Every night, Malik still felt the pain from the Initiation. He remembered feeling his blood, thick and sticky, running down his tanned back and pooling on the floor. He remembered each incision on his back, slow and precise because Father had to make each symbol perfect. There was something morbid about his father – who had the same scars on his back – bending over his bleeding child and carving the same marks on his back. And Father didn't say anything as he cut. He was silent, methodical; the only hints of his presence were his fingers pressing into Malik's back and the gentle caress of his breath. If it weren't for these hints, Malik would've assumed a ghost was there.

Malik was not silent. He screamed until his throat was raw and he was gagging himself. The rag in his mouth prevented him from forming words, but he could still make loud, painful noises that sounded like a dying animal. In a way, he was a dying animal. He was dying on the stone table; Malik could see his blood and he wondered how much he had left inside him. His vision should have been blurry, but, no, he could see the blood on the floor all too clearly.

If he strained his ears and blocked out his own screaming, Malik could hear Ishizu sobbing to the side. He knew she was somewhere in the room, albeit out of view. Rishid was nowhere to be seen.

After it was all over, he was carried to his room to sleep. Only, Malik couldn't fall asleep. For one, the pain was strong. It pulsed and ached everywhere. The bandages were also itchy, as was the poultice which would never truly heal the cuts. Father had told him that the cuts could only be healed to an extent because the scars had to be readable. The Initiation was sounding more morbid by the second. Malik was also having difficulties falling asleep because he normally slept on his back with his hands and arms near his face. Yet he could not sleep on his back – the presence of the bandages already gave him enough pain – and stretching his arms too far pulled at the cuts and only made him cry out more. He ended up sleeping in an awkward position on his stomach with his hands by his mouth.

He barely got a wink of sleep the first night.

The following morning, he didn't move out of bed. Ishizu came to check up on him. She was dressed neatly in her beige shift dress and her long, dark hair was pulled back in the front. She looked beautiful, yet her eyes were red and puffy from crying. In her hands she held out some dates and water as a peace offering.

"'m not hungry," he mumbled. He tried to turn his head the other way, but his arms felt weak and he didn't want to jostle his back. He'd recently obtained a comfy position and wished to keep it that way.

"Malik," she chided, "you need you energy. At least eat a few –"

"I'm not hungry," he repeated, this time with force.

"Malik –"

"Enough!" he screamed. "I said I'm not hungry!"

Ishizu gasped. She stared back at him, tears pooling in her eyes. "Malik," she whispered. She reached her hand out to him, but he flinched and turned away. "Malik, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Please, Malik, just look at me." Using her other hand, she wiped at her eyes.

"Leave me alone," he growled. If he had the energy, he would've stood on the bed and screamed at her to leave. At the moment, he hardly had the energy to yell at her. When she didn't go away, Malik risked a movement and shot his hand out. His target was the bowl. In one swipe, he hit the clay bowl out of her hand. It landed on the floor and smashed into large, chunky pieces, spilling wet dates everywhere. Sniffing, Malik looked away. His back burned from the action.

Ishizu didn't say anything. She only cried harder. She knelt at his bed and cried. Malik didn't feel like comforting his sister (he was pissed at her for bugging him when he could hardly fight back), but he didn't have the energy nor the will to shout at her – that is until she reached out and grasped his face. Malik screamed hard at the touch. It was like Father touching his back, the way she pressed her thumb and forefinger against his cheek. Fresh memories of the Initiation surfaced in his mind and Malik tore back. It was the stupidest action in his life. Pain exploded in his back and he fell back down on his stomach, crying out. He wanted to curl in a ball to ease the pain, but that action only brought more agony.

After minutes of writhing on his bed, Malik finally settled down. Ishizu was gone. The wet dates were still on the floor, as was the broken clay bowl. A very small part of Malik felt upset for yelling at his sister… Yet a much, much greater part of him was mad at her, at Father, at the Initiation, at every Tombkeeper.

He didn't sleep again that night.

On the seventh day, Father yanked him out of bed and carried him to the breakfast table. Before that, Malik had been resting in his bed with his meals being brought to him. It seemed Father was tired of his lazy behavior. Malik argued, screamed, and whined for Father to take him back to his room, but he ignored his protests and dragged him through the tomb. He sat Malik down on the floor and thrust a bowl of oatmeal in his face.

"Eat."

Malik turned his head away. Father said something. Malik didn't respond. Father slapped him across the face.

