(A/N: Unfortunately, I don't own 'The Mummy', but Stephan Sommers does. I only own whatever you don't recognize.)
Chapter 1
It was as if he had taken his first breath of oxygen in a decade – clean, refreshing, reminding him of the joys of living. Like he had started to live again. For the last ten years, his life had been devoid of every shred of laughter, hope, and love. There wasn't exactly overwhelming grief when he witnessed his parents death; they weren't the most loving of people – especially where his baby sister was concerned. It was the news that the Egyptian government, and anyone else who could possibly search for Kitty, had given her up as dead, even though no body was found.
He hadn't given her up – it didn't feel like she was dead. And he had protested such despite the other children's assurances, which led to many fights in the Cairo orphanage. Never had he felt so lonely as he did during those years in the orphanage.
Before his parents had died, he had his schoolmates who had idolized him for his defiance to the rules and Nana, his Egyptian nanny, until Kitty had been born. The first time he saw his little baby sister, she became his whole world. No amount of peer ridicule could sway him from the infant. After a while, and much stubbornness on his part, his peers started to accept her and made her their group mascot. He had a life truly blessed; friends that stuck by him and little sister who loved him unconditionally. His parents were never the loving type, so they were never a factor.
Now that he looked back and realized it, though his parents had been at first proud of how quite she had been, they were mortified later on realize it was because she could not make any noise at all. That didn't stop him from loving her, watching over her, teaching her. He had been the one that had watched her take her first steps. He was the one who started teaching her words. He had been the one who learned, and in turn taught, sign language so others to understand her. He had been more of a parent than a brother.
If he had any idea why the family had really been traveling to Alexandria, not that bull story about seeing a special doctor for Kitty, he would have taken convinced Nana to help him a Kitty runaway. He would never allow them to sell her to a 'curiosity carnival' – a freak show. He would have found a way to keep him and Kitty safe, loved, and well cared for. All the same, they traveled in a caravan to Alexandria, which was attacked in the middle of the Sahara by Taureg bandits, his parents were killed, Kitty was lost, and he ended up in the Cairo orphanage – family money or no.
With his temperament mixed with the other children's taunts, he grew into a very angry and lonely teenager. The moment he was able to leave, he skipped out of that place and started searching for Kitty. It didn't take long to figure out that in order to properly search, he needed to travel, and the best way to travel was for free. Solution – military. Or more specifically, the French Foreign Legion.
It had been years of fruitless searching and his heart and any hope of finding Kitty continued to darken to the point where he was resigned that she was dead and welcomed those Tuareg bullets when the rest of his garrison stained the desert sands.
That's all his life had been. Sand and blood.
And he was sick of it. That day he wanted to let those bullets eat into him. That day he wanted those desert men to come down and cut him in half, even if he did sense some sort of elemental camaraderie with one of them. That day he wanted to die in the desert.
By some cruel joke, he lived. He kept breathing. When he returned to Cairo, he let everything go – drinking in seedy bars, rutting with cheap women, associating with criminals and low life. He pulled bank jobs and joined fight rings. He gambled when and where it was illegal. He got a little frisky with a few well-respected married women. It wasn't long till he was thrown into prison and sentenced to hang – not that it meant anything to him.
The day he wore the hangman's noose, he did drop. And then he saw an angel. That same angel was now in his arms, embracing him back and giving him hope, a smile, and love, as they rode off into the sunset – with an annoying future brother-in-law in tow.