Portrait of a Pharaoh • Ahkmenrah x Reader (NATM) ✔️

Chapter 8 | signs of weakness.

You'd arrived a little earlier tonight, you had your class early in the morning and submitted your portrait. So you had time to kill all afternoon and ended up at the museum earlier than usual.

So early in fact, the day staff were still there. And knowing you weren't actually meant to be in the museum and night, and Larry had been sneaking you in like the madlad he was, you inconspicuously waited outside the gates on the bench acting as if you were just waiting for a bus or something. But eventually the day staff all left, and as the sun was setting, Larry showed up for his shift.

"You're here early" he commented, walking up to the entrance.

"I didn't have anything to do today apart from submit a portrait so I figured I'd come early" you replied.

"You know at this rate I should just get you hired as a night guard too"

"If I didn't have days with late classes I'd totally do that"

Unlocking the door and getting inside, the museum was silent. Completely silent, kind of eerie. You hadn't been in before it came to life since your first night here, and you had head phones on that day so you didn't hear the silence. But such a big empty space, completely quiet, it uncanny in a way.

"Man, it's so... empty when no one is alive yet" you muttered.

"It's definitely got that liminal space feel, the lack of people walking around makes it pretty eerie sometimes" Larry replied.

He unlocked the security office to put his stuff down and grab everything he needed for a usual shift, and for the first time you got to look around the office. You just hadn't thought to poke around before now, but it seemed pretty organised apart from a desk full of paperwork.

"Security guards have paperwork?" You questioned.

"Yeah, incident reports. If someone tries to get in or the security alarm goes off it has to be documented" Larry replied, tossing his coat on the back of a chair.

There were some shelves with files and history books on it. A collection of mugs for coffee or tea at midnight, some stationary and a computer. The usual office you'd expect from a security guard. In one of the half open drawers, you spotted Ahks sketchbook you'd given him, and some of the drawings the exhibits had done. So that's where they were hiding away from the day staff.

"Oh by the way, might wanna clip your keys to your belt or something rather than leaving them loose in your pocket. Dexter steals them" Larry added.

"Of course he does, he's cheeky that monkey" you snickered, fastening the loop around your belt securely so they wouldn't be stolen by any meddling monkeys "How was last night? Everyone cope without me, their favourite visitor?"

"It went pretty normal, not much ha-"

Larry was cut off by the sound of an alarm going off. Signalling someone had been detected on the security system that he'd turned on moments ago.

"What the? It's not even wake time yet?" He muttered, grabbing his flashlight and keys to see what was going on.

Of course, you followed. You had to know what was going on too, someone break in? A day employee forget something and tried to come back?

Larry looked at the alarm system on the wall, saying motion was detected down by the taped off construction area. Turning off the blaring alarm you both went right down the hall to see what was going on, that door should be locked and blocked off since there was construction happening behind it. Approaching the door you didn't see anything, it all looked normal. The tape was in its place and the door was closed and locked.