Chapter 1
Egypt, In the era of the Old Kingdom, 2626 BCE
Black had filled the sky as the chanting began. That thick noise that reverberated off the nearby waters.
"'Hotep, 'Hotep, 'Hotep". Constant and incessant.
The sounds grew louder. They must be coming towards me but I am stuck. Stuck between the fear of what is nearing closer and the fear of what, if I flee, will be the last thing I shall ever see in this world. The madness which lurks in the darkest corners of universe. A psychedelic trip, into the depths of insanity, pleasure and despair. To look upon the face of damnation and accept the only real thing it can offer.
To cast away the meshy shell that simply restricts you from unlocking your full potential. To recede into the shadows and to forget.
The world.
Friends.
Family.
Life.
To know only the black which surrounds so unsteady a flame as the human race.
I must either accept the madness or let them do it for me. If they catch me, they will offer me up to it, unwillingly or not. Sacrifice is necessary to ensure prosperity.
I must accept my fate. I am His now.
I turn and look upon the end. It is sweet...
England, 20th Century, 1922 CE
That is what disturbed Alec most when he awoke - lathered in a thick layer of sweat - how sweet death tasted. How much he knew he wanted it.
Alec had turned 27 only last month, but he felt no different. No older. His mind would not let him progress past the days of the war. He relived them everyday he had the good fortune to take breath. This age of prosperity made him feel ill; knowing what it all cost. People danced in the streets and boozed away the memories: fathers, sons, all forgotten. The first strand of light trailed across the land before plunging its way through the window and knitting itself into Alec's eyes. He squinted at the intensity of it. Alec always woke up before dawn. Forever plagued with the same dream; the same nightmare. It was there to welcome him to the next day and would be there again to watch him depart. It was his beginning and end, his alpha and omega. When his family left him, it stayed. When his wife left him, it stayed. When his mind left him during the night, it stayed to fill the void.
Such an existence is detestable, Alec thought. He had often toyed with the idea of ending it all, but as much as he believed he wanted to, he could never quite let go of his life. So the pills stayed in the cupboard, the knifes stayed in the kitchen and the length of rope - he had bought in a spout of depression after coming back from the war to find his wife had left him - stayed, sagging from a beam on his apartment ceiling, above a chair.
A desk was positioned in the middle of the room and on it lay a book. A blank book, filled with what it had seen through the years. Alec had bought it before the war and has never written a word in it. He had never thought of anything worth writing, or more importantly, worth reading. Why else would you right anything, if not to have someone read it?
Alec was a mortician. He enjoyed it there, most of his friends are dead anyway, so cadavers provided a link to them, one which he was grateful for. Being in the dungeon, as he called it, was a relief. He didn't need to meet new people; connect with them; learn to love them for the imperfect beings they are only to find they fade away, into the endless waters of time and the abyss beyond. He deals with the dead.
The living will get their turn.
Every morning is the same: he stands; gets dressed into his work suit (only to take half of it off again once he gets to the Morgue); brushes his teeth – and if he doesn't have any toothpaste, well, no matter, he will just use the same powdery substance he often uses on the teeth of the dead. On his worse days, he would linger besides the chair, stair at the shadow the noose flung across the floor, before inevitably leaving for work anyway. It was a pointless exercise but one he did so that, for just one second, he could believe believed that his death, his life, was his choice. A foolish assumption?
By the time he left the house, the sun had hidden itself behind a set of dark grey clouds, only to be seen again once the ground grew colder and failed to evaporate the skies vapours. Rain falls and slowly but surely the sun can be seen through the translucency of the remaining clouds.
A wonderful piece of science, he mused. How far technology and the search for new, relevant information had progressed during the war. Science strained to enlighten those blinded by the propaganda of religion. What started as simple whispers of knowledge in a dark age has now become a force to reckon with. He got into his Ford and drove through the thin streets that lead to the mortuary, which was located in the basement of the hospital. The mortuary was more than a place of work to him, it was an education. And if he had learned anything from this education it was that, all roads lead to the mortuary, regardless of their intended route.
His car lugged itself over the black streets turbulently. You go away for four years and all of a sudden, the roads have been dug up and replaced, along with the people. The invention of tar macadam was one which spread impetuously during and after the first world war when cities had to be reconstructed. It was new and new was frightening by all accounts.
The doors to the hospital grew ominously taller as the car inched closer until they seemed to be looming above Alec; watching as he entered. The night-shift secretary was still there, waiting for that bitch of a day-shift secretary to get to work on time for once. Tired and on little pay, she was half asleep and only gave a jaded flick of the hand to Alec as he signed in and trekked down the stairs to his office. There were no files on his table. That usually meant nothing, but it did give him hope for a relatively quiet day. One with less paper work than usual might be nice. Today was an unusual day, however. Today there would only be one body. It would appear late into his shift and remain with him late into the night.