The English archaeologist Earl Sneelpit walked gingerly through the dark halls of stone, shining powerful flashlights through the ancient gloom of the Egyptian fortress. The pyramids contained many a booby-trap, so he'd best be very careful. He could fall into a pit, be smashed by moving walls, pierced by an automated arrow trap, or who knows what else dangers could fall upon him in this aging building of stale air and dust.

Today was his twentieth anniversary of archaeology; today was exactly twenty years from when he had begun his archaeology career. This very day, he had become an archaeologist twenty years ago. He intended to have an exciting anniversary day full of excitement, exploration, and discovery.

Onwards he walked through the blackness, in hopes of finding valuable artifacts. Suddenly, the stone floor below him trembled and gave way. It cracked and shattered, collapsing!

He fell down several meters and fell into the crumbled debris of the floor. He was now in a different level, farther down into the pyramid. After leaving the pile of ruins and brushing himself off, he proceeded to explore this new story of the pyramid. He was not disappointed at all.

Shortly afterwards, his flashlight beam set upon a grand sight of days long past: a gigantic, colorfully painted mummy case, accompanied by two statues of Egyptian priests bowing down to it.

"Wow!" he excitedly thought to himself. "This could be the tomb of an important Egyptian leader! I may have made an important discovery!"

As he began to approach the tomb, there was a distant sound, as if it were coming from far away, far on the other side of the complex, twisted maze of corridors and traps. Gradually, the strange sound grew louder and louder... .until it was intelligible. It was a great chanting.

The man gasped, and he dropped his flashlights. They fell to the floor and broke, and thus the last bit of light faded, and there was only pitch-blackness.

The chasing grew slightly louder. It was many voices, hundreds of ancient voices chanting lyrics of an ancient Egyptian burial song.

The chanting increased, and he now could fee] it ringing in his ears. It steadily grew in volume, and soon it felt as if millions of old Egyptian voices were chanting in his ear.

The stone room shook with thundering echoes, and Earl felt billions of chanting enemies all about him in the blackness of the melancholy grave, speaking a melody of horrible sharpness, ghouls from the dead, ancients of long ago, spirits singing the rhythm of the wondrous, dark, and dreary underworld...........

The voices began to slowly close in upon him, and the dire, haunting rhythm of their whispers were virulent poison to his ears.

As the trillions of horrible, raspy voices of the undead enveloped him, he sank into a melancholy trance, the abominable din of discordant melodies of deathly arts of ancient wonder ringing in his ears, and the stenches of decomposing, ancient mysteries from the tomb flaming in his burning nostrils.............

And as his flashlights flickered one last beam of light, he saw the mummy coffin's lid slide open...... ..and then an icy blackness enveloped his tortured soul.

The mummy case opened, and Earl's boss leapt out with a smile and laugh. Light bulbs strung to the room's walls lit up, to reveal a hundred brightly-dressed people in the room.

There were several colorful balloons floating about and a table in the comer of the room with a birthday cake on it.

The people ceased to chant then, and then they shouted excitedly.

"Surprise, Earl!" they all said in one voice. "Happy Twentieth Anniversary of Egyptian Archaeology Study!"

Then tile room became silent as they realized that Earl was collapsed in a miserable heap, an unconscious wreck on the stone floor.