Ah, another anniversary of her death. Well, here's to you, he thought as he sipped his glass of whiskey.

"Man, I'll never get used to this sharp taste. How do people enjoy this?" he wondered while sitting on the brown leather couch, leaving his glass on the round glass table placed on the shaggy white carpet.

"Once again, you're drinking!" Aunt Elayza scolded him. "How many times have I told you that alcohol will melt away what's left of your brain cells?"

With a lump in her throat, she realized that she had gone too far and once again projected her accumulated negative emotions onto the vulnerable young man.

"I'm sorry, dear. I didn't mean to say that. You know how difficult it is for me to see you like this."

"I know, aunt. I know life goes on and I shouldn't drown in sorrow, but I just can't. I simply can't!" he blurted out, on the brink of tears.

"Oh, I know, child. You've grown up and matured too quickly. You were never allowed to have a normal, carefree childhood with mischievous pranks and nonsense."

After saying this, she went to the couch and offered him a comforting hug. With tears in his eyes and the intensity in his throat that had already passed, he said, "Thank you, aunt. Thank you!"

"Oh, boy, you don't have to thank me."

"How can I not? You've always been there for me," he added tearfully. "You've always cared and made sure I'm okay. You've been like a second mother to me all these years. I want you to know how incredibly grateful I am, even though I don't show it often."

"I wanted to watch my favorite mother's movie. Do you want to watch it with me?"

"God, how many times have you watched that movie? Okay, we'll watch it again," she said with a smile and compassionate indulgence.

And Konny had always loved the movie "The Golden Eye of the Ancient Pharaoh." The pleasure of the blend of mystery and hope that this movie provided had always seemed perfect to her. She could watch it every year, and this mother's tradition was diligently continued by the boy.

The movie

The wind that blows dry sand into his eyes had gotten on his nerves. The scorching sun that burned his hat and baked his scalp was tiresome. The wavy mirages of oases and water all around him. The sweat that bathed him and made him all sticky. He had grown weary of searching for something he was slowly starting to doubt even existed. He was fed up with waiting for a major discovery that could propel him to the top of the list of esteemed archaeologists and Egyptologists. He wanted to be on the cover of "Egyptoday," but this was just too much. For the past two months, he had been touring the pyramids and snooping around to find something new and groundbreaking every day.

And now he was circling around a smaller pyramid. He did so in the early morning, when the icy transition from night to day was still palpable and called for a thicker jacket. His glasses would often fog up from sweat and blur his vision, and he had to keep wiping them. It was only in the morning that it felt nice and comfortable. For a brief moment, you might think this was not a desert but a fortunate, cool place with too much sand. He walked and kept his caffeine-energized eyelids open, searching for something unusual. However, take a thousand walks down one path, and by the tenth, the whole area would melt into a monotonous, homogeneous, tedious mass of roads, and the landscape would seem like a nightmare rather than a rest for the eyes.

He walked and thought about his job when he stepped on something that made a creaking, barely audible sound. He bent down to see what he had stepped on, and upon moving the sand, he saw it was a faded greenish leaf of the velvichia plant.

"Weird. How did I not come across this earlier? It must have been well buried in the sand," said the diligent archaeologist, Percury.

He began to excavate it further when, at one moment, the plant started to retract into the sand, pulling him down as well, creating a hole in the ground.

"What on earth is this?!" he wondered, looking around and trying to figure out where he had ended up.

He felt something hard and stable beneath him. Like a plank. And after uncovering a bit around himself, he saw that it was a well-preserved wooden cover.

"Ah, the Egyptians, what did they put on wood for it to have survived the ravages of time and sand so well? Yes, definitely sand. It's the worst, no doubt about it. The ravages of time can't be as painful as this damned sand. Fortunately, it hasn't started to burn, blow, and sting the eyes too fiercely. But it will soon... "

The walls of this pit were made of solid sandstone, and somehow, he managed to create footholds to climb out. Then he took his trowel, brushes, and cloths and started the cleaning process. He truly loved this part of the job. One of the main reasons he chose to study archaeology. The unexpectedness, the simultaneous rush and carefulness, the anticipation. That energetic treasure that occupied the "cleaner" as they meticulously brushed the dust, ensuring they didn't damage anything. All that "waste" that was trash in the eyes of others represented a protective shell hiding long-unseen, secret wealth, which had its story, its mystery. Something that represented the essence of what he was really doing. Revealing the veil of secrecy, understanding the past, presumably an advanced era with a certain, likely slave-driven hierarchy, living (or probably suffering) through its daily life.