"Eat."

Malik glumly took the spoon and tried to eat. Each arm movement tugged at his shoulder blades and half-formed scabs. It made eating difficult and painful. When Father wasn't looking and was busy yelling at Rishid to "eat before he doesn't see another meal", Malik put his face near his bowl and slurped the oatmeal out. He also tried manoeuvring his tongue around the bowl to scoop more out – anything to avoid hurting his back.

When he was done eating, Father lifted him up and propelled him out the door. They walked down the corridor in silence, until they passed Malik's room and continued down the hallway. This made Malik increasingly nervous. Were there more scars?

"Where are we going?" he asked Father.

"To put poultice on your wounds. Now be quiet."

Malik obeyed. His body still shook with fear as they walked back into the Imitation room. Malik hadn't really been paying attention to the room when he'd first entered, as he'd been screaming and crying, but now that he was here for a second time he could look around. The stone walls were lined with hieroglyphs and pictures. There were stone pillars in the room that held up the ceiling. There was blood and vomit and urine on the floor; Father hadn't cleaned it since that day. The stench was too strong for Malik, and he vomited up his breakfast. Father scolded him for his weakness and told him he wouldn't be getting more food.

In the middle of the room was the bed. It was far bloodier than the floor and Malik shivered. Father seemed unfazed by their revolting environment, and he sat Malik, against his will, on the side of the bed. Father didn't pay any attention to Malik's protests: he first removed Malik's clothing, then unwound his bandages. Malik whimpered and cried each time Father touched him. Father's fingers on his skin were painful, horrid; they made Malik squirm. After he was done, he went over to a nearby shelf and began searching for the poultice.

Meanwhile, Malik shivered. He wanted to wrap his arms around him for warmth, but even that amount of movement caused him tremendous agony. Instead, he tried to focus on a part of the room that didn't make him want to vomit. The walls weren't too bad, and neither was the farthest corner where the man in the white robes stood –

Wait. Man? Malik quickly looked back at the area. The man was gone. He blinked his eyes quickly, then slowly brought his hands up to rub at them. When he looked again, the man still wasn't there.

"Father," he began hesitantly, "there's a man in the room."

"You're hallucinating, Malik," Father responded. "Don't look that way if you don't want to see it." He came back with the poultice and began dabbing it on Malik's wounds. He couldn't seem them, thankfully, but Father's poultice made them burn and sting. It was far worse than when he'd scraped his knee and had to bandage it; this was a raging pain everywhere on his back. Then again, the little scrape was only one his knee and covered far less surface area than the symbols. This was the largest cut, or cuts, he'd ever received.

When Father was done, he re-bandaged Malik's back and replaced his clothing. The new bandages were itchier and the poultice stung, but Malik walked faithfully back to his room. On their down the hallway, Father shouted Rishid's name. Malik looked up quickly. His adopted brother was no more than a few feet away, contemplating the ground. Even in the shadowed hallway, Malik could see the bandages wrapped around Rishid's face.

"Rishid…" he began. Then, when Rishid looked at him, he cried, "Rishid!"

"Get out of our way," Father cut in, pushing past Rishid brusquely. The boy, while taller than Father, was thrown roughly against the wall. Malik quickly pulled away from Father, shouting for Rishid to look at him.

"What did you do?" Malik pleaded.

Rishid didn't respond. Before Malik had a chance to question him further, he was pulled away from Rishid and into his room. Father either forgot about his scars or ignored them, for he shoved Malik down on the bed back-first and pinned him there as he lectured him. Or, perhaps lectured wasn't the proper word. Father yelled at him. He told Malik to never speak to Rishid again and to stay away from his adopted brother at all costs. Malik instantly burst into tears and pleaded to see Rishid again. Father refused.

"You're a Tombkeeper now, Malik, and he isn't. Being a Tombkeeper is a responsibility, a privilege. You should be proud to be a Tombkeeper."

Malik didn't understand anything Father said. He never thought being a Tombkeeper was a grand thing, and he certainly didn't think it now. He would've traded anything to be someone else besides a Tombkeeper. Even a poor job outside would be better than being a Tombkeeper in a tomb. And Rishid was his brother. He wouldn't stop looking for his brother.

