***Being real, this isn't very good. It's something old that I wrote in a notebook years ago when I was stressing out and about to quit a job I hated, so instead of punching people in the face I experimented with first person (which I hate. I hate first person so much).But, idk, a lot of ppl I know are stressed right now, so maybe this story that distracted me during a bad time will help distract someone else now- that's why I'm posting it. So please enjoy this very mediocre fanfic lol. Each chapter name will be who's p.o.v. the section is being told from.***


Three thousands years was a long time to be strong. The human soul wasn't meant to do and see and feel so much without taking rests, and I felt the effects. I felt everything. All the pain I suffered. All the pain I inflicted on others. All bricks on my soul.

I know how people think of me – a tongue licking blood off of gold, a cackle rising up into black sky and silver moonlight, a dark trench coat fluttering in a darker alley. Those things were all me, true enough, but there was more than that – a clumsy toddler's hand holding a large date and drooling as I gnawed on the sweet fruit, a pair of brown feet splashing in river-water and silt, an adolescent thief raiding my first caravan and managing to steal nothing more than a bottle of cheap wine and my first kiss from the merchant's son. Now that was a scandalous adventure. I should tell you that story instead, but it's not the story you asked for.

The Tribunal. The Weighing of the Heart Ceremony. The air smelt like heat and dust. The air felt warm, a good warm, like in the heat of a tomb while you sleep off the hateful sun for the day before you raid in the moonlight. I never minded a little sweat on my temples or dust between my toes. There, in that Other World place, the gods didn't ask for the negative confessions, perhaps they knew better than to have me lie to their faces. I saw the Pharaoh; that didn't surprise me. What surprised me was seeing Marik's Shadow. I suppose that anything wanting to live that badly by default had enough soul to be Judged. He looked sad.

Anubis led me to the scales. They show you the carvings in stone, man and jackal all jumbled together, but his smell was jackal. That didn't bother me either. Animals smell honest, only humans cover their rank with perfume to hide the shame of themselves. The god, the beast, the man, whatever he truly was dug his claws into my chest and pried open my ribcage in order to reach my heart. I was dead, but it hurt like fuck. Holy, fucking gods it hurt. The air rushed into my core like a wave of needles. He ripped my heart away from its cradle of veins and tissue and placed it on Ma'at's scale.

Nothing moved, not up or down, not even a tremble.

"That can't be right," the Pharaoh objected. "He's evil."

"What is evil?" I asked him again, just like I asked him three-thousand years ago.

"You've hurt people."

"So have you."

"I was protecting my friends."

"I was avenging my family."

"They were thieves."

"I called them Mother and Father." I shook my head.

The last Shadow Game had been the last of me (last of my energy, last of my hate, last of me), and I lost. There was nothing left of me in that Other Place. No room for hate, or vengeance. I wanted to see my mother. Yes, even a devil like me will yearn for his mother when things bottom out, and I had three-thousand years of crying to get out at her feet, and fuck if I was going to waste time fighting with the Pharaoh when all my empty soul wanted to do was finally heal.

"It doesn't matter anymore. Aren't you tired?" I turned to look at him. He was soft on the eyes for a jackass. I think I always hated him more for it. "I'm too exhausted, I want to go Home. I just want to go and see them. I want to go Home."

I stepped to the side. My heart was back inside me, though I wasn't sure how. Ma'at rested a hand on my shoulder. She had the touch of a butterfly wing against your cheek, all soft and not there and you want to smile because it tickles your skin. I looked at her, something blue-sad lingered in her eyes and the look terrified me. Something was wrong, and the gods weren't going to save me when the reality of it burst through.

Anubis pulled Atem to the scales. He pulled Atem's chest open and stole the heart from the Pharaoh's body. When the organ rested on the scaled it teetered. Up and down. Up and down. For a long time the balance shifted, as if the scales themselves couldn't tell the true nature of the Pharaoh's soul. Finally, they stopped. The Ostrich feather sat a hair higher than the Pharaoh's heart. Such a small difference, but not true balance.

"That's wrong," the Pharaoh insisted.

Marik's Shadow cackled. His laughter echoed in the Tribunal chamber. "At least I'll have company."

"Why do you think it's wrong?" Ma'at asked, her voice placid.

"I wasn't ready to move on. I was forced. I didn't have enough time with my friends. My heart's heavy with grief!" Tears welled in the Pharaoh's eyes, a purple Nile flooding in the monsoons.

He made such a pretty argument, sad and desperate. He stood like the worst kind of princess, all beautiful elegance and helpless victim circumstance. The worst of it all was that he believed what he said. I'd respect him more if he'd lie to save his soul. You can lie to others and stay true to yourself, but if you bullshit yourself then you'll wallow in your own excuses until the truth stagnates like shit in an unkempt latrine. Damn Pharaoh was face-down in that kind of self-pity muck at that very moment. He really thought he was in the right, and his poor princess victim circumstances were unjust – stupid, fucking twit.

"I can send you back," Ma'at said.

His eyes lit up, two purple dawns. "You can? I can see the others again?"

"Yes, you can see them again, live your life with them, and when you come back we'll see if your heart truly balances or not."

The Pharaoh dropped to one knee, pressing a hand over his chest which was closed again although I don't remember seeing it closed. "Thank you."

"But I have to balance the scales."

My stomach sunk to the bottom of my bowels, as if I knew what she'd say next.

"If you go back, the other two go with you."

"No." I fell to both knees, the ground hard and painful on my knees as I clutched at Ma'at's skirt. There was no pride in me at that moment – only a sick panic scrambling my brain. "No . . . no. Destroy my soul. Let Ammit take me. Just . . . please . . . anything but sending me back."

I was weak, and I hated being weak, but the weariness in my soul left nothing inside of me but grief, and I couldn't take it anymore. I could feel existence spin, so fast and all at once, but at the same time endless, and I needed rest or oblivion because all the bits of me were about to twirl into a separate direction until my soul puked sadness and misery and rage all over the gods' sandboxed-universe, and then what would they play in after I ruined it all?

"That's not right!" Marik's Shadow screamed. It shocked me to hear his voice, so much different from Marik's. "Sending the Pharaoh back is cheating, but whatever, at least you should let the thief go on to Aaru. Look at him. He's all broken and you want to throw him back on the ground. Even I have enough sense of right and wrong to know what you're doing is wrong."

"I miss my friends," Atem said.

"That's not how the Weighing of the Heart Ceremony works, dear Pharaoh. Do you think I want my soul gobbled up? No, but I accept that my only true existence is in this place, and that it's about to end. You won't see my crying to the gods about it."

The Pharaoh turned to Ma'at, begged her with his eyes for reassurance. Instead of responding, she looked at me. "Isn't there someone you miss as well? Someone you'd like to see?"

"I'll see him again when he moves on," I whispered.

"You're not curious? What your life would be like with him?"

I paused, glancing over to Marik's Shadow. He looked angry, but he always looked angry. He had stood up for me, and I couldn't help but wonder if that was because part of Marik was in him.

"If you go back . . . Marik will come for you," Ma'at said.

I shake my head. "I can't . . . I . . . I need to rest . . .please don't. Don't send me back. I'm begging you."