, I read about her fantastic archeological discovery, the Serpent's Nest. Maybe you could tell us more about it."

"Alright," Claire said, shifting around in her seat to get comfy. "I'll start at the beginning. In 1935, my great aunt Linda conducted a search in Egypt. She had heard legend of Serpent's Nest, the tomb of Egypt's most notorious queen. They called her Menisi."

The name itself sent shivers up and down my spine. The way Claire's voice had changed, becoming haunting and almost ghostly definitely added to the effect of the tale. I brought my knees closer to my chest.

Claire continued, "Menisi ruled over Egypt for over 200 years as "The Serpent Queen". The people were enslaved, the entire country was almost in ruins. The Egyptian people quickly learned that they could not kill her. Over the years, many had tried. Poison, assassins, everything they could think of. But every time, assassins never returned. Poisons were deemed useless. They concluded that she must be a Goddess on earth.

"A goddess? Seriously?" Jake blurted, completely engrossed in the story.

"Shut up!" Andrea hissed angrily at him. Good thing too, I probably would have tackled him for interrupting. Andrea turned to Claire, "You may continue."

Claire laughed lightly, but soon her intense story-telling voice reappeared. "When generations upon generations had slaved away under Menisi's rule, the people called upon their Gods to deliver them from the ruthless queen. Physical violence would not work on her, so five of their high priests gathered together and sealed Menisi's spirit away—but her soul was still restless, and angry. They burned her body so that if she were to somehow return, she would be without a vessel. They scattered her ashes, some was cast to an open wind, some dropped into the Nile and the rest were buried in the bowels of the earth along with her imprisoned spirit. The tomb was so named The Serpent's Nest. It was built to be a labyrinth filled with booby traps and enchantments to ensure that none may enter—and none may escape."

"Oohoohooo," came Chris's voice.

"The five priests, however, created a map that led to the heart of the Nest where Menisi's spirit dwells. The map was divided into five pieces, and each priest hid their piece in secret around Egypt. When the priests died, the locations supposedly died with them."

With a flash of white light a thunder clap echoed throughout the library, and I know I wasn't the only one who screamed that time! We were all so infatuated with Claire's tale that the thunder ripped us out of storyland with surprising ferocity. All of us jumped out of our skin, and I'm pretty sure that me, Tia, Andrea, and possibly Chris, had all shrieked like little girls.

When our pounding hearts had slowed, Claire continued as if unphased. "But somehow, the locations got out. Someone had placed clues to the pieces' whereabouts all around Cairo. Thousands upon thousands of years passed, and when Aunt Linda discovered the clues, she set out and eventually found the five pieces. One in Siwa, one in Kom Ombo, Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada, and the final piece lay in the heart of Cairo; as did the Serpent's Nest.

"They searched for weeks, following the map but still getting lost in the maze-like tomb, when finally they arrived at the burial chamber, the very place where Menisi's spirit was sealed. Aunt Linda made archeological history. For decades archeologists had heard myths of the Serpent's Nest, but none had believed it to be true until she discovered it. Aunt Linda brought most of the Nest back here, reconstructing the labyrinth like tomb underneath this very house. Where it has resided for the past 60 years."

Oh my God. I think I forgot how to breathe... I knew that my mouth was hanging open but I couldn't bring myself to close it. I was positive that I wasn't the only one that was still in awe. Claire's story made Ryan's sound like a recording of "rock-a-bye baby". And to think, I couldn't sleep for hours after Ryan first told me about Menisi. After this, I'd be lucky if I slept again for the whole summer!

The fact that the room was till pitch black was not helping things at all.

"So it is true!" Ryan said enthusiastically.

Tia, however, was a little less thrilled. "She brought the cursed tomb back with her? Then built a house over it?"

"I agree with Thompson," I said. "Why the hell would she do that?" The whole thing didn't seem like a very good idea to me either. I'm not really superstitious, but why risk it? Kids who play with fire get their asses scorched.

"Oh, come on!" Kyle cried. "You can't actually believe all that ancient mystic magic mumbo-jumbo!"

"Of course not," Andrea scoffed. "But what a rush! You had me on the edge of my seat the whole time, Claire."

"Agreeing," Chris said. "You've got mad skills dude..."

A flash of lightning lit up the room again, but this time it was different. There was no deafening thunder clap. The lightning didn't disappear after one blinding flash; the entire room was almost aglow. The air suddenly grew cold and a strange breeze blew through the room, lifting my hair lightly off my shoulders. I felt as if a cold hand had gripped my stomach, so tightly that I gasped in surprise. It was like I was frozen, all I could do was stare forward with wide eyes. And then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

The whole thing probably took a grand total of 2 seconds, but it had felt like 20 minutes. The room was dark again, and all was quiet. Silent even. Slowly, I looked up at the glass roof of the library. The rain had stopped. The sky was so clear the I could see the stars glimmering outside.

Then the lights flashed to life as the house regained power.

