(This first chapter is just to get the characters out and about to save story time later. Please rate and review, constructive criticism is welcome, no flames please.)
The Sign from the Gods
Chapter One
Dallie was standing in the middle of a dessert with black sand. The only light source was a small orb that floated and provided only enough light for her to see the sky.
Above her, a gray cloud swirled, thick and winding, like a giant river.
Her body seemed frozen, unable to move a single millimeter, her stomach didn't even move as barley enough oxygen to sate her lungs came slowly and involuntarily through her nose and out of her slightly opened mouth.
The only thing was keeping her from completely fading away was the fear and continually rising panic as the cloud was gradually getting thicker and solidifying, until it turned into a writhing serpent that was slithering and coiling around in the sky.
The serpent opened its huge mouth, fangs the size of Dallie jutted out as it got closer to the only orb of light.
The sky grew darker and darker as the serpent drew nearer, but small flashes of light were being aimed at the incoming snake, to no avail.
Dallie wanted to scream and run, to get help, but still her body was frozen, not even her eyes blinking, all she could do was watch in horror as the snake started to close it's deathly mouth around the little orb.
As if in a last attempt at defense, the last light Dallie saw was a blinding flash that engulfed everything in a white hot fury, but alas, the darkness came like the flick of a switch, completely smothering the last ray of light.
The air was ripped from Dallie's lungs as the blackness engulfed her into an eternal void of darkness and the nothingness that accompanied it, until Dallie felt herself fading farther and farther away...
Dallie shot up, gasping for air, only to have it knocked out of her again by falling off her bed in a mass confusion off blanket and Dallie's flailing limbs.
Dallie wrestled with the covers in a sheer need of freedom from the darkness as she flung the blanket across the room, her curly brown hair sticking to her sweaty face and her big blue eyes momentarily blinded by the unexpected light shimmering in through the many windows in her room.
She sat on the floor for a moment, breathing deeply, trying to calm down after the terrible nightmare she had just experienced for the fifth time this month.
Finally she was able to stand up and throw her blanket messily onto her bed, wiping her sweaty face on her shirt and running a hand through her wild hair in an attempt to tame the wild beast after she had scared herself in the mirror.
Dallie looked up at the clock. Twelve in the afternoon. God it was early. She usually slept until like two, but oh well.
With a look at the calendar, Dallie gave a heavy sigh. Only two more days until her dad had to go back to his job and an Oil Field consultant for Apache in freaking Egypt, of all places. He had been on paid vacation for the past three months due to mass chaos and fights going on over there, but now it was settled down and he had to go back.
As usual, her mother was throwing a going away party for her father, but Dallie knew that her mother would hide away in the house when the people started showing up, she always did.
Dallie finally brought herself to leave her room, grabbing an apple from the kitchen, and walking onto the front porch where her mom and dad were sitting and having coffee.
Dallie crawled into her father's lap, snuggling up to his chest, "Good morning daddy," She said, taking a bite of her apple.
"Good morning sweetie," Her father said, playfully pushed his daughter off of his lap.
Dallie plopped down onto the bench beside her father and ate her apple. "Dal, I really wish you would put some clothes on before you come outside.
Dallie looked at her pajamas, some black short shorts and a red tank top with a black Avenged Sevenfold symbol on it.
"I don't see the problem, there just pajamas," she said casually.
Her mother sighed, but didn't pursue the subject, "Hey Dad, can I go pick up Lani," Dallie asked, getting up and throwing the apple into the trash can.
"I don't care, but drive slow, and don't get pulled over," Her dad said.
Dallie was fifteen and only had her permit, but hey, why not drive anyways. She ran inside and got the keys to the old Jeep she used for transportation, hopping in and starting the ignition only to be greeted by the Sick Puppies over the blaring radio.
Dallie pulled out of her driveway slowly until she got out of sight before gunning it and going 90 mph down the back roads to her friends house.
When Dallie pulled up into the driveway of a brick house, a blond haired, blue eyed girl in an Andy Sixx shirt and blue jeans came walking out of the house, a huge grin on her face. When she hopped into the Jeep and put her seat belt on, Dallie dared to ask what she had done to her grandparents of whom she lived with.
