Ogg 1
Jonathan Ogg
Professor Mitchell
Arts & Culture I – HUM 1130
October 22, 2013
The Lost Scepter of Tutankhamen
I had always been interested in the ancient Egyptian culture. It was just one of those
things that had always fascinated me, from the pyramids to the burial rituals of their kings and
the big members of their society. It was all just coated in a wonderful light and I wanted to get to
know that better. It all started a few years ago. Some friends and I decided to take a little winter
break and go to Egypt. It was Devin, William, Brett, Chase, Peyton, and I. These were the best
friends that anyone could ask for, but what happened in Egypt changed everything.
We had booked our flight and were ready to go, flying first class on “Egyptian Airlines”.
The first class amenities included everything from free food and drinks to the most relaxing,
comfortable seats I had ever sat in, on a plane! Everything was starting out perfect, just my
friends and I flying over the Atlantic Ocean on our way to the “Land of Mystery”. We landed in
Europe on the way over and had to refuel. This is when one of the strangest things happened.
While we were waiting on the flight to be ready, we were all just hanging out in the terminal.
“Look at this guy over here!” said Devin. We all looked in the direction he was pointing and low
and behold, there was an older man in his late sixties, with skin that looked like leather because
he was so tan. The funny thing about him, and the reason Devin pointed him out, is because he
was wearing an ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s outfit. From head to toe, this man was definitely
from Egypt. We thought that he might be some tourist information guide or something, so we
decided to walk up and talk to this old man. As we approached him, he started chanting
Ogg 2
something and we all began to get chills because it was just creepy the way he was saying it.
“Hello sir, how are you doing today?” I said. He proceeded to just look at me, but it was no
ordinary look. It was like he was looking at my soul and that was when I found out that this man
was blind, with scars all over his face. Needless to say, at this point my friends and I were a little
terrified of this man. What had he been through? Why was he here, in the middle of an airport
terminal in Europe, dressed as an ancient Egyptian pharaoh? These were questions we wanted to
find out, but we were afraid to ask. Then suddenly we heard, “Don’t touch that which is sacred
to the Valley of Kings”. It had come from the old man, like he was warning us of something. I
turned and asked him, “What do you mean?” and the old man just repeated the same thing. He
kept repeating it over and over again, but got louder each time until eventually he was screaming
it at us. We were terrified of this man at this point, and of course William was in fighting
position ready to throw down with and old man. “I’ll hit an old man, I ain’t above it!” William
said. The rest of our group proceeded to calm William down and security came in and took
away the old man. We asked what was going on, and it turned out that no one at the terminal
knew who this man was. He had no records of being on any flights or anyone else seeing him in
the terminal before this point in time. This was definitely a very strange occurrence and none of
us knew what to think about it other than William, who only wanted to fight. We continued to
board our flight that would take us the rest of the way to Cairo, Egypt. I fell asleep on this part
of the trip and had a dream that connected to the old man. I dreamt that we were exploring
around the Great Pyramids in the Valley of Kings, and I stumbled upon a scepter sticking out of
the sand. When I reached down to pick up the scepter, I awoke from my dream. When I woke
up, we were closing in on our destination, but at that moment we were flying over the deserts and
dunes of Egypt, specifically the Valley of Kings. “This has to have something to do with the old
Ogg 3
man and my dream.” I thought to myself. I looked at my friends and I was the only one awake,
so I decided to just take in the sights of Egypt from above. When we landed we had the option
of jeeps, dune buggies, or camels as transportation. We argued for a bit over what we wanted to
take. Devin and I wanted to drive the dune buggies, while William and Peyton wanted the
camels, because it was funny. Brett and Chase wanted the jeeps because they thought it would
be more efficient and reliable to get around. While they had a point, Devin and I convinced the
group that we should take the dune buggies because they would be the most fun, and the faster
option. So we paired up into groups of two in each dune buggy and proceeded to explore where
else, but the Valley of Kings. This is when things got interesting. We started out by going to the
Great Pyramids and exploring both outside and inside of the first one we saw. That’s when it
immediately struck us how amazing it was that they built these things when they did. They were
bigger than any of us could ever have imagined and it just blew us away. Peyton being the fool
that he is, started climbing up the pyramid, so we followed being the idiots that we are. An hour
or so and a couple of breaks later, we were at the top of this great masterpiece that the ancient
Egyptian’s built and we were just speechless. As I was looking around, I noticed something
shining in the middle of the desert in between the pyramid we were at and the next pyramid. My
goal was to get to this object and check it out. I immediately started climbing back down this
massive structure and got in my dune buggy with Devin. We sped off in the direction of the
shining object. Could it be what was in my dream? Could it be the scepter? That’s what I was
going to find out. We were approaching the object as the sun started to set and finally we
reached it. I got out and started to approach it, just like in the dream. I reached down to grab it
and sure enough, it was an ancient Egyptian scepter. When I grabbed the scepter, everything
changed. All my friends disappeared. All of the dune buggies disappeared. Any signs of
Ogg 4
modern day life just disappeared. I was alone in the desert in the Valley of Kings, alone with a
scepter. That’s when a soldier approached me on horseback and said, “My King, we have been
looking everywhere for you!” I was shocked and didn’t know how to respond to this. He told
me to come with him. I saw no other way out of this vast desert, so I decided to go with him.
