Ring! Ring!

The landline blared in the corner of my home office, distracting me from my reading. My nose had been stuck between the silky pages of a history magazine. I tossed it on my desk before hurrying to the phone, nearly stumbling over another large pile of books.

The number on the display had extra digits as if it were an international number. I wasn't exactly sure where it was from, but I figured it could be someone wanting to know something about the papers I had written many years ago.

When I lifted the phone from the keypad, a fuzzy interference filled the other side of the line.

"Hello, Dr. Jonathan Weller speaking," I answered louder than usual. I doubted they could hear with all that silly background noise.

"Hey, Dad, it's me, Lizzy."

My heart filled with joy the moment her voice pierced the veil. It had been a few weeks since she had departed for the Sahara Desert on some significant research project. It had been the first time since I had heard back from her. After all, since her locale was abandoned for hundreds of miles all around, I didn't blame her.

I increased the volume with a few taps and asked, "How's my tomb raider doing over there?"

"You know me… digging out long forgotten crypts and sticking my nose where it doesn't belong." She chuckled, then continued, "Do you remember when I said to you, 'I've got a good feeling about this one?' well, you'll never guess what we found out here?" she asked, full of energy and excitement.

I exhaled a sigh of nostalgia as memories of her late mother resurfaced from the archives of my mind. We had spent much of our lives satisfying our thirst for whatever droplets of information we could discover about the ancient history of Africa. Lizzy didn't fall too far from the tree. She had parents that were OCD history nutcases, which resulted in her picking up the excavation brush for Archeology at university.

"Your mother, bless her soul, always spoke about finding treasure one day and buying a luxurious castle with it… so tell me, how much gold did you find?" I asked.

"No, Dad! You know I'm not some gold digger! I do this because I want to be remembered for my work." She lightly scoffed before resuming. "Anyway, I believe we found something interesting under the Richat Structure. Do you remember if Mother was fond of it when I was younger? You both were. My team was given this new state-of-the-art radar system that can pierce many miles below the surface of solid structures, even beneath all that sand."

"Hang on a second." I interrupted, then asked, "Are you even supposed to be telling me this?"

I knew she would have likely had to sign an NDA from the funders to avoid the discovery getting out there, which could cause an all-out gold rush from the shady grave gold-digging vultures that plague the business. I didn't want her to be in trouble for spilling the beans on me.

"Don't worry, Dad, they've authorized me to speak with you. You'll find out why in a moment. Back to where I was… we discovered a vast network of tunnels and caves beneath Richat." She explained.

"The famous eye of the Sahara, hiding a secret beneath its belly," I muttered.

"Yeah, you remember… I thought you would have forgotten it by now, old man." She chuckled.

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"Hey, I'm old, not stupid. But that is music to my ears… I guess you can fulfill your dream of being on the front cover of some archeology magazine now."

Lizzy laughed before getting serious. "That's the dream. Before any of that, we need to get the entrance of this tunnel cleared. The excavators are working full steam ahead, and the others are trying to date some of the artifacts we discovered there. But none of the data they've gathered makes sense… some of the data suggests it goes back over half a million years. I have a feeling in my gut that this could be big." She explained before taking a pause. She took a breath, and it felt like she thought about her following words carefully. "Look, Dad, I need you to come here. This is very important, and we could use your skills."

I gasped for air, taken aback, and asked. "What the heck do you need an old man like me there for?"

Structures had never been my specialty, as I had gone the Egyptology route in my studies and research. Regardless, it was a subject that sparked a fire of curiosity in my mind.

"There are old hieroglyphs around the entrance pillars. They look similar to the Egyptian ones you have hanging on the walls around the house. I have a feeling you'd be able to make sense of them."

"Egyptian? That's impossible!" I exclaimed. The pyramids of Giza were over four thousand kilometers away from where she was situated. I scratched my head in disbelief as there must have been some mistake or something.

"I know. That's why none of this makes any sense. When the team was gathered, they weren't exactly looking for ancient Egyptian cartography in the resumes." She said.

I thought about it for a moment. As much as I wanted to accept her offer and help her achieve her dreams, I couldn't deny that being in my fifties was starting to take its toll on me. My back and legs were not what they used to be, and traveling long distances recently became a nightmare.

I was about to refuse her offer when a loud rumbling emerged from the other side as if an earthquake was occurring. The line became fuzzier, and a weird sound pierced the line, resembling the Russian Woodpecker of the seventies and eighties.

My heart sank like a rock in the ocean as I began to think the worst had occurred. It was commonplace for entire sections of underground caves to collapse when they were disturbed from their perpetual slumber. The results of such an incident had always ended with everyone being swallowed alive by dunes of sand.

My hand began to tremble with fear as I thought I had lost her. My lungs sucked a breath of anxiety as I felt my little girl vanish from existence.

I mustered what willpower I could and cried, "Lizzy!"

Suddenly, the interference cleared up.

"Hey, what's going on over there?" Lizzy's voice sprang out of nowhere, relieving me of absolute dread. It sounded like she was talking to someone in the distance.

"It's collapsed." A muffled man's voice replied.

"Is everyone alright?" Lizzy asked with desperation in her voice.

"There's dust everywhere. We must wait for it to clear before getting a better picture of things." He replied.

"Damn it!" Lizzy cursed, "Make sure the medical bay is ready to take in casualties. I want everyone out there to help to clear the rubble. Is that understood?"

There was no other response from the man before her attention returned to the phone. When a loud sound erupted from the other end of the line, filling it with a feedback loop. I could barely make out what was going on.

It sounded like she hit the phone a few times before I just about made out what she said, "…damn it, this thing is not working. Dad, if you can… me. Wait… what in the hell is that?" Those were the last words that escaped her before the line went as clear as day.

Heavy breathing filled the line, sounded almost demonic, and it felt like it was breathing directly down my neck. My heart began to race like the clopping of a racehorse at the derby, causing the hairs on my neck to become stiff. The feeling spread across my body like a parasite, making my skin crawl with an insatiable rash. The room had become bitingly icy cold.

"What the heck! Who is that?" I shivered.

"Jonathan." A familiar voice called out.

It was Eileen's voice but filled with a poisonous tone that sounded like it had churned through the seven circles of hell. Nothing like the honey-coated murmurs she would have spoken to me with. That was impossible. There was no way it could have been her as she had died almost five years ago.

I had a feeling someone was messing around with me.

"Eileen?" I shivered.

There was no response, the line filled with feedback, and the call dropped. She had left me there all alone, feeling dumbfounded.

All of a sudden, "Jonny!" A demonic voice growled down my neck.