Harriet Potter in: The Mummy

Prologue

Thebes. City of the Living. Crown jewel of Pharaoh Seti the First. Home of Imhotep, High Priest of Osiris, Keeper of the Dead. Birthplace of Anck-su-namun, Pharaoh's Mistress. No other man was allowed to touch her.

But for our love, we were willing to risk life itself.

For murdering the Pharaoh, Anck-su-namun's body was to be cursed. And it was I, the High Priest, whose duty it was to curse it. Her body was mummified and her vital organs removed and placed in sacred canopic jars. The Book of The Living contained sacred incantations that would send the evil dead on a journey into the dark underworld. The slaves were killed...and the soldiers who killed them were also slain, so that no unholy person should ever know the exact location of the burial site.

The Mumia walk off across the sand and then, one by one, the Priests stop their frenzied stabbing and stare off at the vanishing Mumia. As the last Mumia disappears over a distant dune, Imhotep nods, and the Priests leap onto Anck-su-namun's grave and begin digging it back up with their hands.

But there was another book. The Book Of The Dead, which was never to be opened, never to be read. For it contained the incantations that could bring a dead body back to life; a most unholy thing. It was hidden at Hamunaptra, City of the Dead, inside the statue of Anubis, so that no such sacrilege might ever disgrace Egypt.

Imhotep pulls an ornate chest out of a secret compartment inside the giant statue of Anubis. He opens the chest and lifts out The Book of the Dead, made of black stone.

But for my love of Anck-su-namun, I was willing to defy the gods.

Imhotep unwrapped Anck-su-namun's gorgeous, lifeless body and placed her five sacred canopic jars around her.

Anck-su-namun's vital organs were still fresh, so a human sacrifice would not need be made.

As Imhotep begins to read from The Book of The Dead, a large swirling hole starts to open in the detritus bog. Several Priests look over at it, frightened and then quickly look back down and resume chanting. A strange mist wafts up out of the swirling hole and over to the jars, it passes through them and into Anck-su-namun's body. One of the jars shudders, the heart inside begins to beat. The chanting priests, swirling hole, wafting mist, beating heart and Imhotep are reaching a crescendo. Anck-su-namun's eyes suddenly fly open.

Anck-su-namun's soul had come back from the dead! Now all that was needed, was to return her organs to their rightful place within her body.

Imhotep lifts a sacrificial knife above Anck-su-namun's breast, about to plunge it down. The chanting, swirling and beating heart climax. And that's when the Mumia burst in and storm through the startled Priests. The head Mumia smashes the jar with the beating heart. The mist instantly sucks back out of Anck-su-namun's body and implodes back into the swirling hole. Anck-su-namun's eyes close, dying once again. Imhotep screams in rage. The Mumia grab him and his Priests.

My Priests were condemned to be mummified alive. As for me, I was condemned to endure the HOM-DAI. The worst of all ancient curses. One so horrible, it had never before been bestowed. By eating the sacred scarabs, I would be cursed to stay alive forever. And by eating me, they were cursed just the same. I was to remain sealed inside my sarcophagus, the undead for all of eternity. They would never allow me to be released. For I would arise a walking disease, a plague upon mankind, an unholy flesh-eater, with the strength of ages, power over the sands, and the glory of invincibility. And if I could raise my beloved Anck-su-namun from her place in hell, together, we would be an unstoppable infection upon this world. The Apocalypse.