The guide’s lecture on the Ptolemaic dynasty was immediately cut short; he turned his focus towards the dreaded contingency that had just come true. He understood what happened the moment he laid his eyes on the rope, but he needed to make sure it wasn’t just a bout of his paranoia.
“What’s going on?” a student asked as the guide was examining the rope and checking the clean cut at its end.
“Now, there’s no reason to panic, but we seem to have lost connection to the university; to the present, if you will,” he replied.
Helena froze in place and bored her gaze deep into the guide, her eyes wide open in disbelief and confusion. She got taken aback by how calmly he talked about the worst possible thing to happen actually happening and awaited an explanation, or rather: an action plan; one worthy of his composure.
“I know exactly where and when the next group will arrive. We’ll just return with them and find out what happened,” he explained. “Hey, don’t worry, alright? I’m not going to pretend that we don’t have a situation on our hands, but I’m trained to deal with this kind of events.”
A palpable feeling of uneasiness filled the air, but there was no reason not to trust the guide. He proceeded to make it clear to the group that they had to move to a different spot in which they would await their rescuers; and since now wasn't the time to fool around, he stressed that he expected them to listen to his calls and not move away from the others on their own.
Feeling less like tourists and more like castaways, the students followed the guide for what seemed like a kilometer, walking on the stone-paved floor and along a mind-numbingly tall wall until they were ordered to halt when the relative safety of the wholly vertical cliffside gave way to a gigantic passage – the entrance to a hallway perpendicular to their route – as the wall turned sharply at a right angle, forcing upon them a dangerous open field which they would have to cross if they wished to continue their journey. The rope that had hitherto linked everyone together now needed to go; one by one, each person would have to run on their own – as fast as they could – to the safety of the other side, as if it was a battleground they were passing through and not the width of a simple doorway. The guide declared he would go first and asked that the next person follow in his wake, but not sooner than half a minute or so after his departure, and that the group keep going until everyone was safely across. One joint “understood” later, he began his sprint.
Going by the established order, it was Helena that was supposed to go next. Instead of running, however, she gave in to her stage fright and persuaded one of the guys to take her place. And so, with the guide already a fair distance away, the first student set out to join him.
Just as Helena began getting ready to run after managing to pluck up her courage, she noticed something odd; the guide, having stopped in his tracks not even halfway through, was frantically running back towards the group.
It took only a couple of seconds for the reason behind his behavior to become apparent, and the moment it did, Helena felt her perception of time slow down and lose its linear character. She wasn’t the only one to be overcome by this sensation; they all were – for as one they watched the colossal foot descend onto the guide like a mountain in free fall and cover him completely, as if he wasn’t even there; erase him instantaneously from the realm of the living without skipping a step. For the dubiously fortunate gentleman who took Helena’s place, it was akin to having an Ozymandian marble statue the size of a pyramid drop down from the sky right in front of his eyes with little warning – except that it was hardly the end of his worries. With its stomp amounting merely to a single step in the chain of many, the foot came to life and began to rise again, heel-first, as soon as the other leg descended fully onto the ground somewhere in the background. Its creased sole was once more revealed, the tight, press-like hug of unfathomable force having reached its conclusion. Adorning it was a pinkish blemish – hardly an eyebrow-raiser on its own, but it was what it grimly signified that caused Michael to hug Helena and cover her eyes with his hand. The guide lied dead on the stone floor, his body mercilessly trodden, crushed beneath the indifferent foot.
A servant woman in a long, white dress brought wine to her queen.
There was only one thing on the other runner’s mind now: fleeing. His brush with death sent him into a panic that would dictate his moves for as long as he remained in the open. Even with the handmaiden moving away towards Cleopatra, the stone floor appeared to him as hostile as the surface of a hot frying pan; and thus, he ran, exerting his legs beyond their actual capabilities. He stumbled, fell on all fours, then got up again; and he would have likely made it in no time if it wasn’t for the space between two stone tiles that he missed and upon which he broke his leg.
His painful cry reached the rest of the group and woke them up from their stupor. A moment of intense thought and internal debate, then – the bravest one among them decided to act and jumped forward to help the injured classmate make it through; but the gesture was misplaced – the physicality of the fearless rescuer, a rather petite woman, could not possibly suffice the task. Knowing that, another student decided to follow her – though not without some initial reluctance – and left Michael and Helena behind by the safety of the wall.