Over the new few weeks, Malik broke every rule he could. At night he ran out of his room and found Rishid. His adopted brother explained that he had done an initiation of his own. There were hieroglyphs on the right side of his face, stretching from his forehead to his chin. They were bloody and probably looked worse than those on Malik's back. Rishid probably didn't have any sort of poultice on his wounds. The only think that even looked like poultice was the thick, yellow pus coating his face, and the thin sheen of sweat from his fever.

Malik also went to visit Ishizu. His sister cried every time she saw him, wanting to touch him and love him. Malik would have none of it. He screamed when she put her fingers to his face, or when she lifted his shirt to inspect his wounds. The only time Malik truly let his sister touch him was when he was stumbling around the hallways and caught her coming out of the initiation room. She was drenched in blood, teary-eyed, and overall depressed, and her expression only morphed into fear when he caught her.

"Malik," she whispered.

Neither had to say anything; the words were already spoken. Dejectedly, she dropped her hands to her side, looking away. Thick tears ran down her nose. Malik, for the first time since the initiation, found an emotion other than anger and hatred inside of him. He slowly walked up to Ishizu and, hesitating slightly, took her hand. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his fever-induced hallucination – the man in the white robes – standing nearby, but he ignored him in favor of looking at his sister.

"Big Sister," he whispered back.

Ishizu sobbed harder. She went to reach for him, but Malik stumbled back, eyes wild. The man in the white robes remained still, watching them interact. Only once had Malik ever mentioned his hallucination, and that was to Rishid. Rishid would always believe him. Rishid said it was because Malik was recovering from the initiation, and that his mind might be a bit fuzzy for a while. Malik believed him.

That night, however, as Malik lie in bed, he began to wonder if it really was a hallucination. The man looked solid, alive, sitting on the ground near Malik's bed. Malik only chanced a glance when no one else was around, as he didn't want to be caught staring at thin air. The robed man was fairly young, with tanned skin like Malik and kohl-rimmed eyes. He wore long, white robes and a white turban on his head. There was even a feather of Maat pinned to his turban. He did not look imposing, but there was an aura of mystery around the young man that made Malik's skin tingle. If the man was not a hallucination, then he must've been a Tombkeeper, as they were the only people Malik knew that lived in the tombs. And if he was a Tombkeeper, he must've known the Ishtar family.

Quietly, Malik leaned over the side of the bed and whispered, "Hello."

The man looked directly at him. It scared Malik that this foreign man had no pupils and that his expression was bland. As he turned, Malik caught sight of something that he hadn't noticed before: the large ankh-shaped necklace hanging from the man's neck. It was made of thick, solid gold, probably real. It reminded Malik of the two gold items in the tombs, the Millennium Rod and the Millennium Torque. Father had said these were the Pharaoh's items, once used by the Pharaoh's Royal Court. Now they were waiting for the Pharaoh's return, which Malik hoped would happen so he could one day kill the Pharaoh for making him live in the tomb.

Yet how could this man have a Millennium Item? The Ishtar family didn't have all of them, but no one knew who guarded the others. Could he be a Tombkeeper guarding another Item?

The man was still staring blankly at him. He hadn't said anything while Malik had been thinking.

"Hello," Malik said again. "Are you a Tombkeeper?"

"I am," the man said back. Malik nearly leapt out of his skin. His hallucination had followed him around for weeks, never ushering a word or making a sound, and now the man had just spoken to him. Were hallucinations supposed to talk? The man, unperturbed by Malik's fright, continued: "And I know you are, too, Malik Ishtar."

This only made Malik more frightened. How did this man know his name? "Yes, I'm Malik," he said, trying to keep his voice as strong as possible. He didn't want to show fear. "Why are you following me around?"

"I am a protector of the Millennium Items. There is evil being brewed and I want to keep the Items safe."

Malik frowned. "Evil? You mean the Initiation?"

"No. It is the Pharaoh's will for the first-born son of an Ishtar to be initiated. It is not the Pharaoh's will to bring evil back into the world."

"I think the evil is the Initiation," Malik growled. "The Pharaoh is evil for making the Tombkeepers suffer. Even you're a Tombkeeper and you're suffering!"

"It is the Pharaoh's will."

"Well it's my will to kill the Pharaoh!" Malik snapped. Suddenly, he remembered how he needed to be quiet and he quickly covered his mouth. He settled for glaring at the man, who seemed unfazed by his outburst. Once Malik was sure Father was not coming to his room, he removed his hands and hissed, "The Pharaoh has no right to do this!"

