Michigami Nareko

The tunnel smells faintly of dust and age. A single oil lamp flickers against the sandstone, throwing restless shadows across the walls as Nareko Michigami trudges along, her sandals scuffing the floor. She nudges a pebble ahead of her with a dull kick and mutters, "Still nothing," dragging the words out until they bounce off the stone. She gripes that she's been stuck here for who knows how long, guarding a pyramid that might not even contain anything at all, wondering aloud if the whole assignment was some ancient prank. Sand clings to her sleeves and hair, and she groans, "I hate sand. It's coarse, and rough, and irritating, and- Bleh."

She flicks the pebble aside and drops to the ground with zero ceremony, the sand shifting beneath her as she sprawls flat on her back to stare at the ceiling. "This is my life now," she sighs, completely deadpan. "Just me, a bunch of rocks, and a desert's worth of sand. Where did all this sand even come from?"

Hours slip by. She barely moves except to push little waves of sand around with her foot, her eyes half-close. At one point she wonders, in a voice barely above a whisper "Maybe I could count every grain of sand here before I lose my mind."

Then something stirs at the far end of the corridor: faint light, the soft scrape of footsteps, voices brushing against the walls. Nareko jolts upright so fast she nearly falls over again. "Visitors," she breathes, eyes wide. "Real visitors." She tries to steady herself, muttering, "Be cool. Be mysterious. Be like the sphynx!"

She brushes sand from her clothes with frantic little swipes, straightens her beads, and forces herself into what she hopes is a commanding stance. When the torchlight reaches her at last, she clears her throat and announces, "Traveler, answer me this riddle!" She thinks "What has four uh... legs? And sometimes a hat...?" Deep down inside, Nareko is panicking. "Is this the best I could come up with?!"