I lick my lips as I watch the timer count down from ten... Nine... Eight...

A bead of sweat drips down from my eyebrow causing me to wince within my binoculars yet I hold my gaze steadfast. Seven... Six...

Gulping, I plug in the homemade wax, shoving it as deep into my ear canal as possible, shutting out the world. Five... Four...

A swarm of mosquitoes buzz around me, as my clothes hug my skin tight, the broad leaves shrouding me doing little to stave off the humidity of the jungle. Three...

I wriggle my toes in my boots. I grimace as they slosh around in a puddle of my own sweat. Two...

I lower my binoculars. One...

I hold my breath.

The world flashes white before me.

For a second everything stands still but then, even through the blockade, a whistle of splintering screeches pierce at my eardrums, threatening to stab me deaf. A suffocating stench of sulfur invades my nostrils no matter how much air I blow out of my nose and I struggle for balance as tremors run through my legs. Trees upon trees collapse closer to the site of destruction only enhancing the tornado of dust and as I wipe the wind blown soot off of my grimy face I can only help but crack a grin. Behind the zone of devastation was the doorway to riches. The gate to El Dorado.

I stand patiently as the universe calms down from its rampage, waiting until the flocks of birds return to their perch, watching as the turmoil settles. I don't know how long I stand for as my blood is scavenged by a multitude of insects with a grin plastered on my face but I do know that the City of Gold had waited for much longer and that I could wait longer still. I had searched a lifetime and then spent another unearthing it. Eons ticked by as I dug each stone block from its burial place and eons more slid past as the jungle grew only larger, hiding the city within. Patience was not a problem. I had all the patience in the world. The problem was time. The problem was that I had too much time. The problem was the curse of immortality.

Many people believe that El Dorado was merely a legend that arose in the fifteenth century but by that time, the empire was already on the verge of collapse. It was then that I was on the throne. A foolish king whose naivety led to a literal downfall of his kingdom.

I was warned when the conquistadors arrived. I had the power to stop them. To prevent my people from falling prey. To annihilate the threat, yet I was smitten by the outside world. I was engrossed with the greener grass on the other side. I was then cursed to live in the purgatory until the resurrection of my lineage. The resurrection of El Dorado.

But I was stubborn. I did not listen to my elders so I faced the consequences. I watched as my land burned, the soil bleeding corruption. My city crumbled and so did my people along with it. Everything decayed yet I remained. I remained to watch as my heritage wasted away into urbanisation. I watched a cities and skyscrapers erected themselves upon the holy grounds. I watched as technology advanced only to be destroyed by not one, not two, but three world wars. I watched as the fallout destroyed the world. I watched as humanity cowered into the farthest corners of the glove. I watched. I merely watched. 

Eventually, the forests reclaimed the earth and my land was returned to me. I was isolated for millennium yet I learned the severity of my mistakes. The pain of the past. The hurt of loneliness. It wasn't always like that. There were good times. Times where I went to a university once. Times where I owned a business. Times where I once ran a country as well. Times where I fell in love. But they are all times. Times in the past. Time which I cannot ever return. Times that will haunt me until death do we part.

With the time my memory grew hazy and I forgot my namesake. I upturned desert after dessert. Mountains after mountains. Forests after forests. Everything and anything until I found my lost city. My lost city of riches. My city buried under the jungle. I had waited a long time yet in that time I had forgotten the entrance. It did not matter. What I lacked in memory I gained in imagination and if there was anything I learned in exile, it was how to open things up. In other words; I learned how to make dynamite.

With several doctorates in chemistry and engineering, it didn't take me long to create a few gigs tonnes of explosives. A couple hundred years tops but when you're unearthing a city, the time goes by pretty fast. Compared to that, the view before me clears faster than the speed of a cheetah and I remember why I came here in the first place. I didn't come here to reminisce about the past. I came here to restore my birthright. I came here to die.

Swatting away the insect frosting at my skin, I withdraw my earplugs and in then take out my machete. There was a time where we had robots to do this for us yet there's nothing like going bavk to the basics. There's nothing quite like chopping down branch after branch as adrenaline pumps through your body. There's nothing like the excitement of finally having something to look forward too!