We rode all the way back to Cairo where everyone was dressed as if it were the ancient days of
this great civilization. No modern buildings existed at all, everything just looked…ancient. I
had no idea what was going on and I was simply scared. Everything was changed and people
were looking at me like I was something I’m not, a King. The soldier carried me back to the
Palace of the Pharaoh and laid me in bed. When I woke up, I overheard two physicians saying,
“King Tut has amnesia. He doesn’t know who he is or anything going on.” Could it be real?
When I grabbed the scepter, did it send me back in time into the body and point of view of one of
the greatest pharaohs of all time, King Tutankhamen? It was at this moment that I noticed that I
was still grasping the scepter, so I dropped it. The next thing I know, I woke up in the bed from
our hotel room surrounded by my friends. They immediately started freaking out, and Chase
being the doctor that he is, tried to diagnose what was going on and what was wrong with me.
The scepter that I picked up in the desert was now lying on the floor and Brett went to pick it up,
but I wouldn’t let him because I knew exactly what would happen. We had to figure out why
this happened and what was going on. We called up an ancient Egyptian historian to see if he
could give us an explanation. He showed up and told us what I figured was true, that this was
the scepter of King Tut. He said that it is said that the scepter possesses magical powers that
would take you back in time, but it also had negative effects. He said that prolonged usage of the
scepter by simply holding it could deteriorate the body. He needed to take the scepter with him
to return it to King Tut’s tomb to its rightful owner. Brett wouldn’t let this happen. When he got
Ogg 5
close to the scepter, some kind of power came over him and he got greedy. We saw evil in his
eyes, and it was something that couldn’t simply be stopped. The historian knew exactly why this
was happening. When Brett was at the pyramid, he found an amulet and took it. This amulet
contained the soul of Jafar, an ancient Egyptian who sought out nothing but power and was
always jealous of King Tut. Brett had been contaminated by Jafar’s evil and the only way to
cure him was to get the scepter back to King Tut’s tomb, in its rightful place. Brett tried
everything he could to get to this scepter, but Chase and Peyton held him back while Devin,
William, the historian, and I ran to the dune buggies to go about our escape from Brett. Brett
broke through Chase and Peyton soon afterwards and proceeded to chase us in a dune buggy race
across the desert. The historian and I were in the lead buggy and Brett was gaining on us fast so
Devin and William sacrificed themselves in order to slow down Brett. Devin slammed his buggy
into the side of Brett’s, but Brett didn’t like this at all and retaliated by hitting their buggy just
right to where it would flip and crash into a rock. I thought I had lost two of my best friends, but
as I was looking back I saw a flare shoot up into the sky from the wreckage and knew they were
alright. Brett continued to gain ground on the historian and I in our buggy. At this point we
were on the home stretch with King Tut’s tomb in sight, but Brett was right there with us. The
historian then did something I never would have thought possible. He grabbed the scepter and
when he did this, his true form was revealed, the old man from the airport. He started shooting
beams of light out of the scepter at Brett. He was yelling at me telling me that he warned me
about “that which is sacred to the Valley of Kings”. And then it all clicked to me, this man was
King Tut. As impossible as it was to believe it was him, riding shotgun in a dune buggy with
me. He wanted to kill Brett to get rid of Jafar forever, but I couldn’t let him do that, Brett was
my friend. I had to save him. We had arrived at the entrance to the tomb and King Tut said his
Ogg 6
farewells to me and went in. But Brett chased in after him. I had to catch up to him and stop
him from ruining the plan. The walls were all shaking and the floors and ceilings were
collapsing on us, until Brett fell with the floor. I reached out and caught him. Beneath him was
a river of lava and it was getting harder and harder to hold onto him. That’s when it happened.
The soul of Jafar started to leave Brett and go back into the amulet, so I pulled Brett up and
grabbed the amulet and threw it into the lava. Brett and I laid there thinking everything was
over, and then the walls and floors started shaking again. So we ran out of this side entrance that
was a good 20 feet off of the ground and we jumped into the sand, finally done with all of this
chaos.
We went back to my buggy and picked up William and Devin on the way back to Cairo
where Chase and Peyton were just hanging out in a bar. “Did y’all have fun?” Peyton said. We
all just broke down in laughter and enjoyed the rest of our stay in Cairo. Something bugged me
the rest of the time we were there though. At nights, Brett would stand outside and look off in
the direction of King Tut’s tomb, almost like a piece of Jafar was still inside of him. But other
than that, he was the same Brett as before. Before we boarded the plane to come back home, we
all made a pact that we would never speak of this trip again, because we were all scarred in some
form, whether it was physically, mentally, emotionally, or in Chase’s case, drunkenly. What
happened in Egypt, stays in Egypt.
THE END