Chapter 1 Tribulation
Marik Ishtar had been walking alone in the desert for what seemed like hours. The sun just tipped the scales to the western horizon as though Ra's canoe had gathered profound new vigor. The brilliant rays of Ra was still an adjustment to Marik, even though it was now over two years since that fiendish mirage Djinn had coldly murdered his father. Though in retrospect, Marik thought to himself, it was difficult to say who was worse.
His pace slowed as the heat began to make its effects more pronounced on his body. Kneeling with his hands in the scorching sand and sweat dripping furiously from his face. His legs and arms visiably shaking, his heart aching and quaking, and with the onset of his body nearly losing conciousness-he bolted upright. Refusing to fall victim to the privy of his body's weakness.
Striding forward slowly, he at length removed his shirt, allowing the heat to punish him more severly but also for the rare gusts of wind to cool his overheaded body. To Marik, it was a fair trade. Clothed now in his sandals, which were now too small for him, and a tattered kilt in the fashion of his ancient people and the Gods they worshipped.
Marik leaft his home, or tomb (as he always referred to it) late, after the sun was already high in the sky. Against the wishes and advice of Odion and Ishizu, who warned him against trying to go so far in the heat of the day, and much more strongly against going alone. But Marik's pride blinded him, his eagerness proved too strong against the love filled concern of his closest and only family. For this was no ordinary stroll, oh no, this was Mariks' first pilgrimage to the Nile. It has been a fantasy inside his mind since very early in his childhood. To be able to behold its majesty and splendor, to drink of its magical water that has been the lifeblood of his people since time immortal. But most of all to break the taboo that it was a sight that was ever present in his studies and scriptures, but forbidden from his own living eyes.
Every few minutes since he departed Marik would toss a glance over his shoulder to make sure Odion, or anyone else was not following behind. Each time finding nothing though his violet iriss', nothing but lifelessness.
Marik checked the compass the Ishizu had forced him to take.
"Follow the E" she said, as he slightly shifted his stride to due east.
Within a few minutes Marik saw a bristle of water on the distant shimmering horizon. His heart fluttered to his throat and his pace quickened.
"I've finally made it," Marik whispered to himself in a slightly astonished tone.
A great smile came across his face, and all wearyness and exhaust aside, he broke into a run at full speed towards the water. Marik ran harder and faster than he ever had before, and despite his present state, his body did not hinder him.
Marik ran and ran but did not seem to get any closer to the thin line of water that lie beyond, almost as if to mock him. He began to slow down and soon stopped, then at length fell to his knees again with his heart thundering in his ribcage and his vision becoming blurry. He could not understand what was happening, why was he not there yet? It seemed so very close.
He was about to lose consciousness when he had the sudden feeling that he was not alone. Then an echo of a voice murmured softly,
"So you hate me son?"
Marik froze, even his rapidly thundering lungs seemed to stop as his brain did not expect and did not want that familiar voice to pass though the halls of his mind. His mind then kick-started and told him not to look up and that he did not hear anything. Then the voice thundered
"SO YOU HATE ME SON?"
Marik recoiled backwards from the suprise and force of the voice, and saw (and hoped direly not to see) his one and only father. It was an Illusion, Marik knew that, his body was transparent enough to clearly see the shifting sands though him. But nonetheless, Marik's body was gripped strongly in the fierce clutches of fear.
The image he was seeing of his father was similar, yet more dreadful. As though his spirit was suffering greater in the afterlife, and it showed. As he was intensly pale, his clothing in shreads, the skin on his face and body deeply sunken.
"AFTER ALL I HAVE DONE FOR YOU," the spirit of his father bellowed, "AFTER ALL I HAVE TAUGHT, ALL I HAVE BLESSED TO YOU, ALL I HAVE GIVEN AND SACRIFICED, AND THIS IS MY RE-PAYMENT?"
The look in his fathers eyes glinted that same insanity, the same selfish possessiveness.
Marik cleared his throat after a few moments hesitation and returned in proud defiance, "Yes...I hate you father."
As the last word escaped his lips he took in a deep hard intake of air. The face on the image of his father changed to that of even greater despair, but only momentarily, as fresh white-hot anger expelled from him immediately afterwords.
"YOU UN-GREATFUL DISSAPOINTMENT, HOW DARE YOU FORSAKE ME AND YOUR DUTIES."
"I ASKED FOR NONE OF THESE BURDENS," Marik returned, but the pitch of his voice lessened with each word.
His father broke into a new tirade of insults and dogma but Marik could not hear, his ears produced nothing but a dull ring.
His skull began to pound intensly and he felt it was about to burst, his eyes began to blink rapidly a face of his own-but not his own. He convolsed only dry air from his mouth as he sank into oblivion, and lost conciousness on the hot desert sand.
End Chapter 1