The Mommy's Curse

Author's Note

This is my submission for the

Literotica Halloween Story Contest 2024

. I really enjoyed writing this one, so I hope you guys enjoy it. Also, as a little warning this will include a female character that becomes a futanari/shemale/dickgirl, or whatever you want to call it. If that isn't your thing then I recommend skipping this one. Enjoy!

The Mommy's Curse

Mesopotamia, known as one of, if not the first true civilization. It was a subject of great interest to Jessica, working on her dissertation being proof of that. She loved the field research aspect of archaeology, like most people, she was sure. What she hated was the late nights spent cataloguing and organizing artefacts found out in the field.

Even worse was cataloguing in the middle of the night down in a musty basement storage area of her university. She knew that she needed to put in the work. For all of the fantastic highs she felt discovering things out in the field, she had to deal with all of the monotony of paperwork.

Jessica was fine doing the reading and investigating for her research, at least she was working towards something. But all of the clerical nitty gritty was just so far removed from her dream of being a world-famous archaeologist.

Her Professor, Dr. Holden, was a man famous for his discoveries regarding Babylon and Sumerian culture. While Jessica was ecstatic to be working under him, being that he was a rockstar in her niche of the world of archaeology, she also began to understand the phrase "never meet your heroes."

It had only been a little over 4 months of working with him, and Jessica was coming dangerously close to just giving up and starting over working with someone else. But she knew that would just reset whatever progress she had already made.

Only a few weeks after Jessica started her work with Dr. Holden, she found out he was a bit of a misogynist; thinking women shouldn't be out in the field with their "weak constitutions.," he only took her on due to diversity laws saying he can't only work with male Ph.D. Candidates.

So, with all of that in mind, Jessica often surprised herself at how resilient she was concerning Dr. Holden.

"One of these days I'm gonna kick his ass if he tells me another reason why women should just work on the typing and busywork." Jessica grumbled to herself, all the while writing a description of an old Sumerian farming tool.

Looking towards the clock, Jessica saw that it was 15 minutes after midnight, and she was just barely halfway done with the work. She groaned and closed her eyes, cursing her professor for pushing all of the boring work onto her.

"I need to finish this tonight, but at this rate I'm gonna be here until, like, 5 in the morning." Jessica said, rubbing her eyes with her palms in a sign of frustration and boredom.

While her eyes were closed, she heard her phone vibrate on the desk. Picking it up she saw a text from her professor.

"Make sure you move that sarcophagus over to the dry room; I don't want to be blamed for you forgetting to make sure it doesn't get damaged by the humidity of that basement!"

Jessica could not believe what she was reading. Not only would she need to move a heavy stone sarcophagus down one floor into the dry room - used to ensure preservation of many types of artefacts - she was also gonna take the blame if she didn't manage to get it done tonight along with her cataloguing.

"I swear to fuck..., I wish I could strangle that old bastard!" Jessica stood up abruptly, pacing as she fumed about all of the shit her professor put her through.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the black stone sarcophagus, covered in a water-resistant transparent tarp. While it was on a dolly, which would allow her to move it, it was still a heavy-ass piece of black stone. She was a 5'7" out of shape archeology postgrad, she wasn't made to haul around heavy shit.

"I might as well get started on this right now, otherwise I'm gonna put it off until the last minute, only to end up fucking something up because I

always

need to rush through stuff." Jessica said to herself, wallowing in self-pity.

Jessica needed to roll the hunk of rock over to the industrial elevator, go down one floor, then navigate through a few long hallways to get to the dry room that was all the way in the back. That would only be the beginning, she would then need to enter the air lock, put on a clean suit, ensure she wasn't bringing any contaminants in with her, then she could put the sarcophagus into its designated spot.

Jessica sighed, putting her hands on the rail of the flat bed dolly. Putting her weight into it, she pushed the heavy object slowly gaining speed as it's momentum grew. She could already tell with how hard it was to get it moving, that she would need to be ready to stop it before she reached the elevator.

Like she noted as she reached the elevator, she had to dig her shoes into the ground and slide to a stop, inches away from hitting the elevator door.

