Demon's Hide

The Mummy

Male Reader x Male Monster

You work in an antique shop owned by a relative of yours.You're not sure how you're related to them, you've just been told all your life that you were. He's a strange fellow, traveling around the world, sometimes without notice, sometimes never saying a word until he returns. But he always returns and when he does he brings with him a new inventory of things. It's your job to catalog, research, price, and contact the proper people about these items.

Some of the things he finds amaze you. Antiques and relics from far off places that, more often than not, museums and historians come to purchase. Although, most times, your relative asks that you give them the item with a promise of photographs he can hang in the shop.

It is a dream job for you, surrounded by history and art, things you had never dreamed to see or touch in your lifetime. You take pictures of the items before and after cleaning and catalog them in albums that your relative insists be kept as organized and detailed as possible. It was probably the one thing he was most strict about besides preserving the integrity and history of the items.

At first, the task seemed daunting, far beyond your capabilities, but now it was as easy as could be and you could sweep through it with little problem. Cleaning was a bitch though and sometimes you called in help to clean the pieces. Professionals had lined up at the door leaving their names and numbers at the chance to work with your odd little relative. You've kept in touch with some, building relationships with them because of their hard work. You know historians, archeologists, artists, and tons more people so intelligent in the field. You figured yourself ready for anything your relative brought in.

Until now.

You stare up at the sarcophagus with your jaw open wide. Your relative beaming as he stood beside it.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" You ask. "I don't think bringing in a coffin will be good karma for anyone."

"Oh don't worry so much," he laughs. "I rescued this thing from some millionaire's hoarding."

You look at the sarcophagus again as your relative blathers on about his story and how he dealt with the strange millionaire and pried the items from his dusty, old hands. You feel strange looking at the thing. A massive stone coffin covered in faded carvings and writings. It looked like at one pointed it had been sealed with paper charms that had faded and rotted away with the centuries. It was adorned with a golden face and hands. The eyes were strangely closed, the lips parted as if they were sleeping. In one hand they held a jar, in the other it looked like a blossom, but it was faded and chipped away. There was something not quite right with the air in the room and you couldn't tell if it was your own nerves or something more supernatural than that.

"Take care of it like you always do," you relative says.

"Wait I-" you're cut off as he leaves, laughing to someone outside. You stand alone in the workroom with it, staring up at it. You left it alone for the day, contacting some of your usuals to see above a proper cleaning and an artist detailing. You want to call a museum but for some reason stopped yourself and went on home.

The next day you arrive early so you can let the archeologist who means to clean it come in. You go into the workroom where it has been locked away and you smell something. It's intoxicating, the best perfume you've ever smelled. Rich and spicy, a dusky dark scent that you can't place no matter how hard you try to decipher it.

You set to work, turning on the lighting and lowering a backdrop to take the before cleaning images for the catalog. As you take the pictures and go back through the camera, you see something that sets your teeth on edge. You took over twenty photos and in each one something changes. The opened lips slowly closed, and the closed eyes have begun to open. Looking up at the sarcophagus again you see the eyes are half open and you feel a painful lump in your throat.