The Back Door

(Write for at least 700 words about an accomplishment, a prison, and a hat.)

A thick blanket of water vapor smothered the jungle canopy and penetrated its thick leaves. Gnarled tree trunks and  knotted vines formed almost impassable geography. Hundreds of animals sang their songs, filling the dark ecosystem with a cacophony of chirps, rattles, and groans for miles around. Willie Scott chopped through the lush growth that impeded his movement along the terrain. He was a tall man, dressed in khaki, and under the brim of his greasy boonie hat, he had the bright spark of adventure in his quick, brown eyes.

Willie had always been fascinated with the likelihood of undiscovered ruins and their contents. Even as a kid, he took a wooden box and removed the bottom, replacing it with a piece of metal screen. He would spend hours sifting dirt through it so he could find ancient artifacts and treasure that was surely buried in his Columbus, Ohio back yard. That was a long time ago. Since then, he had earned an archaeology degree at Oxford and found himself alone in a South American jungle with nothing but his expedition gear and a deep passion for exploration.

He stopped for a moment and took out an old, worn canteen. He sipped the warm water and looked as far through the mess of vegetation as he could, hoping he would spot an old structure or something out of the ordinary. He put his canteen back on his belt and adjusted his pack. Willie didn’t see the huge insect on the vine next to him because it blended in so well with the environment. When he walked into the vine, the bug got spooked and took flight, bombarding his face in a flurry of panic and getting caught up underneath the brim of his boonie hat. The raspy beat of its thick wings startled him and he stumbled backwards. A root caught his step and he fell over into the thick underbrush. The bug was long gone at this point and when Willie calmed down enough to stop frantically swatting his hands around his face, he noticed a carved, pyramid-like stone slightly coming out of the earth. He forgot the encounter with the insect immediately and crawled towards the anomaly. Willie moved dirt and weeds from around it and the stone maintained its symmetrical shape as more of it was exposed. He had finally found something.

Willie set his pack in a cradle of vines and untied a machete from its place. He began to chop away a small clearing, just enough so he could set up camp and begin excavating the area as best he could. He couldn’t focus on the work he made for himself because he could not stop looking over at the stone he found; his imagination ran wild. It was a long-lost, man-made fragment of an ancient civilization that he could have easily missed. If it was buried underground, then there was no telling who had previously looked upon it. This discovery was purely accidental and finding it would immediately make him a renowned individual in his field.

He carefully dug around the stone that had caught his eye and dusted it off with a brush as he moved farther into the ground. The stone continued to widen as he dug deeper until it was even on all four sides. After hours of patient excavating, the result appeared to be disappointing. Well, maybe to a layman. It was a sealed door to a tomb of some kind, flanked by two rectangular columns with pyramids at their peaks. The entire structure was mated with solid granite underneath. The tomb inside must have taken years to carve out with only hand tools. The surfaces were so finely crafted that the entire structure connected to the rock with perfect edges.

He examined the stone that sealed the tomb and decided it would come off easily. After this, he should be able to see what was inside. It seemed a little too easy, but he proceeded anyway. He selected a flat, wide piece of metal from his toolkit and wedged it into the side of the sealing stone. Then he grabbed a miniature titanium crow bar and stuck it on the bottom of the stone. He pressed down on his pry bar and wiggled the other tool until he could feel some movement. Finally, the stone budged. Removing it was easy enough and the sealing surfaces made sticky, peeling noises as the piece was removed. 

A musty odor poured out of the opening. Willie returned to his gear and took some photographs of his progress. He rummaged through his equipment and produced a small black case. Inside was an oxygen sensor that was to be used whenever entering an enclosed space. He brought it with him on expeditions just in case something like this would actually happen. Chemical reactions that happen inside of a enclosed spaces can remove the oxygen entirely. If a perfectly sealed spot was filled with rusty iron tools, for instance, an adventurer would not last very long before he became one of the permanent inhabitants of the abandoned toolshed. He was surprised to find that the sensor read 20.8% oxygen. The space must have been naturally ventilated by some crevice in the rock.

Willie crawled carefully inside after clearing the quality of the air with his oxygen sensor. He was wearing an elastic band around his hat that had a lamp mounted on the front of it. He switched it on and immediately his breath was taken away. Gold and silver shined back at him brightly. Gemstones of red, green, blue, and yellow glittered as he looked around. The room could not have been any bigger than the waiting room at a dentist office, but it was filled with all kinds of treasure. Willie looked down and a bright reflection came back at him from a floor made of polished silver. The contents of this room would fill a hundred museums.