“C’mon, Karol, let’s get you up,” the young woman said when she reached her friend, lending him a helping hand. They struggled for a while until the second student arrived to grab Karol’s other arm.
The way back was awfully long for someone who could make use of only one of his legs, even with a pair of mates to lean on. Karol tried his best, he really did, but there wasn't much he could do when the handmaiden decided it was time for her to leave the queen's chamber.
As her already gigantic figure drew closer each second and grew ever bigger, as her feet lunged forward relentlessly in a persistent march, the trio found itself trapped within the confines of their bodily powerlessness the same way their late guide did just moments ago. Like birds caught in the path of an airliner or a rowboat trying to outmaneuver a freighter, the students were under the impression that they had time to move out of her way – but they were bitterly mistaken. What seemed to the travelers like a long distance required from the servile titaness only a couple of steps to be traversed. There was still a lot of ground she had to cover – until suddenly there wasn’t; until suddenly her foot slid above them to replace the ornate, distant ceiling and came crashing downwards unpretentiously. If they had more time, the brawnier rescuer would at least tell the girl to run, to leave him and their injured classmate behind, to try and save herself – but the only time they had they spent grappling with the unfair reality that befell them in a place so far from home; in a way so unfit for a thinking being. The last thing the history students experienced was getting bashed down onto the stone tile, some landing face-first, others – onto their backs, and into a dark, suffocative gap within some minor fold or wrinkle; before being crushed as the handmaiden shifted her weight to the ball of the foot they found themselves beneath.
The servant woman left the room, her steps now echoing throughout the hallway as if in victorious mockery of the minuscule travelers. Among those, the only ones left to hear them were Helena and Michael, both having remained in each other’s tight embrace and borne witness to the quiet carnage without ever moving away from the untreadable vicinity of the wall. The absurd, nauseating events of the past few minutes had yet to fully register with them. They seemed like something that could still be prevented – avoided altogether – and with such ease; but everyone was already gone. It all happened so inconceivably quickly. Stuck alone in a world of hostile indifference, two millennia and one continent away from the university basement they now hankered for, the two would-be newlyweds had nowhere to turn for help.
Yet there was a sliver of hope; if not for the trampled classmates, then at least for Michael and Helena. They hadn't forgotten that another group was scheduled to appear – eventually – within Cleopatra's chamber. They could still make their escape, broken and traumatized but nevertheless alive – provided that they acted decisively. That would, however, take more than mere willingness. They needed a plan. If only the guide had told them where to go before he perished…!
"We have to move," Michael told Helena, whose face remained buried in the fabric of his suit. "We have to get out of here."
"Do not leave me!" Helena cried out.
"I'm not leaving you but we can't stay on the floor. It's too dangerous. You hear me?"
"I don't understand what’s going on." She tried to dissociate within Michael’s arms, but that only made her recall recent events. "Mike, we can't abandon them."
"Listen to me, Helena, we're not abandoning them. We're just trying to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to us."
"Where else can we go?!" Unable to use words to justify her desire to stay, she moved onto questioning Michael’s suggestion.
"Someplace off the floor. Some higher ground."
Michael looked around, his embrace of Helena no less tight. Tables, vases, pots, and sculptures; scroll shelves; the Queen on her daybed; nothing in the room was made with such tiny people in mind. There was no place they could access; except, perhaps, for a small chest placed under a bedstand of sorts, partially covered by some discarded gown. Climbing the fabric seemed like a relatively easy task, especially given Helena and Michael’s negligent weight, but they would need to reach it first.
“After all this you still want to get out in the open? How is that supposed to be any safer?” She found the idea absurd.
“Only for a brief moment. Look, we won’t be crossing any doorways so we’ll know in advance if somebody is coming; and the one that-- the one that got us into this just left, she won't return any time soon. Or at least not right now,” Michael tried to make his plan seem more than just a feeling he acted on in an attempt to do anything that would allow him to reclaim a semblance of control. “It’s our best chance. The longer we wait, the more unpredictable our situation will be. What if she comes back with a broom? What if a cat or some other animal gets here?”
“What if Cleopatra gets up?” Helena pointed out.
“She won’t. Please, just trust me on this one. I feel like I’m going to have a breakdown if I stay on the floor any longer. I feel so vulnerable here,” Michael confessed.