"Oh you know, pissing old people off, it just makes my day," Lani said, checking her hair in the mirror to make sure it was still straight and fixing her smeared eye liner.
Dallie continued her ninety mile an hour ride until they got close to her house and slowed it down.
People had already started showing up and of course her mother was hiding out in the house away from all the people.
When the two girls reached Dallie's room, Lani plopped down on one of the two beds in Dallie's room, getting comfortable.
"So Dal, have the same dream again?" Lani asked, propping herself up on her elbows to look at her friend who was now laying on the other bed.
Dallie sighed, "Ya, but this time I died," She answered he friend.
Lani sat up, criss cross applesauce style, and folded her hands together. "Alright, let's play Dr. Lani," Lani straightened her back and looked seriously at her friend. "Do you know what the serpent symbolizes?" Lani asked.
Dallie laughed, "Well in this dream, I guess it would be the thing that kills us all," Dal shrugged her shoulders, "or maybe I'm just growing not to like snakes along with spiders," She answered.
"Okay that is a start. So the snake devouring the light would be the destruction of the world," Lani said, contemplating.
Dallie shrugged once more."Okay... how does that help my situation?" Dallie asked.
"I am the professional here, so I will be asking the questions," Lani said professionally.
This also made Dallie laugh, "You're about as professional as I am sane," Dallie flopped backwards on the bed.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure they have twizzlers at the mental institution you're checked into," Lani jokingly soothed.
"Bitch, if you bring me strawberry kind and not cherry, I'll choke you with them," Dallie laughed.
The girls were interrupted by Dallie's father entering her room and telling the girls to come join the party.
The rest of the day, Dallie and Lani chilled out and ate, coming back into the house at around twelve pm, going straight to bed
Dallie felt weightless, her eyes closed, hoping she wouldn't have a bad dream, but something didn't feel right.
Dallie opened her eyes and cried out in surprise. She was floating above her bed, above her body! Her sleeping body!
Dallie looked down at herself and cried out again. She was a fucking chicken!
Dallie wanted this to be all a dream, closing her eyes, she imagined herself back in her body, but when she opened her eyes, she was still floating there, she just wasn't a chicken.
Suddenly, she was whipped somewhere else in a swish of black.
Dallie was now standing in front of a giant black pyramid, the door in the center opened and beckoning.
"This is where the damsel goes into the scary building only to get attacked by some monster," Dallie said, taking an attentive step forward, until walking into the doorway of the pyramid.
"And then i step inside and the doors slam and torches light my path," She said scriptivly.
Dallie jumped over the threshold, the door not slamming behind her. Dallie shrugged, "Welp, then i guess I'm in the wrong place," Dallie went to turn around, only to have the large concrete door slam in her face, covering her with dust.
"Fucker..." Dallie mumbled. As if the pyramid heard her, the closest torch exploded to life, burning Dallie's hand before the rest of the torches lit.
"Ow, okay, no more mean names," She complained rubbing her hand. Cautiously, Dallie followed the path given by light.
Dallie came to a dead end, the only thing except the wall being the head of a dog type thing sticking out and numerous hieroglyphs covering the wall.
"And this is like The Mummy, where I stick my hand in the wall and i get my skin ripped off," She whispered to herself.
She took a torch from the wall, after a it of struggle from the torch not wanting to relinquish its position, but she eventually got it and walked up to the wall, avoiding getting too close to the dog statue.
The hieroglyphs showed a wrist being put into the hand of the statuette and being bitten. Dallie laughed, "This is one hell of a dream if you think that I am willingly going to be bitten by a stone mut," Dallie exclaimed. "And I don't even have Brendon Fraiser to look forward too," She sniffled.
Suddenly, a strong wind came from the corridor she had just walked from and pushed her hard, making her stumble forward and grabbing hold of the wall for support, her left hand beside the open mouth of the statue.
Dallie heard a blood freezing growl, and in a flash of black fur, Dallie's left wrist was now in the mouth of the dog statue, which was no longer a statue, but the head and neck of a black dog with really pointy ears, the most piercing gold eyes Dallie had ever seen glaring back at her, a deep growl coming from its throat.
