Life, Again
Summery: A golden door leads to a veil, and an ex-pharaoh ends up in the Department of Mysteries.
Disclaimer: Don't own.
In a strange way, it was beautiful.
He'd never imagined he would call death beautiful, but that was the only way to describe this suicidal walk. White light, the very purest kind, washed over him, enveloping him, drowning him, smothering him, dragging him down into the very depths of the afterlife. He was dying, and loved every minute of it.
After all, he had already died three thousand years ago.
As he continued walking, sensations dulling with every step, he felt a little regretful about leaving Yuugi behind. He reassured himself with the fact that Yuugi had his loyal friends supporting him. He didn't need a ghost to stand up for him anymore. (In another, stranger way, he never did.)
He would miss Yuugi, yes, but he would have his long-lost friends and family, and that made up for the loss of his lighter half. And one day, hopefully in a far, distant future, Yuugi would join him, and he would be complete once more.
As he continued on - was he even walking anymore? He didn't know - he was sure that he would see his Egyptian friends ahead of him any time now. He had never been one to blindly trust, but this he knew, because his skin was tanned and adorned with gold, even if he couldn't feel it anymore.
(He was already dead.)
…
He went on.
…
He didn't know how much time had passed, but he went on.
…
Then, ahead of him in the light, he made out a crumbling archway. It was ancient-looking, although he had learned to never assume things by their appearance, and a worn, white veil hung over it. The veil was completely still, which was odd, but he supposed that the archway must have been stronger than it looked.
Some part of him wished to enter the archway, but he knew he wasn't supposed to, (his friends would be just around the next bend, he deserved his rest after three thousand years), but to his horror, he found that he was approaching it, and could not stop. He mentally struggled against it, but he couldn't feel anything either, and the archway loomed closer, and he saw that the archway was much larger than it had initially appeared.
The white veil was closer, coming close, close, right in front of his face and horror freezing his soul, he stumbled through it, and he was -
-alive.
The world swirled around him and he shut his eyes tightly closed, clenching his fists to block the pure pain that raced through his skin. It seared like fire, a burning fire that was cold and light and calm, and ran to the tips of his spiky hair. Spots of light danced before his eyes, and he stumbled forwards, feet slipping on a stone floor.
There was a yell, and shouts of surprise, although he couldn't hear them, and a voice called out something strange, his world swirled into darkness, and he unconsciously crumpled to the floor.
He stirred slowly, blinking before gradually opening his eyes, in order to get used to the light. Awake and alert, he carefully looked around without moving his head noticeably. He was in what looked like a hospital ward, tucked into a bed with the thick blankets pulled up to his shoulders. There were no other beds in the ward, and he noticed that it was a lot smaller than a usual ward. To his right, there was closed, pristine-white door, and across from him was a window which showed that it was raining outside.
Beside the bed he was lying in, there was a woman dressed in some sort of black… robe. She was sitting low in a chair, and he noticed that there were heavy circles under her eyes. She looked to be asleep, so he began to sit up, freeing his arms and upper body from under the blanket.
It was then that he noticed something strange. Not that the situation was at all normal, but, staring down at his arms, his skin was… tanned. It wasn't the light sort of golden tan that you usually get on holidays, but a dark, Egyptian tan, that he had only seen in his memories and on the Ishtar's. A flash caught his eye at the edge of his vision, and he turned to see what it was. Golden bracelets and others lay on the side table, and peering over the edge of the bed, he saw some purple and white clothes. Confused, he looked around for a mirror, and noticed one a few metres away from the bed. Throwing back the heavy covers, he carefully stepped around the clothes and made his way to the mirror.
What he saw surprised him in some way, and yet didn't surprise him at all. His skin colour had changed from the normal Japanese tone from when he had inhabited Yuugi's body, to the dark Egyptian colour he had possessed back when he had been alive, three thousand years ago. His hair had retained the same lightning-bolts-against-spikes it had both when he was an ancient king, and when he was just Yuugi's darkness. He was wearing a light blue … robe-thing, of the same sort the woman had been wearing, although a different colour. He was still the same taller-than-Yuugi-but-shorter-than-everyone-else height that he had been, through his ears had been pierced, (and they looked quite freshly-pierced too, as if they had only been pierced a few days ago or something) like they had been millenniums ago.
(He had begged Yuugi to get them pierced when he was still inhabiting Yuugi's body, but Yuugi had claimed that it was against some regulations or something for boys to have their ears pierced, which he had thought was extremely stupid.)
What truly surprised him, though, were his eyes. It wasn't the usual narrowness of them, no, nor the fact that somebody had lined them with kohl, but the colour of his eyes. They were a bright, burning red, the colour of fresh blood. He frowned. The only time he remembered having crimson eyes was when he had newly been Yuugi's darkness, so new he didn't even call him aibou, and Siamon had used to tell him back in Kemet, that his eyes had been red when he was very young, but then they had mysteriously turned to purple one he reached the age of five. The people had thought it was some sort of miracle, one that meant he was definitely going to be the pharaoh or something.
He stepped closer to the mirror, faintly frowning. What did it mean? He recalled back through the events that had happened: he had lost to Yuugi, crossed to the afterlife, although his friends weren't there, been forced through a veil, and had woken up in this hospital alive. He looked at his hands. Judging by the fact that the clothes beside his bed must have been his, he had changed back into his Egyptian appearance And then…? Why had he been forced back into life? Had he done something to anger the gods? Were the prophecies false? No, they could not be. Did he do something to not deserve his rest after three thousand yea-!
"Get rid of that ridiculous hair!" the mirror suddenly shouted. He stumbled backwards in surprise, falling onto his back with only his arms keeping his upper body upright. The woman in the chair shot upright, and upon seeing him, she froze. After a few seconds, she unfroze, and shook her head wearily.
"Hey, kid, come back over here." she called to him, and he did as she ordered, clambering upright, walking over to the bed, and sitting back down on it, next to the woman.
"So…" she blew out some air, and glanced at his eyes again. Of course. Red was an unusual colour, he wryly thought. "Sorry about that mirror, you should just ignore it really..." she trailed off.
"Who are you?" he asked sharply.
She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. "Sorry, Unspeakable, can't say."
He frowned. She could talk perfectly, so why did she say she couldn't speak? "What is an Unspeakable?"
She looked at him, surprised. "You... don't know?"
She took out a… stick of … wood from her pocket, and waved it towards the closed door. He didn't know the point, until he heard the door locking itself.
He whirled around to the woman. "What was that?"
She stared at him. "You're a Muggle?" she replied, looking as confused as he was. Glancing at the stick thing, she sighed again. "Tell you, if I explain, will you explain what you were doing in the Department of Mysteries, wearing weird Muggle clothes?" She sounded tired. He nodded. She rubbed her eyes.
"Well, to start… what's your name, by the way?" she questioned.
"My name is Atem." he said, and so it was.
A/N: Ha-ha. What am I doing, uploading a multi-chaptered story when I already have two others to be working on? I guess it's because I'm ill, and bored. Don't think you're going to be getting another chapter any time soon, unless this illness sticks around for another day. So… Atem is sent to HP world, blablablabla. Don't think it's going to be like the other stories. Takes place during Half-Blood Prince/Deathly Hallows if I actually manage to complete it.
By the way:
Kemet = Ancient Egypt.
Aibou = Partner.
Hahahahahahahaha. I'm probably going to get flamed for some reason, probably never updating, so just take pity on a poor ill girl who is doing this purely because she's not thinking straight and is ill.
(By the way, I really love spelling and grammar check right now.)