"You cannot kill the Pharaoh. Or –" and here the man's face suddenly morphed into an expression of evil, lips curling back, eyes growing wide and fiery "– are you the evil I am searching for?"

Malik had heard enough. He jumped from the bed and ran as fast as he could out of his room and down the corridor. He couldn't hear the hallucination pursuing him, but he was certain that he was being followed. Malik didn't know which room to hide in, so he settled for running to the Millennium Items and throwing himself behind the stone table. If worse came to worse, Malik knew that there was a hidden dagger inside the Millennium Rod that he could use to stab the man. The thought of killing him was revolting – Malik would be saving that dagger for the Pharaoh – but he would kill if it was out of self defense.

Sure enough, Malik saw the man enter the room. He didn't catch Malik's blond hair peeking out from the side of the stone table. His eyes scanned the room and he walked slowly across the floor, barely making a sound. If he truly was a hallucination, then he was the clearest, realest hallucination Malik had ever had.

Malik was about ready to breathe a sigh of relief when the man's eyes suddenly caught his. They were locked in an intense stare, neither wanting to move. Malik knew his hands were inches from the Millennium Rod, and that the pain of moving his back would be bearable. It would hurt, but it would keep him alive. Staying alive was more important at this point.

The man lunged. Malik quickly jumped up, hands grappling for the Rod. When his fingers touched the smooth metal, he felt something pulse beneath the surface – something alive. He gasped, throwing his arm to the side. The man was inches from him now, but suddenly he was thrown against the wall. He hit it hard, back arching and the man's face twisting in pain. It seemed that, if he was a hallucination, he could experience pain. His turban was now slightly skewered and his robes twisted around his legs. The man's hand suddenly went to the ankh.

"You wield the Millennium Rod," the man said to himself. "A destined Item user…" His fingers tightened on the Item. "But you do not know how to wield it." He lunged again. Malik had no idea what he'd done before, but he swung the Rod around in the hopes that he could hurt the man again. Each movement was tearing the scabs off of his back and causing him excruciating pain. He wasn't sure how long he could hold the robed man off before the pain became unbearable. As it was, Malik's movements were getting sloppy and nothing had happened. He quickly uncapped the bottom of the Rod and revealed the dagger. Malik shivered as he remembered the knife his father had used against him, the sharp point as it pierced his skin.

A hand shot out to grab Malik's face and he screamed. He'd been too busy worrying about the hidden dagger that he'd ignored the foreign man's presence. Now both hands were on his face, holding him still. Malik gave up on being quiet: he screamed, cried, writhed in the man's grip, and did anything he could to alert his family. Even if Father beat him for getting out of bed and touching the Items, it was still better than being in this man's grip. One of the man's hands moved around him and grabbed his back, pressing Malik's beating chest against his own. Malik sobbed harder as the man's fingers dug into his wounds.

"Please! Please, stop!" he cried. He gasped again as the man lifted the ankh-shaped jewellery up to his face, pressing it against his forehead.

Malik suddenly felt himself falling. He fell back into himself. He could no longer feel the man's hands on his back, nor the Item pressed to his forehead, nor the pain in his body. He could no longer see, either. Everything was dark and scary. Malik screamed and covered his eyes, even if this only made his vision darker. He did not like the dark. The dark was scary and mysterious and reminded Malik of the darkness of the Initiation room. All the tombs were dark, and it reminded Malik of his awful home, too.

After a while, Malik peeked in between his fingers. He was no longer in the dark; instead, he was in a mostly lit room of the tomb. It looks somewhat familiar, but, as Malik looked harder, he began to notice that there were parts of different rooms in this new room: the Items were there, but so were the hieroglyphs on the walls that only appeared in certain rooms; his bed was also there; and there were even little cups, bowls, and toys that were never in the same room as the Items or his bed. In the farthest corner, far away from Malik, was a big, black spot. It gave Malik a funny feeling. He'd never seen that in the tombs before.

"Darkness starts in one's heart, but it can also manifest in one's mind."

Malik spun around. The man was standing a few feet away, holding onto his Millennium Item.

"The Millennium Key allows me to enter one's mind."

"So this is my mind?" Malik was shocked. He knew the Millennium Items had magical powers, but he did not know that the Key had such a dark power. He didn't even know that the man's Item was the Millennium Key. But the power to enter one's mind meant that you could find every secret someone had. You could learn everything about them just by pressing the Key to their head. Malik's eyes fell back on the black corner. "This can't be my mind. I don't have that in my head."