All these things consumed his mind as he was doing what he loved the most—gradually reaching the truth. He felt he was just a small step away from it. He couldn't see it, but he could definitely feel it. It was there, within reach. Just a bit more, and he would be reading the magazine with no one else but himself on the cover.

Half an hour later, he had finally cleaned the plank enough to see the carvings and hieroglyphs etched into it. It read, "The path to the sun is promised to all." He took his chisels and attempted to lift the plank, but it proved to be quite heavy. He then used a silicone-enforced crowbar and gently pried the plank open. It was a coffin lid, and because of the effort required to move it, it appeared to have been sealed with propolis.

Upon moving the plank, he saw two larger and one smaller mummy. It seemed to be a family with a child. At their feet lay a small chest with gold-plated edges. He was immediately intrigued by it and knew that he shouldn't touch the mummified bodies to prevent them from deteriorating without the proper atmospheric pressure. Therefore, mummies were "unpacked" in a superbaric chamber with precisely adjusted pressure. But he could definitely play around with the chest.

There was no keyhole; it was an exceptionally beautiful wooden chest with rose carvings and a golden border. The roses descended to the golden rim, with exquisite details of thorns, stems, and leaves. As for the flowers... Such beautiful swirls of finely detailed, feathery notes on the petals that you could almost feel their silky softness at a touch.

After more careful and patient dusting, he reached the moment to open it. He wasn't surprised that there wasn't the slightest creak as he opened the hinges; after all, the Egyptians knew their craft better than anyone. Or perhaps it was another race that had come to this planet and passed on all these building and craftsmanship secrets. Be that as it may, the chest's contents did not impress him. On the contrary, it deeply disappointed him. Inside were simple clay jars and brass goblets. At least that's what it appeared to be at first glance.

However, what he couldn't know before he delved into these objects was the existence of many other, far more valuable items. Among them were various things, from gold coins with eagle heads, irregularly shaped gold nuggets, silk threads with golden beads threaded through, to gold buttons of different shapes and sizes. All these items were tucked inside the seemingly ordinary jars resting in the chest. He realized that all these items must have belonged to a wealthier family in ancient Egypt.

Percury slowly began to grasp the priceless value of his discovery. But this wasn't the end. Inside one of the clay jars, he found a carefully rolled-up scroll. Upon opening it, he realized it was encoded, and he would need to delve further into deciphering this script. He carefully collected all the found items, loaded them into his jeep, and drove back to camp, where he would meticulously work on cracking the code within the scroll. This discovery would further assist him in unraveling the distant history of the ancient Egyptian civilization.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Some time later, at the camp

"Mhm... So, this is how," the scientist mumbled to himself with a burning curiosity.

It took him 10 hours, but he finally succeeded. He decided to leave everything as it was overnight and work on connecting the threads in the morning to get a broader, more complete picture of what he had discovered.

The items he had found were of immeasurable value, not only because of their composition of the highly-prized metal but also due to their incredible historical significance for all of humanity. What appeared to be insignificant trinkets, those golden baubles concealed a map to the lost tomb of the famous Pharaoh Khufu. Inside the tomb lay the secret of returning from the dead, which had its cost: opening Pandora's box, and unleashing apocalyptic horrors.

Now he was certain of what lay on the table in front of him, which had previously been hidden in the jars. More precisely, he understood the function that each item carried, and together, they were crucial to deciphering the real truth.

