“Look out!” Amanda shrieked as she pulled me out before the gigantic boulder flattened me into a pancake.

I stood there in shock and wondered why I had agreed to find the lost treasure of King Mitus, the third. Many great adventurers tried to find mythical, illusive treasure of King Mitus, but died a tragic death.

After knocking sense into myself, Amanda and I joined Cassandra and George at the camp. We told them the long tale of how I was about to become the patty of a burger, and then resumed with the hunt. Now it was almost sundown and the perilous blood-sucking mosquitoes were on the hunt. So we got back to the campsite and ate scrumptious grilled fish. Following the heavy meal, we escorted ourselves to our warm and cosy sleeping bags.

That night I dreamt of how Amanda and I met George and Cassandra. It was quite peculiar; we were at the museum together, in the Persian history exhibit, when we heard two people talking about finding the treasure of King Mitus, after talking to them for just a few seconds, we realised that we were destined to be best friends. Later, we worked together on a project for a few weeks and on the 15th of March, George suggested that we try to find the lost treasure ourselves.

The sun was up and the light interrupted my beautiful slumber and then arrived Amanda, the queen of screams and demanded that I get up. I instantly got up since I knew that there was no need to argue unless I wanted a broken bone.

“It’s time to pack up and move northward, we’re getting closer to the treasure day by day. I have a strong feeling that we’ll be able to find the treasure any day now. I can feel it!” George stated enthusiastically.

I could feel the excitement build up inside me, and it was all because of George. Even a person on his death bed would get up and start moving by George’s motivational speeches.

After packing, we hiked up the perilous mountain and it was definitely not easy. We had to slice through branches which thwarted us from getting to the luring treasure. Up here in the mountains there were more creepy crawlies, twice the size of the ones in the Amazon.

Darkness had now conquered the sky and one could hear the crickets singing lullaby, the jumpy chimpanzees scolding their kids to sleep, the lonely owl hooting for company and, on top of it all, the grey, old moon gazing down at the soporific town of the wild. After enjoying this great gift of God, my eyes grew heavy and the next moment I was asleep.

The next morning was just like regular mornings: Amanda’s tantrums, the glaring sun — but it missed something — George’s ‘motivational’ speeches!

“Hey Amanda! Where’s George?” I asked. I had not realised that Cassandra was missing too, she’s always very quiet so it’s hard to feel her absence.

“I don’t know, I woke up this morning and both of them were missing. Perhaps they’ve gone for a morning walk.”

The sun was almost down and we had spent our whole afternoon hiking up north. We were too far from camp, therefore we planned to rest for a while and then find a good place to sleep. We found a cosy, welcoming tree and decided to rest there.

I woke up to hear two people talking.

“What should we do? What if they’ve already found the treasure!?” it sounded like a girl and the voice seemed familiar

“Relax!” the other one said with another recognisable voice, “They must be at the camp, we’ll get there and burn their tent down with them in it! That way they won’t be able to get the treasure!” Then both of them trampled off.

My heart skipped a beat, the voices belonged to George and Cassandra! They weren’t with us, they were against us! I started shaking Amanda to wake her up. “Get up it is an emergency, we better get out of here!”

“What is it?” she mumbled in her sleep, “Is it a bear?”

“No, it’s something even worse! Get up there’s no time, I’ll tell you on the way!”

“Let’s get to camp first, I’m starving,” said Amanda.

“You don’t understand the urgency! Cassandra and George are against us and they are waiting for us at camp! We can’t go back!”

“Are you in your senses?” Amanda exclaimed.

“I very much am, now come on!” I argued.

We marched through the thick forest without a word and a few moments later, I saw a shiny object under the tree, it looked like a strange-shaped key with something inscribed in old Persian. It was definitely antique but, looked used and cleaned. I wondered if this was finally it — the key to the treasure. Could it be? Happiness and fear rushed through my entire body, was this the end of our mission?

Without thinking I put the key in my pocket and continued to search for a way out.

We finally came to an unusual looking, damp, dark cave and hoped that they won’t be able to find us here. Out of fatigue, my body dropped onto the ground, I closed my eyes and everything was at peace.

I observed the area, it was big enough to hold a thousand hippos and then something tiny and glimmering in a hole caught my eye. I hypnotically moved towards it. It was a door, very old but sturdy, with a handle and a lock. I quickly got up and inserted the key I had found.

The cave shook for a second and then the stone wall diverged and there lay a scrubby old box with ‘All hail King Mitus’ written in Persian.

I looked for Amanda not able to utter a single sound and to my surprise she was not there!

“Amanda!” I shrieked and the last thing I saw was Cassandra before everything turned black.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 28th, 2020