"Holy shit that was close..." Jessica gasped for air, cursing her lack of exercise.

Pressing the elevator button, she waited for the very slow elevator to arrive at her floor. She sat on the floor for a moment so she could catch her breath. Pulling out her phone she scrolled through social media.

Right behind her was the sarcophagus laying silently on the dolly. At the time Jessica didn't notice it, but if you listened closely, you could hear a heartbeat coming from within.

~*~

Somehow managing to get the heavy artefact into the elevator without damaging anything, Jessica made her way down, again having to wait to slowly descend one floor.

Finally making it to the bottom, she was able to leverage a push off of the elevator wall in order to get a much needed boost to the dolly. She was making decent time now, but she had to be careful since some of these hallways weren't very wide.

At one point, not paying much attention while having to push, she didn't notice that the sarcophagus was blocking her view of an upcoming T-junction at the end of the hall.

"Oh Shit!" Jessica yelled has she tried her hardest to slow the dolly down, but like she mentioned earlier, she was trying to rush again and was going too fast to stop in time.

The sarcophagus hit the wall with a loud THUNK, some cracking noises following.

"Oh shit, oh shit, why the fuck didn't I pay more attention, I'm gonna be blamed for this even though this is not a one-person job for a small girl." Jessica groaned, angry that she even called herself a "small girl", feeling like she was proving her professor right about women.

She pulled the dolly back a bit, needing to assess the damage. Looking closely at the transparent tarp covering the ancient artefact, she saw some rips in the material, along with a huge crack along the end that made contact with the wall.

With a groan Jessica decided she would finish taking this to the dry room, then she would need to contact her professor to let him know what happened.

"I bet he'll even leverage this against me to get me kicked out of the program." Jessica thought out loud.

Finally pushing the dolly into the airlock of the dry room, she quickly donned the clean suit. Then took a vacuum hose and ran it over the tarp to remove any excess dust and debris.

Once clean she was let into the room. The room wasn't too large, only being used as storage for the University's most prized objects. She saw a good enough spot to leave the burdensome object. Rolled it over into a corner, only to lightly tap one of the shelves with the cracked end of the stone.

"God dammit... that ones 100% my fault." Jessica admitted, not even wanting to see if she caused further damage. "I'm out of here, I need to finish of the stupid cataloguing. Professor Holden is not likely even gonna answer a call from me this early." Jessica debated even finishing the job, pretty sure she was gonna get kicked out of her post-grad program. "Why do I even care about finishing this?"

Even with that said, she made her way back up one floor to the desk she was working at previously. "In the off chance that I'm not kicked out, I should finish this..." Jessica sighed again, her eyes already tired of looking at the work she needed to finish.

~*~

It was close to six in the morning when Jessica walked into the door of her small studio apartment. Her eyelids felt like they where being pulled down by weights. Bleary-eyed she made her way to her bed where she promptly faceplanted down onto it, passing out before she even made contact.

~*~

Down in the cleanroom shortly after Jessica had left

The room was eerily quiet, the only sound being the closed-circuit ventilation system. That and the sound of a heartbeat growing ever louder. The sound was coming from the sarcophagus. The crack at the foot of it seemed to shed of more material as it widened. The sound grew, vibrating the room with every thump. If anyone were in the room at the time they would have felt the pressure waves smacking against their bodies as the deep bassy sound of a heartbeat eroded the cracks in the sarcophagus, causing them to break down.

The sarcophagus then began to shake violently, as though a wild animal were trying to escape its confines. After a few moments, the violent thrashing stopped along with the heartbeat. The room once again became silent.

Suddenly the sealed lid of the sarcophagus thumped. Then again, and again, as though it was being hit from within. After a few more of these hits the cracks in the lid began to give way, bulging outward and tearing the transparent tarp.

Finally, with one might strike, the lid flew off like the cap of a pressurized bottle. The room sat still once more as the dust began to settle.

A hand rose up, grabbing the edge of the sarcophagus. Obscured by the dust was a humanoid figure, eyes glowing light the embers of a dying fire. A voice escaped it, dry and raspy, in a language that had not been spoken for thousands of years.