Helena was yet to be fully convinced, but she no longer felt like she could rationally argue against his plan. She stopped voicing her concerns, and Michael took that as her way of showing consent. He grabbed her hand and affectionately brought it to his lips before urging her to follow him. She walked with a quickened step for a bit; then stopped. The warm Egyptian climate was becoming unbearable, and it would only get worse as she started to exert herself physically. She cast off her standardized outerwear, revealing a simple, white chemise that made her look not unlike the handmaidens of Cleopatra. Michael followed suit. Unimpeded by those now redundant outfits, they hurried towards the fabric-covered chest.
Their destination was quite far away; reaching it meant covering more ground than they would have had to cover back near the deadly passageway. Yet their prospects weren’t bleak at all, there being no steps or commotion to be heard, only the squeaks of birds coming from the vast, unreachable outside and the occasional rustle of Cleopatra’s wine-drinking.
Heavy breathing of the castaways. Truncated words. Unrhythmic thumps of their shoes. Then, two taps somewhere high above, far away.
Under the daybed appeared a pair of feet. They made contact with the stone floor, gently at first. Their grip greatly tightened a moment later; they began to bear the weight of the queen’s body. Cleopatra made the decision to get up.
It should have been dread and despair that dominated Michael’s mind, but he felt shame instead. Shame and a sense of being betrayed by the universe; anger, even, that his perfectly reasonable and thought out plan was now likely to bring an end to not just his life, but also that of Helena. All because of random – yet paramount – forces that so stubbornly remained outside their control and in the hands of the indifferent ancients.
“No! Why now?! It can’t happen again!” he whispered pleadingly before raising his voice in frustration. “I won’t let it happen again!”
At that point, Helena had given up. She let Michael tighten his clasp over her hand and forcefully pull her as he dashed forward. She ran along, though without much conviction; a misstep brought her to the floor. Her overworked legs made it difficult for Michael to get her up again; she no longer cared for running anyway. Propped up by his arms, she looked to the side.
Divine Cleopatra, Isis reincarnate; Queen of the Nile and Mother of the Egyptians. This angle suited her. It was how her people viewed her whenever she blessed them with her presence. It was how they worshiped her, lying prostrate down on the ground. Beneath her, beneath her feet, toiled away the porters who carried her in golden litters. She needed not be gigantic to emanate greatness; but in the tiny eyes of the stranded students she was anyway – and that seemed appropriate. More appropriate than having her share the miniscule form they assumed; or them visiting her as fully-sized persons. She was to be feared and revered, not seen face-to-face. And so it wasn't her face that they met.
It was solely the feet of the high queen that their gaze was drawn towards; her face remained far out of their sight, her vastness having made looking at her body in its simultaneous entirety impossible. And it was solely her feet that encroached on them so brazenly and brought them to heel, though in ways by no means deliberate. Without Cleopatra’s intention or even knowledge, her steps took on the character of a natural hazard, made even more afflictive by their undeniably personal essence which no free-spirited mind could ignore or accept the way one accepts earthquakes and blizzards as things that just tend to happen, even when humans aren’t around. And so, like a tsunami wave that had been caused by a person or like a tornado whose path someone had picked out, her legs drew closer – with superstition taking root in the minds of Helena and Michael and prompting them to stay quiet, as if it was possible for them to influence in any way a force this great, and to not draw attention to themselves in hopes that danger safely passes them by.
The dreaded, bare foot of Her Majesty hovered for a brief moment above their heads before it concluded its step and came crashing down with the force of a thousand tons of deified body.
Missed them; just barely. Cleopatra fell short of heedlessly striking the tiny survivors by the equivalent of merely a few seconds’ worth of their sprint. Had they not been on their knees already, the stomp would have sent them tumbling down onto the floor; still, it made their insides spring and their vision lose its focus in an overwhelming bout of trembles.
The queen’s expressive toes conveyed all there was to convey; each as big and bulky and imposing as great limestone boulders smoothly sculpted from the bedrock by the desert wind; each like a sphinx proudly reclining in wait; each as a sanctified edifice. It was now indeed made clear that the only temple one could ever deem fit for Cleopatra’s might was her body itself. As the deep, rusty crimson carefully applied by the handmaidens to her nails stared Helena down, she felt surrounded and contained. The chamber’s expanse no longer dominated her view; it had been replaced by the very thing that made it so treacherous. Now almost within an arm's reach, it radiated pure, unfiltered danger. Helena's mind raced from one grim scenario to another. She felt like she was being trampled simply by looking at the immense foot; like she would be instantly sucked under it and engulfed by its bareness and its tread the moment she put her hand anywhere near it.
