Chapter 3

Cora's POV

We walk for another twenty minutes or so in the dark before the passage finally opens up.

The flashlight beams sweep across the space, and everyone gasps at once.

We're standing in a massive chamber, preserved almost perfectly. The walls are covered floor to ceiling in murals, still vivid after thousands of years. In the center sit a few chests that look like they're worth a fortune.

"Oh my god, this is unbelievable." Dale is shaking, practically crawling toward the chests. "We hit the jackpot, Blair, we actually hit the jackpot. This has to be a royal tomb."

Blair's eyes go wide, and she strides into the chamber like she owns the place.

"See, now let's see who still doubts me." She turns and grins at me without a hint of shame. "Cora, weren't you the one saying this was dangerous? Where's the danger now? Does your face still hurt?"

I don't answer her.

My eyes are locked on the center of the room, on a section maybe the size of a small room, where the stone is a shade darker than everywhere else. The second Blair stepped on it earlier, I heard it. A low hum.

That's the sound of a mechanism finally releasing. The whole platform is hanging in the air now, held up by nothing but a few rusted support columns underneath.

This isn't a treasure room.

It's a pit trap, textbook. And right now, they're all standing on a lid that could give out any second.

"Why does this part feel soft when I step on it? And it makes a sound." The sharp-tongued girl walks over out of curiosity and taps her foot lightly.

"Whoa, that's actually crazy. Is it hollow underneath?" A guy walks over too and jumps on it, hard.

The whole floor of the chamber shudders. A grinding metal sound echoes through the room, the kind that sets your teeth on edge.

"This is basically a trampoline. These ancient people really knew how to have fun." Blair isn't scared at all. She starts bouncing on it like a kid on a playground.

"I'm coming too." The girl and the guy, along with a few others, run straight onto that dark stone slab, like a bunch of kids throwing a party on the edge of a cliff.

I stand at the edge of the chamber on solid stone, and I feel the blood drain out of me.

"Don't jump! Please, don't jump!" I yell at them. "It's hollow underneath! There's no foundation under that stone, it's just hanging there! If you keep jumping, it's not going to hold!"

Blair, mid-jump, stops and looks at me like I'm pathetic. "Cora, are you done? You just can't stand seeing us happy, can you? Dale already said this tomb is safe. What do you even know? You're bad luck, through and through."

I take a couple steps forward, but I can't make myself step onto that slab, so I just grip the wall next to it.

"I'm not lying to you." I'm basically begging at this point. "Listen to that sound under your feet, that's the support columns breaking. Please stop jumping. Come over here one at a time, slowly. I'm asking you, please."

My voice is shaking, and all I get back is laughter.

"Yeah, if you're scared, get out. Don't kill the vibe for everyone." The guy stomps his foot hard on the slab twice, trying to score points with Blair.

My heart jumps into my throat, my throat tightens, and the word "don't" is stuck there, not even out yet.

A sharp crack cuts through all the laughing.

Blair's smile freezes on her face. Dale's hand stops mid-air over one of the chests.

"What was that?" the girl screams, panic in her voice.

I don't have time to think. It's pure instinct, I jump back and press myself against the thickest wall by the entrance, arms over my head.

Nobody gets a chance to react. The whole slab, easily the size of a small room, with five or six people standing on top, drops straight down.

Screams tear through the dark. Dust and rubble pour down like a waterfall, and what used to be flat ground splits open into a hole with no bottom in sight.

"Help! Somebody help me!" The sharp-tongued girl is half hanging over the edge, both hands clawing at a jagged piece of rock, her nails torn and bleeding, sobbing in pure desperation.

And Blair, in the last second before the floor gave out, grabs a fistful of the girl's hair and shoves her down into the pit, using the momentum to throw herself onto solid ground at the edge.

"Blair, you're going to hell for this—"

The words disappear fast into the black hole along with the girl, and then there's nothing but one dull, heavy sound from somewhere far below.