This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/jaymicafella on 2025-01-09 23:31:52+00:00.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

And so came the day that I was dreading. The day that Naeem had ultimately sacrificed his life to delay.

Having been lowered by the crane and descended the ladder into the cage at the base of the embankment, once again I looked upon that place. The wall of hands was no longer there, the only remains being the odd bits of rubble scattered about and being hauled by labourers away from the site. Several men worked on a large hammer drill that was currently boring into the plain stone that had been hidden behind the original marble. My ears reverberated with the deafening sound of the hammer. Several holes were already present throughout the rock, looking as though a colossal shootout had just taken place.

Mia and I stood together amongst the expedition crew chosen by Suffian to enter once the rock was compromised. It consisted of Myself, Mia, Suffian, Hamza and six of his personnel, and Milad with five of his Archaeologist team. We all watched in anticipation.

The sound coming from the drill began to change and I knew that it had once again penetrated through the rock. Yet, the stone stood strong. I felt a temporary relief. Suffian cursed and ordered the drillers to start another hole. The drill had only just begun to hammer into it when there was a loud CRACK. The drillers immediately dropped the tools and bolted towards us. The stone they had been working on began to collapse in on itself. There was a rumble as earth shifted and stones fell, quickly enveloping the place with a choking dust.

Despite the coming horrors we were to endure, in that moment I was more afraid with the knowledge that I’d be entering a cave that had just been revealed by an avalanche. In hindsight, I should have realised it would have been a mercy if the cave collapsed on us, giving us all swift ends.

I buried Mia’s face against my chest in an effort to shield her from the dust, and closed my eyes. For several minutes I stood in my own darkness until I began to hear several awe filled gasps. Mia freed herself and I opened my eyes.

Behind the recently made pile of settled rubble, stood a dark gaping cave. All I could see of its interior was the utter darkness that had last been seen by Salome herself, albeit with a child crying as it ran back inside. What happened to that child, and whether it would be waiting for us within that dark, made my stomach churn.

Suffian stepped forward, clapping his hands vigorously. It was the first and last time I’d ever see him with a smile on his face. “Well done!” he praised the drillers, slapping them on the back. He turned to address the gathered expeditioners. “Two years it has taken us to get to this point. It’s time to see what treasure lies within!” He gestured for us all to follow him, and with hesitant steps, Mia and I walked towards the tomb.

With all the rubble strewn in front of it, the only way we could enter was on our hands and knees. Suffian entered first, followed by Hamza, Milad, then us.

I helped Mia as we scraped our knees along the rubble and came to Milad’s side when we had crossed the threshold. He stood there, trembling violently as he stared into the dark depths of the cave, mumbling prayers in his native tongue. I shared his fear, and in line with Salome’s account, was expecting to be lifted into the air and thrown against the rock by invisible forces at any moment.

“Well, what are you waiting for, Hamza, light it up!” Suffian demanded.

I could hear Hamza fumble at his belt. He flicked on a torch that shone with a light that was dimmer than I expected.

But it was bright enough.

He pointed it into the void before us, revealing the first row of four small child sized sarcophagi. Mia threw her hand to her mouth and gasped, but I was too shocked to make a sound. They were exactly as I had pictured them in Salome’s account, with one slight difference. On the left most sarcophagus, I noticed a brief inscription written in Hebrew, something that Salome might have easily overlooked. I nudged Mia to see if she could translate it for me, but her attention was fixed on the wall next it. I squinted my eyes in an effort to see what had fixated her so.

 Now, I gasped. Etched into the wall above that inscribed sarcophagus, was a face.

An infant’s face, scrunched into a wail.

 It was so startling that I impulsively took a step back. The reason I had not noticed it right away was because it was formed out of varying features upon the rock wall itself. The blend of the varying colours of the rock, gave the face a rotting look. It was there, but it wasn’t there. A combination of fluke and intention.

I wrapped an arm around Mia’s trembling shoulder. “He looks like he’s in so much pain,” she said.

I pointed to the inscription on the sarcophagus. “What does it say?”

With great effort, Mia tore her gaze away from the face and read the inscription. She stifled a sob. “We, the murdered.”

I let out a long shaky breath and closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them, I would be in a beach resort.

The light went out and then back on again. Once again it went out and I could hear Hamza cursing as he tapped the torch against his knee a few times. He turned it back on, yet the light remained as dim as the light from a candle.

“You stupid idiot!” Suffian snapped as he cuffed Hamza over the head. “You knew we were coming into a fucking cave and didn’t bring a good torch?”

Hamza stuttered. “But I charged it and tested it before we came down here. It should light this entire place up like it was day!”

Suffian turned to the rest of the crew who had all now entered. “Turn on your lights, dammit! What do you think this is, a walk in the park?”

But most of the newcomers were already adorned with head torches and hand-held ones, all having been turned on before they had even entered the tomb. But, like Hamza’s military grade device, theirs too shone with a dim light that was only strong enough to penetrate a few feet before them. Suffian was beside himself in anger, lashing out at them all for being so careless.

I knew his anger was unjustified. Something was evidently causing the dimness in the torches.

“Half of you with torches walk at the lead, the rest walk at the rear, keeping the light on us who don’t have,” Suffian ordered. The crew shuffled into their positions, and before long we began to delve deeper into the tomb.

With each row of four tiny sarcophagi we passed, Mia tightened her grip on my hand. She barely looked ahead, too fixated was her gaze upon the walls on either side.

It turned out that there were two faces on each row, one on each side, each showcasing a unique individual, varying in age from infant to young toddler. Unless you looked closely, the features would have remained hidden by the rock, which I’m sure had been the experience for the rest of the crew, for none, not even Suffian, pointed them out. Even Mia had been evaded of seeing the full scale of these faces. When we passed the fifth row, I noticed additional faces on both the roof and floor of each row. The same inscription - we the murdered - occurred on every left most sarcophagus. I understood the theme at once. They were the very faces of the murdered children occupying those sarcophagi. I kept this observation to myself, saving Mia from an unnecessary addition to her unease.

My small mercy would be only short lived.

We reached the 12th row, and it was here where the uneasiness began to evaporate under the intense heat of growing terror.

Salome had mentioned two variations of the remains within the catacombs that lined the walls along the furthest half of the tomb; One where the severed limbs were stacked tightly to fill in the space, the other where the severed heads were arranged in a chain, connected by a rotting severed arm that had been placed in the mouth of each head.

What we were looking at now, was far more disturbing than I could have ever imagined. Each catacomb slot was lined with the mummified heads of men who looked as though they had died maybe a year ago, not two millennia! Their faces were grey and shrivelled, yet, their blank eyes had somehow survived the test of time, looking like dried out pickled white onions. They seemed to stare at us with an expression of exasperation.

Above them, another inscription was scratched into the rock all over the place, and looking more like graffiti then anything formal.

I asked Mia for her translation.

She replied, “We stole their lives, they steal our rest.”

I shuddered.

The torch wielding crew at the head of our procession suddenly halted, all of them gasping and some even taking a step backward. Two of Milad’s Archaeologists turned and emptied their guts next to the small sarcophagi at their feet. Hamza pointed his torch towards what had prompted their gorge.

It shone upon the most horrifying thing I had ever seen.

Within the spaces between the four sarcophagi of the 13th row, four sentries stood, made entirely out of conjoined limbs. Three pairs of legs were s...

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1hxql22/we_discovered_the_tomb_of_the_children_taken_from/