CHAPTER ONE
Time is such a weird thing. A blink of an eye and a decade is gone, as is all those you've come to love. That being said, don't expect the same to be said when you're in hell on Earth. One second feels like it lasts a full century and never ends. Ask me, I'd know. I was immortal after all. Don't ask me how that came to be, I don't know either. Well, that was before I died.
I'm lucky to have made some friends through my human life and one even brought me back to life, I don't get either. Maybe he made a virgin sacrifice to revive me and my 'brother'.
That brother thing is complicated. He was the reincarnated soul of my brother who had died five millennia before my death and this is his third time being reincarnated. Again, a friend from the past helped to bring him back to life too. They must've done something really good for the Gods to have granted them not one, but two lives being returned from the dead.
A ghostly pale man sighed as he sat down on his bed, not even making a dip as he stared around the pitch-black room. He had been trapped in the hell hole who Ra knows how long.
This had once been the great palace of the Pharaohs, but it was lost in a sandstorm five thousand years ago. Now the entire palace is buried deep beneath the sand. Where the hell did all the sand even come from? There wasn't enough to bury the kingdom when it happened. Did the gods interfered to hide the palace and erase it from history? Why? Whatever happened, the palace is constantly bathed in darkness. The only light comes from the glowing figure sitting on the bed.
His ghostly figure glowed dully, reflected by the dullness of his periwinkle eyes. Time had worn him down, as had the dreadful silence and boredom that accompanied this empty, lifeless palace. He couldn't leave. Whatever kept the sand out of the palace also kept him locked inside.
The pale guy is wearing a white knee-length skirt with a golden belt holding it in place, a sleeveless white shirt hiding his strong chest and chiselled stomach. White leather, Egyptian-style sandals with straps up to the knee protected his feet and a periwinkle coloured cape fell from his shoulders, stopping just before it touched the ground. A silver crown rested upon his forehead, covering his hair line to his brow line with the eye of Wadjet in the centre of a cobbra in a circle engraved in gold. A ruby gem is set in the centre of the iris. Blood was soaked into the material of the outfit and a large crack was in the left side of the crown above the centre of his left eyebrow.
The pale man sighed and laid down on the bed, staring up at the roof. 'Ra, I sure hope you can hear me. If you can, stop ignoring me! When can I leave this hellhole? I'd even go back to Duat if it means I can finally see another person,' the pale man thought with a frustrated expression. 'Fuck it. Send me back to Duat already!'
Far away, in another realm, a glowing man sighed as he shook his head.
"Another shout out from your precious Prince?" Orisis asked with a smirk, looking at his fellow god.
"He's not my Prince. Isis wanted him, not me," Ra replied with a growl.
"What does he want this time?" Osiris asked with a raised eyebrow.
"He wants to go back to Duat," Ra responded, rubbing his temples.
"Wow, desperate much. Send him back already. It's been ages since I've had some fun," Osiris said with a smirk and an evil glint in his eyes.
"Isn't five thousand years enough for one person? He's paid his time for a crime he didn't commit," Ra replied.
"Surely he committed many crimes. He's older than us all after all," Osiris said with a frown.
"He probably created us," Ra muttered with a sigh. "What do we do about him?"
"Why don't you contact his true leaders? You know, the Atlanteans that you took him from," a black cat named Bastet said, jumping onto a golden statue of Ra in his phoenix form.
"They're dead, that's why," Ra replied.
"Perhaps not. He survived. Surely there are other Atlanteans out there," Bastet said.
"They would've been killed during the witch trials," Osiris pointed out. "The Prince avoided that fate by being my prisoner. Uh… my 'honoured guest'."
"You think that's a good thing? I'm sure you killed him the same way as the witch trials. The only difference is he had to go through it multiple times," Bastet said with a frown.
"What's going on?" another goddess named Isis asked as she walked over to the group.
"Your charge is calling to be sent back to Duat. Apparently he can't stand the palace anymore," Ra replied.
Isis sighed and closed her eyes, her eyes glowing as she used her 'gifts' to look down on the Earth. She kept searching until her vision finally showed her the spirit of the boy she had shown 'mercy' to when she saw him stumble into their land all those years ago. "No, no. That won't do. We have to do something for him," Isis said.
"Why? He did nothing for us," Osiris said with a frown.
Isis sighed and glared at him. "That's what you think. He is the mutation that resulted in us becoming immortal."
"What? He's our father now? He created Atum?" Osiris asked with a raised eyebrow.
Isis merely rolled her eyes and walked away.
"Where are you going?!" Osiris called after her.
"To talk to Set. I need his help with something," Isis replied.
"Oh no you don't! He's mine! You're not breaking the spell!" Osiris shouted, running after the goddess.
"What is she planning on doing?" Ra asked with a frown, tilting his head.
"I assume she's going to convince Set to release another sandstorm to uncover the palace. At least partially," Bastet guessed. "That's how Osiris got his soul in the first place. He forced Set to create a sandstorm that forced all out of the palace so that no one could find his corpse and give it a proper burial."
"Why do we even keep Osiris around if he's only going to force people to do crap?" Ra asked.
"Because we have to keep him here or someone else has to take over his duties," Bastet answered.
"True. Why don't we lock the bastard in Duat?" Ra asked.
"That'd make our lives too easy," Bastet replied, jumping off the statue so that she could go back to her duties.
"That doesn't answer my question," Ra muttered. 'What good would freeing the ghost even do? His body will never recover, and his old body is way too far degraded to revive again. I wonder if he'll try to take revenge for his deaths. He didn't last time but that doesn't mean he won't this time. Especially since she practically killed him twice,' Ra thought to himself, walking off to do his own thing since he had just finished his duties. "Oh, I should get onto the old man. He needs to know to be ready for another adventure. Should I convince him to bring his two bratty grandkids? Maybe not, they're the ones who got him in this position in the first place," Ra muttered to himself, changing direction to head towards a special room used when they need to project themselves into the dreams of mortals on Earth.
Ra had only projected himself into one man's mind for the past millennia. That was Solomon Mouto, grandfather of the boys who is the reincarnation of his former lovers. He had to interfere, or the boys would've never been reunited with their Royal lovers. Besides, Solomon was one of their best advisors during their reign as Prince and Pharaoh. Ra missed talking to the old coot.
"I just hop Solomon is fit enough to travel. He is getting on in years. I hope he has enough money too," Ra muttered to himself as he sat on top of a chair with the seat the design of a cobra head, the tail of the snake trekking down to the ground and curled upwards to create a table in the centre. There was three of these chairs around the 'table' with a glowing eye of Wadget in the centre. A crystal dome made the iris, sending rainbow reflections over the room and against the silver 'scales' of the four snakes.
Ra frowned and closed his eyes, having to really focus since he was a little rusty with this skill. He really needed to do it more often but that's not an easy task since the belief in the gods have slipped a lot in the last few decades. Even in Egypt. 'Focus,' Ra thought, forcing his mind back onto the task at hand.
TBC...
Please tell me what you think.