𝐀𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐞 | Night at the Museum [Ahkmenrah] ✓

Chapter 28: Drowning in Dreams [Ahkmenrah]

Chapter 28: Drowning in Dreams [Ahkmenrah]

• 𓎬 ☼ 𓋹⋅☾𓂀 ☽⋅𓋹 ☼ 𓎬 •

Ahkmenrah VIII

2009 - New York City

"Oh, ma Apollona! What on terra are you doing, Egyptian?"

A voice cried, shocked by how their breath cut off the moment she appeared in his eyesight.

"The whole place is littered by paper...and are these maps?"

He eyed upwards, spotting the Greek Muse pick up one of the modern maps and held it up to examine it. He grunted and glanced back down to what he was studying, which had been the latest southern hemisphere star charts.

He could have sworn that he told the Jackals to barricade the entrance of his exhibit.

For the past few weeks, he confined himself in the same room every night. All apart from Saturdays when he had no choice but to give talks and tours to the visitors coming in. After eleven in the night and clean up ensued after Larry's meeting: he would seclude himself back into his wing and stay there for the rest of the evening.

That was why he was here: occupying his nights reading and analysing various things. Most of it was astronomy and astrophysics and catching up on fifty-six years of knowledge he had not picked up since Cambridge.

Even the thought of Cambridge gave another wound in his chest.

Everything, from the silence and the darkroom to the noises he could hear down the hall. Many of the exhibits came in for the first few days after that night. The first person that came was Teddy, who usually waited for him at the entrance. That then stopped after he pleaded for the president to give him some space. The president silently accepted but not before letting him know he was free to talk.

Then came Sacagawea and Larry, and those two were the hardest to push away.

Larry would pester until something in his head would snap and make him shout back whilst Sacagawea would give him sad looks, almost wanting to speak but never would. Ahkmenrah instantly regretted it and apologised, only earning a sympathetic look.

He hated it. The worried glances and the sad smiles they wore. He brushed off the times Sacagawea tried to hug him and ignored Jedediah and Octavius coming in with their monster truck.

Even Dexter and Attila came, and he kindly turned down their offers to spend the night with them to play football or watch a magic show.

He needed to be alone just for once. To mourn and to pass his anger.

Ahkmenrah did not know how to feel. His chest felt like it got cut open and his heart was punched directly by a fist. If Khafre were here, he would gladly do it before ripping his heart out and stabbing it with a dagger. That was what he felt like. Maybe equivalent to the feeling of death.

Every moment he would drift off to the conversation. Seeing her eyes morph into anger into disappointment.

He had scared her. But his anger could not match the pain and anguish he had on hearing Peggy's death.

Margaret Bates. The little girl with the brown curls and big amber eyes that shone like jewels under the light. The one who would giggle every time he told stories he heard as a child and ones he read in books. The one that promised to protect him and the Tablet. His little guardian.

Now she would never be able to see him again.

Time ripped him away from the only person that gave him a purpose. That led him to believe that he could become a good protector, a good guardian. Peggy was dead; she was dead for fifteen years and he did not know.