As soon as the word leaves my lips, we're off. Ares does his best thoroughbred horse impression and gallops away, straight through the stone forest. We crash through, hurtle, and flatten an indiscernible amount of stone and make our way as quickly as we can to the stairwell. Even the seemingly indestructible Ares is having trouble navigating the valley, but we charge on, never stopping.

Luckily for us, the major damage to the ceiling is over the courtyard and once we get far enough away, the amount of raining rock is negligible. Ares huffs and stops right in between the two stairwells. He kneels, allowing me to climb off and walk around to the creatures head.

"Thanks," I say. "For everything."

HRRRN.

Ares gives me a nudge and then wanders over to the lava-beach. I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but don't intervene. Ares turns back towards me with what can only be a smile.

ROAR!.

It's so loud that a fissure opens up farther down the beach and another large piece of rock falls from the ceiling. Then, Ares, the first and greatest, does the unthinkable. He casually strolls straight into the molten lava, taking himself and Omar's remains. They both disintegrate as the molten lava eats away at their bodies. Omar's is gone in a flash, being flesh and bone, but Ares was as solid as well...stone. I'm really not sure how long it will take for him to dissolve, but it doesn't matter, either way they're gone. Forever.

I just stare blankly into the fiery shallows. Did the strongest beast to ever live just kill himself? Then I remember that Ares had a human mind. He most likely fully remembered everything he did or was done to him in his lifetime. He may have even had a family before Nannot corrupted him. The millennia of torture he had to endure must have been incomprehensible. Where all the other Nightmares were beasts mentally, Ares cerebrally, was entirely human.

I close my eyes and say a quiet prayer for all the marred souls here. When finished, I turn and make my way up the first set of stairs, arriving at the landing a moment later. I stop and stare out over the now half broken necropolis, still not believing I'm here. I can still see the beauty this place once had. But once Nannot, The End of All Things, was entrapped here, it all turned for the worse.

The once pristine and pure waters turned into a river of magma.

The once beautiful and vast fruit orchards eventually withered and turned to stone.

The once majestic pyramid ultimately became a literal house of horrors.

All because of one man's selfish wants and desires.

CRACK.

POP.

Another chunk of rock falls, this one as big as an airplane hangar. It silently makes its way straight down, colliding with the top of the dark pyramid, driving straight through. The place that once held mankind's greatest enemy, is now flattened rubble.

It's for the best, I think.

I turn and continue up the second set of steps, never looking back. I don't need to see this place get wiped off the face of the earth. It's already been lost to time and history for as long as it was, what's another couple thousand years going to matter?

I enter the tunnel entrance and put my gla.s.ses back on, flicking on the night vision. How do these things still work? I ask myself, laughing a little. I take a steady breath feeling tired for the first time in what feels like forever. I then smile slightly, thinking of what Nannot wanted.

The complete destruction of Atlantis.

Well, he got his wish. It's gone, but not by his hand.

It's sad to know that I physically helped to destroy this place, but in the end, it was for the greater good. Mankind would have been doomed if he was released.

I continue up the last few stairs, past the broken stone slab that trapped us here in the first place and into the entrance tunnel. As I walk, the sounds of the cavern coming apart fade to nothingness.

As I move on the only evidence of its collapse is the occasional tremor rumbling through the earth. I stumble and catch myself, putting my hand on the wall for balance. I flex my foot and feel a slight twinge of pain in my ankle.

I smile.

It's good to be me again.

51.

Now you'd think I'd hustle back down the tunnel as fast as I could right? You'd also think I wouldn't want to stay in this h.e.l.lhole for any longer than I had to. Well, you're wrong. I get to the pictographs and carvings-the ones depicting Atlantis in its prime-and stop. I just stop and stare.

I saw these images play out for real with my own eyes. I saw the beauty of this place and I witnessed the betrayal. I saw a flourishing kingdom and its people and a battle to protect them. If anything, this shows me that one person really can make a difference. You just have to decide whether that action is one of honor or one of cruelty.

I place my hand on the image depicting Atlantis in all its glory and close my eyes. I ask Thoth or the three priests to contact me, but they don't answer. The slab is just cold and lifeless, just as I hoped it would be.

Content, I make my way back to the shaft entrance in silence. I have no idea what happens next, but what I do know is that I still have some unanswered questions. I guess they're curiosities really, like if the four siblings were so strong, how strong was Thoth himself? He was infused with the original orichalc.u.m elixir and taught his sons everything they knew. I guess that's a question for another day- "Hank!" Yells a voice. It echoes through the remnants of the tunnel bouncing back and forth off the walls. I look up from my feet, startled by the sudden uproar. My gloom fades as I see a glowing, joyful face. We meet half way, me from one side of the corridor and them from the other. We stand on the very spot where a dozen Special Forces soldiers died looking for this place, their still mangled corpses beneath our feet.

"You made it," says the person, but I'm lost in thought. I can't wrap my mind around everything that happened, it's just insane to think it was all real. We came here to find the Lost City of Atlantis and instead found the deadliest enemy man has never known. I remove my NVS gla.s.ses, looking into her eyes, lost.

"Your eyes, Hank. They're still gold."

She pulls out her mirror again and goes to open it, but I cut her off, gently pushing it aside.

"It doesn't matter. I'm fine."

"You sure?" She asks.

I nod.

"Harrison?"

Through the vertical beam of light emanating from above, I see two more people emerge, greeting me with joyful expressions.

I look to my left and see Dad, safe and sound, a large toothy smile plastered on his face. And on my right is Kane-beat to h.e.l.l, but still laughing.

"You okay?" Nicole asks, squeezing my hand.

I've been asked that a lot lately and my answer is always a shrug and a smirk. But this time, I'm going to be completely honest. I look up towards our original entry point and breathe. I can almost smell the fresh air. I just hope the damage to our camp is minimal and the people there are okay, but from what Omar had said, there may be a few casualties.

I meet the gaze belonging to the most beautiful pair of eyes I've ever seen, recalling her question, and answer with a broad smile, "Never better."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Matthew James was born in West Palm Beach, Florida and became a movie lover-specifically adventure films-at a very early age. His love for reading started with an extra credit a.s.signment in high school and he's been hooked on books ever since. He still lives in his hometown with his wife and daughter.

ISBN-13: 978-1508725237.

end.