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No way out.
With nothing but a pounding heart and a dying torch for companions, you realize how much irony can be a bitch. Sure, you've always been a superstitious guy, but irony is something you've never given much thought until you find yourself trapped in a chamber full of gold.
Gold that you'll never be able to spend. Son of a bitch.
Think back to that moment in the free desert air, when you loaded your treasure onto that lousy camel and prepared to ride off back to Cairo. Think back to that moment of golden opportunity—gold puns side—when freedom was just a camel ride away. You could have taken off running like you always do, but no, no, you just had to go back inside for more loot—you selfish bastard.
And just look where you are now. Some victory, isn't it? After screwing people over your whole life, you finally went and screwed yourself.
You were supposed to be the smart one. Smarter than O'Connell and those gun-loving cowboys. Smart enough to save your own neck and survive, remember? Yes, irony is a real pain in the ass, there is no doubt about that. The one time you didn't turn tail and run like the cowardly rat you are, you wind up trapped with a torch that's fading by the second.
Listen to that. Hear the scuttling of those bugs headed your way?
This day keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?
Oh, you should pray at a time like this? Sure, you could pray your ass off to every single god you've ever heard of, but all the prayers in the world will not save you now. A starving horde of scarab beetles wouldn't have mercy on you anyway, even if you did plead in the language of the slaves.
Serving Imhotep may have made you immune to his wrath, but this is no walking, talking mummy headed toward you. This is the wrong place, at the wrong time, with no way out. If Imhotep was still around, he would probably be laughing at you right now.
If the bastard knew how to laugh, that is.
Why you? Why couldn't it be someone else trapped down here without an escape route? But of course you have the answer to that question. You are not worth a damn, and you know it. Is anybody out there really going to miss your sorry ass if you never see the light of day again? Is anyone going to care if your bones rot down here forever?
Of course not. You're not O'Connell, after all.
People would miss O'Connell.
Your old friend and constant bane of your existence. The guy would have helped you out of here if he could, past circumstances be damned, and you've got to admit that O'Connell has got something in spite of his blundering and bravado and bad habit of throwing you around. O'Connell is a decent guy, and decent guys are the ones who get missed.
You, on the other hand, are always on the wrong side of the river, one way or another.
Wrong side of the blanket, wrong side of the tracks, wrong side of this goddamn stupid wall that's crawling by the thousands with bugs.
And they're getting closer.
People have always told you that your past misdeeds would bite you in the ass someday, but you were always too busy running to give those words any heed. Now there's nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide, and you wish you could strangle the bastard who invented irony because he sure as hell hasn't done you any favors.
Maybe you can tell him personally if you see him in Hell.