Atem the Pharaoh and Ammon the Thief

By WarriorLoverInc

Chapter 1: The Man in the Sand Colored Cloak

I lay there sprawled out on the ground, my eyes unblinking, staring up at the night sky. It had been so beautiful, before the smoke started to crawl around like some nasty beetle in our garden, and eat up the pitch colored sky and glimmering stars. Like shards of ice they were. I felt something hot run down from the side of my mouth, more blistering than the fire that raged around me? Ridiculous. None the less, I slowly and with great effort raised my hand and became aware that although I had raised my arm, I could no longer feel it. My limbs shivered with a chill that wasn't present and my vision wavered. That's it then, now I knew what came after that. Death. That answered the question as to what was streaming down the side of my face now, the liquid fire, blood. How had it come to this?

"Someday, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching."

The old geezers' words rang true now, strange, in my last moments I should remember him.

Then it happened, my life did flash before my eyes. There was Nefertiti, my loving sister, grinning as I showed her how to write, and crying in fear as I raced away from her in terror of my life. There was mother, cuddling us all on her lap and singing us to sleep during a particularly harsh sandstorm. Heru, always staring off into space, dreaming of becoming a scholar. Along with hard headed Bes, protecting us from thieving bullies while walking the whole seven miles home. And even father, or what was left of my memory of him, decided to show. Tears ran down my face, this was not right, my memories were all going up in flames. My life was flashing before my eyes, but it most defiantly was not worth my time watching. I remembered leaving Bes and Heru to the bullies, mother and Nefertiti being trapped by the soldiers in our burning house and my running away, leaving them all. All those important to me, turning to ashes right in front of me, what a fool I was! Did the Gods really hate me so? I had left mother and sister for dead, left my two best friends in the entire world to a particularly tough and infamous band of thieves, this torture was surely my punishment. Or perhaps this was fathers fault. If he hadn't left, this may have not happened!

My anger flared a bit at that thought, but then boiled down soon after. No, this was not his fault; the army was too strong for even father to have fought off. Mother had said that when he had left, his Shadow Creature was still only the strongest in the village.

"I… will become… the… strongest." I repeated what mother had said my father uttered continually. But just those four words caused me to hack and cough up much more blood. It was now more than a trickle; it was a small river of the scarlet liquid.

Something collided with my side, and there was a sharp pain inflicted to my spread out hand. I would've screamed if I had felt it. All I could manage was a weak and soul wrenching moan.

"Hey!" I heard someone close by yell over the blaze of the inferno, "This one's still alive!"

Good, it was a rescue party.

"Can I take care of him?"

"No! I want to torture him!"

All of a sudden the two men who had walked up seemed less like a rescue party and more like the Pharaohs' soldiers. I grunted a little in an effort to move and crawl away, but the first man booted me again, harder this time. I was thrown against a rock wall and I felt something in me snap. Probably a bone.

"You aren't going anywhere you worthless urchin!" he sneered.

'Course, I couldn't see them, I was too weak to move, and so, I slumped down upon impact with the wall. In my fading eyesight, I could see the rough material that covered my chest, then one of the man's faces as he yanked my head up to look me in the eye.

"Weak one he is," he snickered.

I could faintly make out his face from all the other jumble of images. One phrase to describe his face, as Bes always said, "Ugly mug…" I mumbled half-in-half-out of consciousness.

"What was that!" he growled, grabbing a handful of my bleached hair and yanking it painfully into the air. Well, at least I could still feel that. The soldier pulled my head until my neck was so exposed, it was just waiting to be cut open, he started manically laughing until his partner hit him over the head with the butt of his spear, "Just get on wit' it already! He looks like the last survivor but we have to check around just to make sure, I 'aint havin' my head chopped off by Pharaoh anytime soon."

The man I was now sure was quite mentally unstable sighed as if it were a bother he couldn't take the time to give me a slow painful death, "Very well then," he turned back to me and licked the edge of the dagger he had just pulled out of his cloak, "This should be fun." He grinned and the knife dove somewhere under my sightline. I almost didn't want to see what was happening, but, he was doing this to my body wasn't he? So I struggled and finally angled my head in a way that I could see the damage. Upon seeing it, my eyes drooped further; as if I were tired enough to sleep right now, which I knew was a sleep I would never wake up from. The wound inflicted on my by that man was horrible, my stomach had been ripped open and blood streamed around the gash and soaked into my clothing. Funny, I had always wanted to see a flower bloom instead of wilt, almost impossible to do out in the middle of the desert. Here was a blooming rose, right on me.

I was starting to lose it.

Looking up, I noticed the man with the dagger was coming in for the final strike. Perfect, now I didn't even have the energy to close my eyes. At least I couldn't feel anything; I'd arrive in the afterlife without the excruciating pain I thought I would receive.

Just as the man's strike was about to reach me, there was a yell, "Dark Magician! Dark Magic Attack!"

A huge orb of black energy came hurtling towards the two men torturing me. The one with the spear dodged it in time but the maniac killer took the full force of the attack. He was thrown through several walls and out of sight.

A man then jumped between me and the spear man, separating us. In one fluid motion he kicked the man's legs out from under him, and a Dark Magician Shadow Creature sent him flying with another powerful attack. When the dust had settled a bit, the man in the flowing sand colored cloak finally whipped around my way and made a mad dash towards me.

He could tell I was fading fast, "Boy! Stay with me! Boy…!" he had dropped down beside me and was taking me in his arms, "Boy…!" His voice was fading along with my vision. I gave one last peaceful sigh, faintly smiling, and then everything was washed away in crimson.