“Hey. Wake up. We’re here,” Clayton said while shaking me out of sleep.
I rubbed my eyes and faced Clayton.
“Already?” I yawned.
We got out of the car and took our small bag. We walked through a shopping mall. Suddenly, something caught my eye. A cat store. My common sense has been thrown out the window. I rushed into the store and stared at the cats. I patted all the cats and squealed. They were so cute. I hugged five cats at once and everyone stared at me. I couldn’t help it. Clayton sighed and dragged me out of the store.
“Sorry for the trouble everyone,” Clayton announced.
After Clayton pulled me out, I refused to go outside to continue our journey. He sighed. He promised me that we would buy a cat after we find the map. I knew my sulking would work. I hugged Clayton and we went off. We crossed a busy road that was not only was occupied with cars but rickshaws as well. A’Famosa was right across the street. It is apparently a tourist attraction. It was a partly demolished building that had fake canons installed outside. Behind has a tall hill with an even bigger demolished building. Clayton and I started to search for some sort of carving. We started on the hill. It was quite crowded so I did not know how I was supposed to find a secret passage. There were a lot of carvings on the wall. but I could not find any similarity. I touched the carvings on the wall, hopefully, to find a button or a hidden wall. All I found was ants.
I saw Clayton looking at stone slabs on display. He was bending down and scrutinised the stone slab. I went over to Clayton to see the slabs had beautiful carvings with words written on it. I didn’t recognise the writings written. While Clayton examined one stone slab, I looked at the rest. I took out my notebook and scribbled down anything on the carving that seemed important. After a whole round, I realised that all the stone slabs had an eagle carved on it. That must be the similarity! I ran to Clayton to show him what I found.
“So, I think we are supposed to find an eagle or something. There are multiple flying about,” Clayton said.
“I don’t think we are looking for an actual eagle. Let’s go look around. Maybe we can find something.
It was hard to walk around when tourist keeps asking you to take a picture for them. Clayton also had the same problem. An Australian tourist asked me to take a picture with his family. He had a kid and a wife. When I took a picture of them, the background of the picture was a grave. It was open, but no one seemed to go inside. I quickly took a photo of their lovely family and dashed towards Clayton. I asked Clayton if we could go explore the grave. He didn’t like the idea of walking around and looking at graves but he agreed anyway. We went to the graves and it was eerily quiet. I could only hear the trees rustling in the breeze. Though it was quite scary, there were lots of cats playing with each other. Clayton narrowed his eyes on me and reminded me of our deal.
In the end, we reached the end of the path. The end of the path was a grave of a high ranking official. On his tombstone was a picture of an eagle! We found another eagle! Clayton hesitantly touched the tombstone. He traced the outline of the eagle with his finger. The ground and shook and the grave opened up. We looked at each other we took out our torchlight from our small bag. We looked around to see if anyone was looking or following. We went inside the dark tunnel with Clayton leading the way.
“AAAAHHHH! What’s that?!” I screamed.
Something brushed against my leg. Clayton shined his flashlight towards my leg to see a white and brown cat beside me. I squealed and I picked the cat up.
“Can we keep it? Please!” I begged.
“Fine,”
“Yay! Your so cute” I cooed.
I held the cat in my arms and continued walking. We finally reached the end of the tunnel and we found ourselves in a hall. Suddenly, flames erected from torches that hung from the wall illuminating the room. We realised the floor of the hall had squares carved and the walls had holes. It thought it could be some sort of booby trap. Clayton walked forward confidently despite the carvings on the ground. I pulled him back. I told him that the floor might be rigged. He said that there were no such things as booby traps.
“At least test it,” I said.
I looked around and found a small rock. I threw it across the floor and as I suspected. Arrows had emerged from the walls. Clayton’s eyes widened in surprise. I looked at him with my I-told-you-so face.
“Ok, Ok. You can say it,” Clayton said with much displeasure.
“Told you so,” I rubbed it in.
We realised that each square had an animal carved at the centre. There were five animals. Wolf, tiger, snake, eagle and rat. We did a bit of brainstorming and we narrowed it down to two animals. The rat and the eagle. I chose the eagle as we are supposed to follow the eagle-like the riddle said. Clayton thought it was the rat as it is the only prey and because the riddle ended after we found the entrance. We tried mine. I stepped on the eagle and arrows were shot. Clayton pulled me back just in time. It was Clayton’s turn. He stepped on it and nothing happened.
“Fine. Say it,” I said rudely.
“I told you so,” he said with a smug voice.
We carefully stepped on each square. Finally, I saw the end of the hall but before I reach the end, the floor opened up below me.
“Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Clayton!”
I was on a steep slide and it was pitch black. I held my cat tightly. Suddenly, I landed on a soft cushion. I couldn’t see anything. I tried to find my torchlight. After a few minutes, I found my torchlight and turned it on. I was in a small room with no doors. I saw ten statues holding swords. They look like warriors. I called Clayton down. As he went down, I examined the statue. On the wall beside me had writings carved. It was a puzzle! Clayton came by my side and we tried to solve the puzzle.
Ten statues you must face
Be careful, each statue has its pace.
The number on their rocky armour or vest
must be divided by the number of letters this riddle has.
We put on our thinking caps.
“Lonnie, you're better at math. Your turn to solve puzzles,”
“You only praise me when you want me to do something huh?”