The being rose from it's resting place, it's silhouette appearing thin and lanky. The dim lighting of the room wouldn't reveal any details, but this person seemed to be wearing old rags all over it's body. The eyes were the only distinct thing that could be made out as they scanned the unfamiliar environment. Again, it spoke, it's raspy voice echoing off of the walls, it held a hand over its stomach as a low growling noise escaped it. The sounds could be recognized as hunger pangs, but most would instead think it was the growl of a tiger stalking its prey.

The being's eyes brightened with determination, as it made its way to the airlock of the dry room.

~*~

Jessica's phone began to ring, waking her from her deep slumber.

"Shut up! I'm trying to sleep here!" She mumbled, blindly reaching around for where she thought her phone was. Once she managed to grab it, she looked at the screen where her eyes widened as she realized it was her professor.

She answered the call, "Jessica! Where the hell are you! What the hell happened last night?" Professor Holden yelled at her. Jessica looked at the time, noting it was just after 9am, it appeared she only slept for maybe 3 hours at the most.

"I'm sorry sir, but the sarcophagus was really heavy, but it only tapped the wall so it should be fine." Jessica tried to de-escalate the situation, but this seemed to only infuriate her professor more.

"Yeah, right you 'tapped it' against the wall! It's utterly destroyed!" the professor yelled, then continued, not giving her room to speak, "This goes beyond just a little accident, not only will you likely be kicked out of our program, but you are also going to be liable for the damages to an artefact that we spent time and money on retrieving! You are in deep shit missy!"

Jessica was now becoming furious with how he was talking to her. "You know what, you can go fuck yourself! There is no way you are gonna sue me over one little crack on the sarcophagus, as for the program, you can shove it right up your misogynistic ass! Go. Fuck. Yourself!" Jessica screamed into her phone as she hung up and threw it at the wall pretty hard.

Jessica put her face into her pillow and sobbed at how he had just treated her. "Over one little crack, how could he be so cold?" Jessica asked herself, in shock, over the conversation she had just had.

Her phone chimed on the floor, indicating she received a message. With a sigh she got up to see it was a message from her professor. Before she was about to ignore it, she saw that there was an image attached.

Jessica's eyes widened in shock as she looked at the image. It was the sarcophagus, or at least what remained of it. It looked like a stick of dynamite had gone off in it, multiple pieces where strewn about the room.

"I didn't do that!"

she typed to her former professor.

"If you didn't then who did? We can't even use the security camera footage because somehow it has become completely corrupted. So now it's your word against mine."

Professor Holden responded, making Jessica's blood run cold as she realized he was right, it wouldn't matter what she said.

"Please don't do this, how could I even do this? It looks like a bomb went off inside it!"

Jessica replied frantically.

"Might as well relax for now because I'll be starting the process for your removal from both the school and my program! You'll also need to wait a bit for me to arrange legal action against you. Good day, Jessica."

Jessica once again threw her phone against her wall; this time it cracked as it left a small dent in the wall. She was sure she just permanently fucked up her phone.

"Why is this happening to me? I didn't do anything wrong!" Jessica sunk down to the floor, tears dropping from her eyes and landing on the floor.

Once her tears dried, she decided she was just gonna go back to sleep since she would no longer need to go to her school, in fact she realized she was likely going to be sued and blacklisted by her professor, since he was very much respected in the archeological world.

Not wanting to think about how quickly everything went to shit, she flopped onto her bed again and passed out.

~*~

Jessica awoke with a start as she heard banging on her front door.

"Please don't let that be lawyers here to serve me?" she grumbled wiping the sleep from her eyes. Looking at her alarm clock she saw it was almost 5pm. "Holy shit, I didn't think I was going to sleep that long." Jessica said.

Again, the banging on her door continued, when Jessica heard a voice as well.

"Jessica! Why aren't you answering your phone?" a familiar female voice yelled on the other side of her door.

Jessica knew who it was right away. She went to her front door and pulled it open. At her door stood her next-door neighbor, Melissa. She looked worried, but still just as hot as usual - Jessica had quite the crush on her, but knew that Melissa had a boyfriend, and wasn't likely interested in other girls.