In fact, the eagle-headed coins were used as tokens to enter the underground realm with a thousand steps. But to find the entrance to the underworld, one would first have to find a contemporary guardian who held the secret location. The contemporary guardian had a long tradition of protecting the sacred and secret information passed from father to son since the time of the Great Pharaoh. But where to find the contemporary guardian? Well, the papyrus mentioned that the guardian was at the "oasis of imagined desires."

Yes, it had to be a metaphor. I’ve never heard of such an oasis before, the archaeologist thought.

He pondered for another hour about this mysterious location that felt very close but eluded his recognition.

Hmm... A man in the desert has only one wish—to find an oasis with water and quench his thirst. I wonder if a mirage that causes the appearance of an oasis could lead me to the guardian of the underworld. It’s worth a try.

And so, our archaeologist embarked on what initially seemed like a senseless adventure, which began with a rejection of water and brought him to the brink of death from thirst. He soon reached a point where his lips cracked like the shell of a boiled egg, and he continued aimlessly wandering the desert, following his untested theory, which could cost him his life. This just goes to show how dedicated this man was to his work and how fervently he wished to make it to the front page of a scientific journal. Oh, the lengths people go to for fame, right?

However, the truth was always just beyond the next sand dune. And so, Percury experienced the unimaginable. The sand in front of his eyes began to ripple like molten concrete in the first hours of a hot July day. He felt a strong urge to lie down in the searing-hot sand and melt into its depths. He didn't know where all this would lead or what it was all about, but he knew that the pressure in his skull was so intense that melting into the sand would relieve him of all his agony in no time.

And while he bid farewell to life like this, out of nowhere, he suddenly bumped his head on a palm tree trunk. He collapsed on the ground. His head didn't hurt, and his vision was restored, clear and sharp. As he sat on the ground, he noticed that he was leaning on the soil, not sand, which was quite bizarre. Then he heard the sound of flowing water, like a small waterfall rushing into a little pond. He got up, determined to satisfy his vivid imagination. He knew his brain was prone to playing tricks on him, but he decided to go along and see for himself how much he had gone insane. What was he to lose anyway?

However, he wasn't so insane. As he stood up, he realized that this place was not just about one palm tree; there were about twenty of them. And not just palm trees, but all sorts of strange bushes, among which were pineapples, bananas, dates, mangoes, and even oranges. This was beyond his wildest expectations. All this fruit cooled his previously boiling heart, and he was relieved of the sunburned skin. But the most pleasant surprise was the water that inexplicably flowed from the spring at the top and cascaded from the large stones, flowing into a small pond. It was so clear, so irresistible that he immediately rushed towards it and drank like he'd never drunk in his life.

He thought that perhaps this beautiful fantasy would now break, and he would return to that cursed sandy wasteland with the unfriendly sun and endless dunes. He had wanted to try all the fruit that was available here. But no, he remained in the fantasy. He didn't waste a moment but hurried to the pineapple, the mango, and all the other fruits, tearing them apart and eating as if he'd never seen anything like it before. All that fruit sugar flowed into his insatiable throat, making his eyes pleasantly burn as a rush of happy hormones flooded his brain.

After experiencing this feast, which he was extremely glad for, he decided to look for the man he had initially embarked on this dizzying and, one could say, dryly futile endeavor for. Finding him wasn't difficult because the man was on the other side of the small pond, sitting on a bamboo stool, dressed in dry grass and leaves. It was more for decoration; he didn't need clothes, but he liked a bracelet or a belt more for pleasure than for any clothing function. At least that's what our archaeologist thought as he approached the man, considering how to introduce himself and explain why he had come.

But there were no unnecessary words because the guardian already knew why he had come. He didn't allow him to utter a word; he began, "For the eagle's head, you know the entrance they provide, and the sunny stones, have you brought them to me?"

He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts and understand what the man was asking for, then realized, "Yes, of course, here you go," as he handed over the golden nuggets.

The guardian picked them up, looked at them briefly, and swallowed them like a handful of pills. The archaeologist watched as the man's Adam's apple moved, then he trembled and stopped. At that moment, his eyes began to glow a bright blue, a shade between the wave that was about to crash onto a sandy beach and the distant mountain peak that stood out with its blue in the pale sky. The blue light flared up so intensely that it appeared as a flame shooting out like a laser from this hermit. It lasted for several seconds and then faded.