A strong gust of wind winnowed Helena’s hair. Somewhere in the distance, the queen’s other leg rushed through the warm and dry air and hammered the stone floor with its weighty, expansive step, just as the one before it did. Although it was a most mundane act of walking that Cloepatra’s actions constituted, it still came as a surprise to Michael and Helena to see her monumental toes suddenly tense up and compress, and the foot itself rise as if to topple and fall right on them; and as they watched it happen, they felt dread which almost made them flee – but before their instincts had a chance to fully kick in, the foot sprang up and slid away at an angle above their heads. Michael had his eyes fixed on Cleopatra's now outward-bound legs – which had at that point ceased to pose any threat to him and Helena – ever since they directed their ruthless step towards the very place he found himself stranded in. His gaze followed their every move; and as the one that had nearly trampled both him and the girl who he had just recently realized he was in genuine love with flew by his head, he made sure to see it off, for safety's sake.
And during that guard, for a brief moment, Michael seemed to be able to recognize something that had hitherto lain hidden under the overpowering peril of his circumstances. That is to say, he had noticed for the first time since the abrupt closure of the portal, just how sublime, wonderful even – and inspiring of warm, heartfelt awe – the feet of the ancient and colossal queen really were when they weren't about to bring death and destruction.
The vast, virtually boundless sole that for one tranquil second replaced the sandstone sky above Michael captured his undivided attention. In its voluminosity, it resembled a gigantic pillow, or a landscape of soft desert dunes; or something akin to both of these things. The heat, the sun, the tanned earth with its flowing, beige-brown sand, and her bare legs; all coming together to form one realm, over which she – Cleopatra – was the sovereign. Her body was like the kingdom she ruled, as if she herself was the entire kingdom; her feet like the oasitic, fertile earth along the Nile that they walked on; her soles like the smooth ground they touched. Cushioned and supple. Caring; motherly; but also, beneath their royal agape, undeniably erotic – in a snug and accepting way and not one stemming from defilement.
The queen’s foot descended onto the floor somewhere in the distance and Michael came to his senses again. With his brief daydream now wearing off, he shook it off as nothing more than an intrusive thought. He had no need for the infinitely distant Cleopatra; not if there was Helena for him to love and cherish and hold in his arms. Reinvigorated, Michael helped her up and with a tight grip on her hand and lightness in his feet urged her to keep going; and since silence seemed out of place following an incident this intense and heart-stopping, he was overcome with the need to say something. Thus, after a short deliberation, he spoke to Helena with simple yet succinct words: “I love you.”
Even though to the tiny, critically endangered lovebirds it all felt like ages, the entire encounter didn’t take longer than a few seconds. After all, despite its grandiosity and evocativeness, it was in its essence nothing more than a handful of oblivious steps which Cleopatra took to reach whatever it was that she needed. Still, there was an atmosphere of perseverance and outright joy among the last two members of the student expedition of having survived a gamble staked so highly. They hadn't rested in their laurels just yet, but the giant queen who had hitherto dominated their reality became in their eyes a footnote, a thing of the past, even; something that was dealt with. And so, despite them being aware that it would be wiser to split up in order to avoid getting stomped both at the same time, they saw no reason to do that anymore. They pressed on; together.
Cleopatra approached the hefty cedar shelf that stood in the back of her chamber. Its diamond-shaped cells were filled with scrolls, one of which she was after in particular; by fortuitous happenstance, she spotted it right away. For a fleeting second she considered leaving for the great hall to meet up with her handmaidens and have one of them write down her thoughts – but then decided to defer that until she was finished familiarizing herself with the scroll’s contents. She plucked it out and walked back towards her daybed.
Having sat down again, the pharaoh queen reached for her cup and brought it to her lips before emptying it in one swift motion. As she raised her legs off the floor and reclined, she felt a slight tickle underfoot; she used her toes to scratch it away. With no more wine to distract her, Cleopatra focused on her reading.