It’d never been the ministry’s place to store ancient artifacts— at least ones that weren’t made there. The artifacts they did have were mostly in the care of Primo. This one was no exception: an Egyptian tomb, unearthed a few months before by a jittery explorer who didn’t want to keep it, for whatever reason.

It was too delicate to be kept in the regular display room, so he kept it in storage. Because of how valuable the artifact was, he’d check it at least twice a day; once in the morning, and once in the evening. That was, until Copia told him he’d heard strange noises coming from storage. Of course, he’d been too scared to check it himself. Leave everything to the old man, because that was a great decision.

He huffed as he stood up from his desk chair. It was a couple minutes to midnight, and he’d been about to go to bed before. He grabbed the oil lamp from his desk— he’d never much liked cellphones— and descended down the steps. If anything, it was probably a mouse, or even one of Copia’s forsaken rats that he’d somehow misplaced. With an annoyed sigh, he shoved the door open, and to nobody’s surprise, the room was dead still.

He walked inside and did himself a show of flipping over a few books and objects, as if some beast would fly out from beneath one and attack him. This whole thing was ridiculous, and though he loved his little brother, he wasn’t willing to lose sleep for him at his grown age. With a tired groan, he turned to leave.

“Holy fuck!”

The crash came the moment he spun on his heel, the heavy lid of the mummy’s tomb behind him falling to the floor. He didn’t even have time before the surprisingly spry figure was surging towards him, bony fingers outstretched. “Where am I?” the wretched thing cried, reaching out to grab him. He moved with a quickness he hadn’t in decades, lifting a sheet of supportive metal earlier discarded to block the thing. He shoved it roughly. He’d had his share of seances and summonings, and he certainly wasn’t going to deal with this… mummy until it calmed down.