Disclaimer: I do not own The Mummy.
Abandon All Hope
Meela felt cold. Or was she Anck-Su-Namun? Either way, an icy chill touched her flesh, seeping right into her bones, and her first instinct was to shiver but she found herself unable to do so. It was dark as well, so dark that she couldn't tell where she was exactly, but it felt uncannily similar to the tombs of Egypt except for the gleaming patches of ice that clung to the walls and the floor where she sat.
The last thing Meela remembered was a horde of scarab beetles, their shiny black bodies rushing to consume her, and she could almost feel them crawling on her icy skin. Or was it Anck-Su-Namun's skin? It grew harder to tell by the second and she closed her eyes, trying to sort through the tangled web of past and future that warred inside her.
But it was cold. Too cold to think straight. Where the hell was she and how did she get there?
"They call it Traitor's Paradise." A voice broke through the silence, startling her into opening her eyes.
"Excuse me?" The words that came out of her mouth were in English, not ancient Egyptian, and already she could feel Anck-Su-Namun's soul leaving her.
"That is why we're here," the voice repeated. "That is why you've woken up in this humble home of ours. Cozy, isn't it?"
Meela blinked until her eyes adjusted to the dim atmosphere, and she found herself facing a scrawny sort of man, with a thin face and a dingy red fez. She had never set eyes on him before, yet he was achingly familiar because this shifty, devious looking person resembled the bitter darkness that resided in Meela's heart.
"It's cozy if you prefer to freeze to death," said Meela, casting a disdainful look at the white specks of frost that dotted his fez.
"Oh, you will not freeze to death," he said with a humorless laugh. His accent was from somewhere in Europe, maybe Romania or Hungary, and his eyes watched her with a shrewdness that made her want to hide all of her valuables, if she had any valuables to hide in the first place.
"Why's that?" she asked.
"Because we're already dead."
If Meela wasn't so cold to begin with, his words would have sent a chill through her. "How do you know?" she demanded.
He let out that humorless laugh again, and the sound of it made her want to strangle his scrawny neck. "What is the last thing you remember?" he asked.
Meela didn't want to remember, but those repulsive beetles flashed in her mind again, forcing her to see those endless black bodies covering her clothes, her flesh, her face. "I ran," she said, and her voice sounded strangely faraway to her own ears. "I ran, and I was consumed by scarab beetles."
The stranger in the red fez wasn't laughing anymore. Instead he cocked his head towards her with interest and gazed intently into her face. "Then we are not so different."
"How is that?"
"We were both taken by the beetles. We have both been sent to the deep circle of Hell. Who did you betray to receive such a fate?"
Meela wanted to shiver, or at least put her arms around herself to block out the cold, but her body wouldn't cooperate. She didn't want to have anything in common with this odious little man, and she held her head high, trying to summon that queenly dignity she had worn as Anck-Su-Namun. "I don't see why I should tell you that when I don't even know your name."
"My name is Beni," he said. "Now you must tell me yours."
Was she Meela, or was she Anck-Su-Namun? Was she past or future, royal or merely ambitious? Meela knew the answer already, though she still felt a small piece of Anck-Su-Namun's soul clinging with feeble strength, and it wouldn't be long until that tiny piece departed as well. Meela was the treacherous one, not Anck-Su-Namun. Meela was the one who wanted power, and Meela was the one who had landed herself in Hell for her deeds on earth.
She gave Beni her name, the one that defined the person she truly was, and wondered why Hell had to be so icy cold.
The shadows didn't fade, though she was vaguely aware of other people in the distance engaged in sitting, standing, or walking with no visible purpose. She wondered where Imhotep was, but a surge of guilt made her push that thought away and focus on her companion instead, who still watched her with intent, almost conniving eyes.
"Who did you betray to end up in this place?" she asked him.
A smirk twisted Beni's face. "More people than I could possibly count."
Meela hated how similar the two of them were.
Beni's eyes slid below her face, down below her neck, and Meela was tempted to smirk right back at him. It appeared that even in Hell, she hadn't lost her physical charm, and she intended to use that to her advantage for as long as she remained there. Which would probably be forever, but she couldn't bear to think that far ahead.
"Tell me, Beni, how many women have you seen in Hell?" she asked, already bent on ensnaring his allegiance before he could turn against her. It was the type of self-preservation she excelled at the most.
"None as beautiful as yourself, but I prefer my women without snakes attached to them," he replied.
Suddenly Meela realized why he was staring at her. A large black snake had wrapped itself around her body, but she was too numb from the cold to notice it at first, and fear took hold of her when it looked up with beady black eyes; eyes that reminded her of those shiny, horrible scarab beetles. The snake bore a striking similarity to the serpent she had nearly used on that drunken buffoon, Jonathan Carnahan, and Beni didn't have to tell her she was getting what she deserved because she knew it perfectly well already. She would pay for her sins, one by one, and this snake was just the first of many.
It didn't mean she had to sit there and take it, though.
"Get this thing off of me," she ordered, shooting an icy glare at Beni. She couldn't move her arms for some reason, and she couldn't tell if it was because of the cold, the snake, or something else entirely.
Beni watched her and snickered to himself. "You will not be able to remove it."
"Well you could at least try to help me."
"That isn't how things work in this place. We are meant to suffer."
Meela strained to fight off the snake that wound around and around her body, but her limbs felt heavy and wouldn't cooperate. "How long have you been in this place anyway?" she asked Beni.
"Years," he replied. "Long enough to know that you'll never get rid of that snake."
The snake had begun to sink its fangs through Meela's black dress, deep into her flesh, and each time it bit her she felt like she was dying all over again, but still she couldn't defend herself or even cry. Beni watched her as if she provided him with a sick sort of amusement, and when the snake decided to retract its fangs for a while she summoned back all the dignity of Anck-Su-Namun, though she knew Anck-Su-Namun's soul had fully left her by now.
"And what about you?" Meela asked. "What terrible punishments do you have to endure for your sins? Something painful, I hope."
"Why must everyone wish me pain?" Beni grumbled, his accent making him sound whiny. "Even in Hell, I cannot find an ounce of sympathy. Do you know what it's like to have a strong hunger for gold, strong enough that it consumes you?"
Meela watched him with dark eyes and nodded. She cared much more about power than gold, but she supposed the two cravings were similar enough.
"Well every now and then, gold will appear, and I long for it so badly it drives me mad, but every time I reach for the gold it disappears. All the gods in the world are punishing us for eternity, and we have no choice but to play their little game, over and over again."
"All the gods in the world?" Meela echoed skeptically.
"Why belong to one faith when you can have protection from all of them?"
"I see that's done you a lot of good."
"Nice snake," said Beni, looking for a comeback. "Does it bite?"
Meela smirked at him. "Would you like to come over here and find out?"
"Not even for you."
The two of them fell into silence. Meela became starkly aware of the cold, more cruel and bitter than ever, and realized that she was in Hell—not a figurative sense of hell, but dreaded Hell itself—and there was no getting out no matter how much she repented. That was the worst part of all; Meela felt no remorse for her sins and knew she was damned, inside and out, no matter who she had been in a past life.
Beni's eyes were quietly mocking, as if he could read her inner thoughts. "You never told me who you betrayed to get here."
The snake's fangs had returned, but Meela didn't mind the pain. "The only person who ever gave a damn about me."
"Then we are really not so different," said Beni, and this time Meela agreed with him.