"You haven't been answering your phone. I was worried something had happened to you considering what happened at your university." Melissa said, breathing a sigh of relief at seeing Jessica alright.

"You heard about what happened? Well, I hope the bastard Holden rots for all I care." Jessica couldn't help but let her tone drip with venom.

"W-what the fuck are you talking about? Even if you didn't like him, you shouldn't speak ill of the dead like that." Melissa said, her voice low to prevent their conversation from being overheard.

"Dead? What do you mean? I literally was talking to him over the phone at 9am." Jessica felt a shiver go down her spine. She hoped that Melissa was just playing a prank on her.

"Wait... you haven't seen the news? Where is your phone? You need to look this up." Melissa looked behind Jessica, hinting she wanted to come in.

Jessica let her in and closed the door before bashfully replying, "Umm... so yeah I might have broke my phone because I was so mad at Holden over kicking me out of the program and threatening to sue me." She rubbed the back of her head, not wanting to make eye contact with her neighbor.

"Why were you kicked out?" Melissa asked, a confused look on her face.

Wanting to settle the confusion over what was happening, Jessica grabbed her laptop and booted it up. Once she had her browser open, she searched her professor's name. As the results came in her blood ran cold... there was article after article talking about how Professor Holden was found dead in his office a few hours ago, naked from the waist down, his body dried out like a sun-roasted tomato.

"W-what? I think I'm gonna be sick." Jessica put her hand over her mouth, attempting to steady her breathing.

"What do you think happened to him? You said he was fine around 9am, and now the dude has gone full-on raisin. I don't think a body can even become like that in such a short time." Melissa tried to sus out potential reasons, but Jessica was frozen, unable to comprehend what was happening. Jessica thought back to that exploded sarcophagus, she knew that it housed the mummified body of some important person from ancient Sumerian times, but it was empty in that picture, exploded from the inside out. Jessica shook her head, pushing that ridiculous thought out of her head before she could even consider it.

"Earth to Jessica? What are you gonna do?" Melissa asked as she got Jessica's attention.

"Umm... could I borrow your phone; I need to call the Dean and see what is going on."

Melissa nodded with understanding as she pulled out her phone and gave it to Jessica. Jessica dialed the number of her university's Office of the Dean.

"Hello... yes, this is Jessica Kelly, could I speak with the Dean please?"

~*~

Jessica ended up meeting with the Dean at his office, he thought it necessary that she was informed of what would happen in person. Jessica sat in the waiting room to the Dean's office, twiddling her thumbs and tapping her foot nervously.

"The Dean will see you now, dear." The Dean's secretary told Jessica.

The inside of his office was immaculately decorated, many replicas of things found on archeological expeditions, lead by professors that worked here. The Dean himself sat behind his desk, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked up at Jessica then motioned for her to take a seat.

"So, I understand that this is a terrible situation you've been put in. I was the one that discovered his body in his office. We had a meeting planned, and well the rest you can read online. Now, I'm here to ensure that you continue your post-grad program, it's just going to be through a different professor.

"The unfortunate part of this for you was that Professor Holden was our only expert on Middle Eastern & West Asian ancient cultures." The Dean studied Jessica's nervous look, unsure how to proceed.

Feeling like she was subtly being told to join the conversation Jessica stuttered out a response, "O-oh, well, umm thank you Dean Henries, so what will I do if you don't have anyone to oversee my dissertation?" Jessica asked as more of a formality, her mind slipping back to how her professor died so horribly.

"Today being Wednesday, I'm going to give you the rest of the week to re-center yourself, considering the circumstances. Then on Monday I should have hopefully found someone for you. Fair warning though it's possible that I might only find someone who can instruct you over Zoom calls. In case I cannot find a replacement for Holden's area of expertise." The Dean seemed genuine in his offer of help to her. At first Jessica thought he was just gonna pounce on her about the broken sarcophagus, but she quickly realized that the Dean found Professor Holden dead before they could meet about her

situation.