The man looked over at the corner. "That is your darkness, Malik Ishtar."

"Stop calling me by my full name," Malik growled. "I don't want to be an Ishtar. Besides," he continued, looking away from the man and the dark puddle, "I don't even know your name."

The foreign man touched the Maat feather on his turban with his spindly fingers. "My name is Shaadii."

"And you're a Tombkeeper?"

"Yes."

Malik crossed his arms over his chest. In a bout of courage, he said, "I command you to take me back to the tomb."

Shaadii did not answer. He stepped towards Malik, crossing the distance between them in a few steps. When he was in front of Malik, he looked down on the boy with a confused expression. There was no emotion on his face. His hand slowly came up to touch Malik, but Malik pulled back and shook.

"Don't touch me. No one can touch me."

Shaadii did not listen. "You cannot kill the Pharaoh," he said.

"I can and I will," Malik snapped back. He took a few steps away from Shaadii. His hands were balled in tight fists, his knuckles white. "I'll kill the Pharaoh and bring the Tombkeepers out of the ground. No one will ever have to suffer for that man again! I promise!"

"It is not the Pharaoh who you will kill," Shaadii said. "If you kill the Pharaoh, I will have to kill you."

Malik's blood went cold. This man – a Tombkeeper just like himself – would kill him to protect that man who put them both through misery? Even if Shaadii did not bear the same scars as Malik, he was certain that the other man had experienced a pain of his own at the hands of the Pharaoh. The Nameless Pharaoh was not merciful; he did not pity his subordinates. Thousands of Tombkeepers were living under the sands of Egypt, doing in dirty work and waiting for the Pharaoh to return. They had been waiting for 3,000 years for his return, and he didn't have the heart to help any of them. Malik hated the Nameless Pharaoh. He would kill no one else but the Pharaoh.

Both of them stood at separate sides of the room. Unlike Shaadii, who appeared emotionless, Malik felt thousands of emotions running in his veins. He felt sad, angry, depressed, worried, fearful, anxious – and he couldn't control any of them. His head pulsed, and the dark mass in the room began shifting.

"I want to kill the Pharaoh more than anything," Malik snarled. "You can't stop me."

The taunt made Shaadii's face turn into the vicious sneer. "I will kill you if you harm the Pharaoh."

"Just try," Malik taunted.

The room began to grow darker. Malik looked around fearfully as the stone walls, painted with hieroglyphs, began to disintegrate, melting like candle wax to the fall until they disappeared entirely. The result was a dark void, no colors or lights, with Malik and Shaadii standing in the center. Malik screamed as his vision was plunged into darkness. He covered his eyes with his hands again and screamed as loud as he could for Shaadii to stop. He didn't like the dark. He never wanted to be in the dark again.

"Let me out!" he cried. "Please, stop!" Next there were hands on his neck and back, and these made Malik cry more. Even without looking, he knew that Shaadii had his hands around his throat to choke him. Shaadii was talking to him while holding him in this position. He began talking about a Dark Game, but Malik didn't listen and cried harder. The hand on his back was touching his scars and –

The hands were gone. Malik opened his eyes, forgetting how dark it was before, and was met with the dim light of his bedroom. Neither Shaadii nor the unfamiliar room were anywhere to be found. The Rod was not in his hand. There were no black globs in the corners of the room. Nothing was out of place or out of the ordinary. And Shaadii was gone. Was he a hallucination?

Malik groaned as he pulled himself up and sat on the bed. His back hurt, so he was certain that the encounter with Shaadii had been real. There was a bit of blood dripping from his back and he shivered at the memories it brought. But then he remembered the hands on his back when he'd received the Initiation and the hands on his back when he was in the room with Shaadii, and Malik realized that those hands felt the same. Had Shaadii been there for the Initiation?

He eased himself back down on his bed, resting his hands by his face. The position was still uncomfortable to sleep in, but Malik was nearly used to it. As he closed his eyes, he felt feather-light fingers on his spine. He suppressed a shiver and refused to look up. Shaadii was probably above him, teasing him with his mysterious words and his light touches.

Something pressed closed to Malik's ear. "It is not the Pharaoh who you will kill, Malik Ishtar, but I can assure you that you are the last Tombkeeper."

And somehow those words were comforting. There was one more touch on his back, and then Shaadii was gone.

Malik slept good for the first night since his Initiation.