"Whoa," was all I managed to spit out.

"What the hell was that?" Jake's voice said. I looked around to see everyone wearing the same kind of shocked/freaked out expression that I was.

Chris's mouth was agape, but he blinked out of his trance. "You felt it too?" He cried. "Phew, for a second I totally thought I'd snapped my cap!"

"Ditto," Andrea mumbled. "That had to have been the freakiest thing that's ever happened to me."

"What exactly did happen?" asked Ryan, sitting up straighter and running a hand through his short hair.

"The storm is gone," Tia confirmed as she looked up at the ceiling then back down, repeating the process two or three times. "It's just gone. How does that work? It was right here a second ago!"

Okay, either all this talk of curses and evil snake ladies has driven us all insane, or something was actually going on. Great idea with the scary stories, Andrea. Now we're all overtaken by paranoia!

Claire remained frozen, her eyes were wide and her hand clasped something around her neck. Some sort of necklace maybe...?

Kyle inhaled deeply then exhaled, trying to calm his nerves. Who's the wimp now deShawe? "As strange as that was, I'm sure we're just tired and freaked out."

Tia's gaze turned on him as she sat up, her expression disbelieving. "You think we imagined that?" She said incredulously. "You think we all imagined that?" She swept her arm out to gesture around the circle on the word "all".

I looked over at Claire, and she slowly pried her hand away from her necklace. "Well, in any case, the power has returned so we all should really get to bed." Her voice sounded shaky.

"You don't have to tell me twice," Andrea muttered, as she picked herself up from her chair. "Not to seem like rain on your "parade", but I think I've had enough for one night."

Ryan stood up to his full height and ran his hands over his face. "That's probably good idea."

Slowly we all stood up, still slightly shaken from that bizarre.... whatever it was that had happened.

"Night Nat," Ryan said with a shaky smile and a small wave as he and Andrea headed to their rooms on the second floor of the West Wing. Ryan's tall frame and Andrea's petite one disappeared through the double doors.

Tia raised her arms above her head and stretched as she turned towards the exit. "Come on Chris, we better get some sleep too."

"Sure thing. Night all," Chris said pleasantly as he and Tia walked towards the doors, their rooms being in the East Wing on the third floor. "Don't let the serpents bite!" He yelled over his shoulder, Tia laughing loudly in response. So uncool.

Only Kyle, Claire, Jake and me remained in the library. None of us spoke, and the room was eerily silent for a moment. Both of the deShawes looked strangely solemn. I've never been one for awkward silences. "Well, I guess we should head out too." I glanced up at Jake who stood beside me. I had totally forgotten how huge that kid was. He was like a freaking linebacker.

Claire blinked, and her usually cheerful expression returned. "Alright, have a good night Natalie, Jake," she said with a smile to each of us.

"Try not to get too freaked out, Smith," Kyle said, crossing his arms over his chest as he smirked at me. "In case you get nightmares, I'm sure we can find a nightlight for you somewhe— Ow!" He was cut off by Claire viciously stamping on his foot. Somehow, she managed to keep her pleasant expression perfectly intact. Oh the wonders of Claire deShawe.

"Thanks, but no thanks deShawe," I said, smirking back at the jerk-wad. Though I may just have to take him up on that nightlight...

Jake rolled his eyes at our ever standing unfriendliness. "Good night Kyle, night Claire."

Kyle gave Jake one of those guy head nods, before me and Jake headed off to the East Wing.

As we walked though he dimly lit halls I couldn't hep but notice how sinister all the shadows looked now that I knew what "supposedly" lurked beneath the building. And to think, I'd thought this place was a dream come true when I'd first read the ad in the papers! Ironically, they didn't mention the fact that the soul of a demented, psycho, Egyptian goddess snake lady was residing underneath the place.

"Hey Jake?" I said quietly.

"Hmm?"

"What do you think happened in the library? I seriously want to believe that it was just us being paranoid after Claire's story, but...." Trailing off, I recalled the surge that had passed through me, the wind that had blown through the room. Nope, definitely didn't imagine it.

He took a minute to reply. "I have no idea..." He mumbled glancing at the painted ceiling.

We didn't speak about it again for the rest of the walk through the shadowed halls. In the hall we mumbled our good nights and broke off into separate rooms. I closed the door and let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

I got ready for bed in a daze, my mind far away and my heart racing. I turned to grab my toothbrush and knocked my comb off the counter scaring the life out of me. When my breathing returned to normal I climbed into my huge bed. Teeth could wait, what was dental hygiene if I was going to die of a heart attack? I just lay there staring at the canopy for God knows how long.

What was happening? I want so badly to believe that we imagine that energy, but my hair was still frizzy from the electricity that pounded through my system. All those things that had happened while we were talking about some creepy, Egyptian goddess. Not to mention the fact that there's a tomb under the house. A tomb!

I'm not the one to rain on other people's religions but there's no such thing as Goddesses... or their wrath.

Right?