I get nearer and nearer to the city of riches leaving a trail of deforestation in my wake. It's almost nostalgic, bringing back memories from when I was an environmentalist but with humanity almost brought to the brink of extinction, I don't suppose it's that much of a problem now, especially when most of the trees had already collapsed by themselves. Then again, it was an aftereffect of the explosion earlier which I myself rigged but meh... I can always apologise when I'm dead. When I'm dead - a dream come true.

The gaping hole only magnifies as I continue my pursuit of death. It's almost ironic. All this time I've roamed the earth, everyone has been searching fervently for the fountain of youth, the holy grail, the elixir of immortality but all this time I've been dying to be dead. Get it? I guess not. Even my sense of humour has died before me.

The sudden ocean of darkness blockades my train of thought as I descend into the breach I made. Each step causing an echo serving as a trajectory for my path. It has been so long since I had been home that I forgot how dark and chilly it gets. Nonetheless, I came prepared and as I fish around in my backpack, I pull out a torch illuminating the dilapidated hallways. I suck in a breath at the decayed sight and squeeze the bridge of my nose. If I knew it would have aged this well then I wouldn't have spent the past hundred years scavenging materials for this exhibition.

Row upon row of wooden stakes line the wall only separated by fine portraits of my ancestors and landscape paintings. I trace my fingers along the forgotten ruins remembering a time when I could read the ancient language, something now as lost to me as it was to the rest of the world. I feel a pang in my chest as I realise the weight of this knowledge. Everything was now lost to the world and there was a time when I could have been too. A time which will soon approach.

Clenching my hand into a fist, I take steady paces forward, scanning the long corridors for any signs of traps that I had laid out thousands of years beforehand. Rolling boulders, arrows slots and primitive bead traps came to mind. None of them lethal to am immortal, however, immortal or not, pain is very much the same.

As if cursing my own luck, I suddenly feel the ground beneath me vanish and before I know it, my body is ransacked with bruises as I get thrown about an ancient chute to one of our many prisons. Jagged stones pierce my flesh as I continue my descend and I feel my blood streak the walls scarlet as I get plunged into a rollercoaster of pain. Each twist and turn in the chute tatters my worn out clothes even further and I hear a crack as I land on a mattress of spikes.

I feel the metallic thorns dig into my skin as my ragged breath slowly returns to my body. The pain is unbearable but even death is not a release. With a groan, I slowly pluck myself from the crimson soaked stalagmites, blood seeping from the holes now littering my body. I feel woozy as my lifeblood drains from me but even this is not enough to kill me. Heck, this isn't even enough to knock me unconscious. It's a pain in the butt, quite literally, but when you've taken a nuke directly to the face your endurance builds up significantly although I wish my pain tolerance would follow suit.

Suddenly, I hear a small giggle from the other side of the prison chamber and flashing my light towards it I see that it's none other than a damsel. A damsel who somehow mysteriously seems to have entered a missing city that has been untouched for millennia. A damsel dressed in white. I open my mouth to speak but all that comes out is a gargle but before I can clear my throat of the clotting blood, the damsel had raced off down a corridor. I scratch my head in surprise, albeit as uncomfortable as anything. During my hunt for El Dorado I've come across my fair share of lost cities including Shangri La and Atlantis but so far I've never come across a mysterious damsel, let alone a damsel dressed in pure white down to the very obvious bones.

Careful not to stab myself on any further projectiles, I hobble towards the corridor I just witnessed the damsel disappear into. When I get there though, the damsel is missing which I suppose is pretty obvious. It wasn't like I expected her to wait for me to get down on one knee or anything. But corny jokes aside; who was she and why did she seem more skeleton than human?

Closing my eyes in thought I slowly begin to find myself aware of a steady rhythm in the distance. Opening my eyes I'm also met with a slightly purple hue at the end of the corridor. Perhaps I'm hallucinating. Perhaps it's due to the poison on the stakes I was pierced with. Or perhaps this is my ticket out of this life.

Taking steps im the direction of the music, I come to an abrupt halt when the floor suddenly ends. I feel my jaw drop at the view before me. I don't know how to describe it but at worst it looks like a mashup between the concerts of all the boybands who had ever lived and the largest rave on earth. I had witnessed this before as a child only once and as long as it continues I won't be able to do anything.

Jinxing myself once again, I feel a bony hand grasp my ankle pulling me into the abyss of the party. There's no resisting. There is no escape. This is something that will last forever untouched my the hand of time.

The day of the dead.

There is no stopping this madness...