He was amazed at the treasure he had found, but it didn’t distract him from searching the walls for any sign of a passageway. It was possible that this cache was filled up in the jungle and sealed away as a hiding place, but it was very unlikely. Willie knew that whatever this place was, it needed to have some kind of grand entrance. He was convinced he had found a secondary opening to this room. Willie tried looking at the smooth granite closely, but it was difficult to examine since the treasure was pushed up against the walls. He could get his face two feet away at the most. Only because he was looking for it did Willie see the outline of a door. It stood as high as Willie and was trapezoidal in shape, wider on the bottom than on the top. This must have been an Inca ruin based on that geometry. He tested it by planting his body against it. The stone would certainly move, but he would need some kind of mechanical advantage if he was going to move this stone out of the way.  

He made deafening noises when he tried clearing away some of the gold and gems in this small room. As careful as he was with the artifacts, it was just too hard to take care while handling everything simply because there was too much. He could finally see where the door met the floor of the treasure room. Willie could barely fit anything in between the door and the wall surrounding it. The tolerances were so close. He managed to slide a thin piece of metal between the polished floor and the bottom of the door. The piece moved and it became free. The thickness of the slab was unexpected. He thought it would be an eight inch door but it was only about a half inch. Like the cover of a sarcophagus. He let the slab come towards him so he could lay it gently on the floor. As thin as it was, it was so heavy he could barely handle it.

Torchlight blinded Willie when he stood up again. The door led to a much larger room and he saw spears pointed towards his neck when his eyes adjusted. Hundreds of men and women stared at him with both fascination and disdain. These people were Incas. They must have been the last surviving group of them and they were hiding in this jungle. It seemed the conquistadores let a few of them slip through their fingers generations ago when they destroyed their civilization. The small group had rebuilt its community and remained in hiding in this unexplored region of the jungle. 

Unbelievable.

This was all very exciting to him, but Willie realized that as much as this secret, reborn civilization intrigued him, he knew he was a dead man for discovering it.  

His boonie hat was pulled off of his head, snapping the strap under his chin. A roughspun, faceless hood was thrown over his head and calloused hands squeezed both of his arms, forcing him to follow. Willie had always wondered how he was going to die. He knew it would be an early death considering his adventurous spirit. A wild animal could have eaten him or a venomous creature could have bitten him. He could have cut himself on the stone that caused this discovery and died from an infection days later. Never in his wildest dreams did he think that he would be executed by real Incas.

The group stopped for a moment and he felt a vine or rope of some kind wrap tightly around his torso with his arms at his sides. They continued to tie him up until he was as immobile as an insect in a spider’s web sac. The men transporting him shoved him so that he would start walking again.

His arms were slick with perspiration underneath the bindings. He stank of fear. The long walk he was forced to take had led them outdoors. He could smell the jungle air and feel it on his skin. The wildlife still sang their songs. Willie was so full of fear and wonder because of how surreal this all was. It didn’t hit him that he was probably going to be dead within minutes. 

Until they stopped.

The situation set in at that point and he began to panic. Tears that would have otherwise blurred his vision streamed down his face and urine pooled up around his feet.  He heard them shuffling around and speaking in their ancient tongue. He heard gear being dropped and metal clanging. He was waiting for the leader of this group to kick one of his legs out from beneath him to prepare him for a decapitation and further debase his dignity. Willie realized that there was nothing he could do to save himself now. There was only one outcome in this predicament. He could either die by accepting his fate, or he could attempt to escape. He wouldn’t get far with a hood over his face and his arms bound to his sides, even if he was alone. He decided to accept the consequences of happening upon their secluded village.

Was it going to be sudden, or would there be time to suffer? His body tightened with anticipation of the unexpected, leaving his imagination to torture him. The voices faded and the sounds with it. He seemed to be alone except for the music of the jungle, for what felt an eternity. 

The instant Willie decided he could relax, tough fingers seized him by the hair on the back of his head and he felt a sharp piece of threatening metal slowly scrape down his neck. This was it. Willie tensed up his entire body and whimpered through clenched teeth. His arms popped free as the vines were parted with the blade that teased him. He stood in the damp soil with his arms free and his back hunched in an eternal shrug, waiting for the final blow.

But it never came.

He reached up and slowly and removed the hood that was covering his head and scanned the area with bloodshot eyes. No one in sight.

He realized his gear and excavation tools were where he left them outside the treasure room, but there was no chance of finding that. He didn’t care anyway. At least he was alive. It would take weeks for him to be able to sleep soundly after that experience. 

 He was finally able to relax. He lowered his head in defeat and was surprised to see a few leather sacks and a large arrow made with smooth river stones pointing east. He grabbed one of the sacks and it was plump with liquid. It was a water skin left for him. The other sack had dried meat and fruit and dried corn kernels. The last one was filled with gold and rough gemstones. He looked down at the arrow again and judging by its easterly orientation, it was a marker so that he could find his way out of the jungle. The water skin was positioned at the head of the arrow. At the tail, was a human skull with the boonie hat he was wearing when they captured him. He decided that he would respect their wish. Their threat. He would bring this treasure back home and leave their quiet life the way it should’ve been untouched. 

Getting this stuff on an airplane would be tricky though…