Dallie was too stunned to notice the pain or try to get away, the mesmerizing eyes holding her in place.
She suddenly felt very light again, her vision starting to blur and go black, she felt herself falling, the last thing she saw was a guy, a fairly good looking guy, standing in front of her, and the feeling of being carried, before waking up back in her bed.
Dallie looked at her wrist, but it was only three in the morning so it was still dark and she didn't want to disturb Lani by turning on the lights because of a bad dream, so she simply turned over and had a dreamless sleep for the first time in a long time.
Lani was sitting in a beach chair with a glass of ice cold Dr. Pepper in her hand, sitting in a sea of sand with a giant pyramid sitting in front of her.
"Oh I really don't want to get up and go in there," Lani complained, but getting up and walking into the pyramid anyway.
The corridor was nicely lit with numerous torches and a blinking "Follow Torches" sign above her head.
"Modern touch, nicely done," Lani raised her drink in a salute to the pyramid, following the torches to an end room.
The bright sun light in the room compared to the torches was blinding when Lani stepped through the threshold.
Inside the room was a beautiful garden lining a walkway to the far wall.
Lani walked, slurping on her Dr. Pepper looking at the beautiful place. When she reached the back wall, she saw an instruction pamphlet laying on the table along with a little plant.
Setting down her drink, Lani picked up the book and opened it to the first page.
"Step One- place hand above plant," Lani said in a characteristic voice, placing her hand above the little plant.
"Step Two- wait for plant to engulf hand," Lani said, watching the little plant grow little flowering vines and flow over her hand, almost as if holding it tenderly.
"Right, check," with some difficulty, Lani flipped the page, with big letters across the page, that read, "Now wait patiently as the plant slowly and painfully devours your hand."
Lani jumped back, her hand not coming out of the plant. "What the hell!" She yelled, throwing the book back onto the table and trying to pry her hand out of the plant.
The page of the book turned, drawing Lani's attention to the words on this one, "Just kidding," Lani scoffed, reading the paper, stopping the struggle between herself and the tiny plant.
A warm sensation came over her hand, a very pleasant sensation before the tiny plant unraveled from her hand.
A fresh black drawing was now on the palm of her hand. It appeared to be a flower of some sort with pointed petals and the bent stem.
"Hmm, not exactly my style, but okay," Lani said, inspecting her new tattoo.
She then picked up the book and turned the page which read, "Now have a nice sleep and prepare for a nice flight," and out popped two plane tickets and numerous foreign bills. On the other side of the page was a big red arrow pointing to her right.
Lani looked in the direction of the arrow to find a huge bed with a canopy just calling her name. She stowed the tickets and money in her pocket before waving good bye to the little plant.
"Well, I'll see you guys later," She said, running and jumping onto the bed and going back to sleep.
Lani awoke after that with warm sunshine streaming through the windows in Dallie's room.
Lani looked over at her friend only to see that she was still asleep. "Hey, wake up," Lani said, throwing a pillow and hitting Dal in the head with it.
Dallie yelled and jumped up, startled by the foreign object hitting her in the head, "What the hell!" Dallie looked over at the laughing Lani, glaring at her fiercely.
Dallie sat back, rubbing her eyes to get the sleep out of them, but when she bent her wrist, it kinda hurt, well kinda hurt a lot.
Dallie slowly removed her hands from her face, not turning over her wrist just yet, remembering her dream from the night before.
"Oh God," Dallie whispered, staring at the back of her hand, too scared to look at the other side. She was kind of expecting teeth marks, but they would have been on either side of her wrist, so she thought there would probably be a bruise.
Lani was looking at her oddly, "What's wrong?" She asked, coming and sitting on the bed next to Dallie and snatching her hand real quick.
"Oh wow," Lani said, staring at Dallie's wrist.
"What? What's wrong, i cant look," Dallie said, worry coating her voice.
"Umm, when did you get a tattoo?" Lani asked confused.
"What?" Dallie ripped her hand away and looked at her wrist. Sure enough there was some kind of black tower hieroglyph looking tattoo on the inside of her wrist.
"Damned Brenden Fraiser-less pyramid," Dallie mumbled.
"What?" Lani went to grab Dallie's hand again, but Dallie grabbed hers first. "When did you get a tattoo?" Dallie asked.