He spoke some strange words, which the archeologist recognized to be Hebrew, and then the ground began to shake. A gap appeared in the sand, revealing a staircase. It led into darkness. "Just go down, and you'll figure it out from there," the guardian said.

With a lump that wouldn't go down his now parched throat, he nodded and started descending.

As he descended, which seemed like dozens of steps, he wondered how he would see in the dark because he hadn't noticed any torches. Just when he thought about it, torches began to light up one by one on the sandstone wall of the basement. "Would you look at that..."

After a few minutes, he reached the bottom and found himself in front of a door with two circular indentations. Above one was carved an eagle's beak, and below the other a bird's wing. "This is where the eagle's head tokens go; it must be like this," he thought. He took them out of his leather bag and placed them in the indentations. He heard a heavy sound, and the door slowly began to open, leaving a trail on the floor and dust in the air. Great. Let's see what's next...

When he passed through the enormous door that was three times his height, and for a man of 6'1", that wasn't small, he was stopped by the sight before his eyes. He saw a passage covered with scattered tiles of different colors and sizes, with walls concealing circular openings covered in cobwebs. There must be traps here. There's no doubt. At the end of the passage, he saw another staircase, but this time it led upward. He couldn't see where it led, just the ceiling that obstructed his view.

Next to the door was an inscription outlined with slanting gold lines. It was written in Egyptian, something like, "The thread knows how to bark, keep it with you as it brings you salvation. It must be friends with pearl shells, lest it leads you to deep ailments." Mhm. I have something like this in my bag. He rummaged through his bag and found golden pearls with silk threads. He took them and checked that each pearl had a silk thread running through it, forming a golden bracelet. He tied the thread and adorned himself with this bracelet. He kissed it and went on, hoping for the best.

He carefully stepped onto the first tile, which immediately sank an inch into the ground. A hissing sound filled the air as a crossbow emerged from an opening in the wall, with a dart dripping golden venom on its tip. Frog poison. However, the crossbow didn't fire. Similar events repeated along the entire path until its end with the staircase. Sometimes a crossbow would appear, sometimes a spear, but neither one fired and killed our Egyptian explorer. Thank God, he thought as he reached the end and kissed the bracelet again.

As soon as he stood on the first step, the bracelet's pearls shimmered, and certain parts of all the steps crumbled. Without these pearls, I would never have made it through here. There's no chance! He carefully climbed for a few minutes, then lifted the stone lid and found himself in a small room with a sarcophagus in the center, lying on a small pedestal. He approached it and saw a faded inscription covered in dust at the bottom, carved into the stone pedestal. Wiping off the inscription with his brush, he could now clearly read, "Guard his eyes, lest you dance with demons."

Okay. Mhm, I know. Of course! The buttons! He knew about the buttons placed on the pharaoh's eyes to gain entrance to the library from his afterlife. Otherwise, the lost soul would go to the dance of eternal suffering, the last and worst destination in the afterlife, where lost souls go. He managed to reach the sarcophagus, opened it, and saw the mummified body of the Great Pharaoh with a golden mask on his face. Between his crossed arms was a wooden staff, adorned with emeralds. He took the buttons that corresponded to the two eye sockets on the mask and placed them on it. The mummified body then raised its arms, allowing the archaeologist to take the staff, which represented the key to the White Library – a place containing all the secrets of the ancient world.

Taking the staff, he descended to the base of the sarcophagus and struck it three times. A passage opened, leading directly into the White Library. He couldn't believe he was there, right beneath the sands of that cursed desert he had walked countless times. But now he was in it, with just a few shelves filled with unbelievably well-preserved scrolls that contained all the greatest secrets of the ancient world. He succeeded in his task, gaining recognition as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, scientist of all time. He found a cure for death, that is, the recipe for resurrection that Jesus himself used after he died on the cross. *End of the movie*

After the movie ended, Koygo had a new idea for the first time: What if the movie contained a dose of truth? What if there was some way to bring back his deceased parents?