"What!" Lani glared at her hand, at the flower she remembered getting in her dream.
"These dreams are going way to fucking far," Dallie said, "and i think we both know what to do," Dallie and Lani both nodded their heads in agreement.
"Google," They said in unison, Dallie reaching for her laptop.
After Lani and Dallie explained each others dream, with much complaining from Dallie about how Lani was treated compared to her, they went to Google to see if they couldn't find out what the hell was going on.
The first thing Dallie googled was "Egyptian Tower Hieroglyph" and looked at various pictures, coming to one that matched her tattoo perfectly, "The Spine of Osiris," or the Djed. It symbolized Osiris and stability.
"Okay, so you have a good a good back and you have to find the god of the Underworld," Lani said, leaning over Dallie's shoulder looking at the computer screen.
"Which is not helping me any..." Dallie sighed.
She then typed in 'Lotus' and automatically found the right symbol, its meaning being rebirth and it's deity Isis.
"Okay, so let's recap. You are supposed have a good back and find the lord of the Underworld, right," Lani said, "and I, am supposed to be reborn and find the Isis lady. Am I right so far?" She said, looking back at the computer screen.
Dallie nodded. "But why would have to die and be reborn again? And how are we supposed to find the 'Gods' anyway?" She asked.
They both sat there for a moment, contemplating their next course of action when Dallie's mother came in her room and told the girls that they were heading out to buy supplies for her father's trip/ The girls said they're good bye's and were back onto the task at hand.
"Well maybe YOU are supposed to get us into the underworld and ME to get us out in one piece. Which would also mean YOU to talk to the scary dead king and ME talk to the nice mom lady. How wonderful," Lani said, apparently happy with the outcome.
"Yes its like rainbow cupcake-pooping unicorns," Dallie said sarcastically, "So what do we do now? We have absolutely no way of getting to Egypt."
Lani's eyes suddenly widened, and she reached her hand hurriedly into her pockets.
"What?" Dallie asked cautiously.
Lani pulled her hand out of her pocket and revealed two round trip tickets to Cairo, Egypt and a wad of Egyptian money.
"Oh lookie, more unicorns," Dallie said glumly, staring at the tickets and money with pure hatred and confusion.
Dallie and Lani then drew out a plan. They were going to use the passports that they had gotten last summer for their vacation to Belize and when her father went in to board, and their mother went out, Lani and Dallie would say they have to use the bathroom, get their bags (which would consist of one back pack with two changes of clothes for each girl, a lighter, two knives, all of Dallie and Lani's money, and anything else they could possibly think of) checked in and get through security and pray that her dad doesn't see them.
So while her parents were in town, Dallie hurriedly found the key to her mother's lock box and got her passport out and ran Lani to her house to her money and passport and get home to turn on a movie and fast forward it to the middle before her parents got home so it would look like they hadn't done anything all day.
Dallie's parents got back late in the afternoon and spent the rest of the night packing her father's things.
The two girls were very nervous about what they were fixing to do, so they avoided Dallie's parents for the rest of the night.
Dallie and Lani both had dreamless sleeps that night, whenever they finally got to sleep that was, and woke up the next morning to go over their plan one more time.
The drive to the airport was long and uneventful, and when they got to the airport, the girls waited for everyone else to get out of the car before grabbing the backpack and leaving a goodbye letter on the seat. Whenever it came time to board, her father waited until almost the last checking call before leaving.
Dallie and Lani hugged him tight and turned away as he made out with Dallie's mom before going through security.
They waited for him to get through before turning to leave just as the last checking call, but before they left, the girls told Dallie's mother to go on out to the car and that they had to use the restroom and would be right back.
Her mom nodded and turned to walk into the parking lot as the girls bolted for checking counter, hurriedly giving the lady at the counter their tickets and just about running through security as the last boarding call was made.
Dallie and Lani ran onto the plane and sat in their seats just as the plane was about to take. both girls collapsing and sighing in relief at their accomplishment.
Lani looked around for Dallie's father and spotted him in the very back, just as they were seated in the very front.
"We're clear," Lani told Dallie, as they sat back for an 18 hour flight to Hell.