8. Police Interview
The two looked up half an hour later as two police officers entered the room with the nurse standing at the door. "Thank you, nurse. We'll let you know if you need anything," one of the cops said, glancing at Atemu before he walked over to Yami with a slightly forced smile.
Yami frowned at the officer and glanced at Atemu before focusing on the officer again.
"Hello, I am Marto and this is Shermon. We're police officers and have a couple questions for you," the police officer said as he pulled a seat over to sit down beside the pale boy. "Is it alright if he's in the room or do you want him to leave?" Marto asked, gesturing at Atemu.
"He wants to know if you want me to leave the room while they talk to you," Atemu explained in ancient Egyptian when Yami gave him a confused expression.
"What do they want to talk to me about?" Yami asked.
Atemu merely shrugged in response. "Ask them. Or wait until they start talking about it themselves."
"Can you speak English?" Shermon asked as he sat beside his partner, frowning as the two patients spoke between themselves in a foreign language.
"He's still learning it so has some trouble at times," Atemu explained.
"But you can translate for him?" Shermon asked.
"Obviously so," Atemu responded with a roll of his eyes.
"What do you want to talk about?" Yami asked, using the bed to sit himself up some more.
"We have a report that you're a John Doe, so we want to try and find who you are," Marto explained. "First off, what's your name?"
"Yami," Yami responded. "What's a John Doe?"
"A John Doe is someone who's identity is unknown. Primarily a guy. Girls are Jane Doe," Atemu explained since he doubted Yami would be able to understand the cops enough.
"Thank you, Atemu," Yami responded with a smile.
"Just Yami? No other name?" Marto asked, writing the name on his notebook.
"Yami Terla Benu Seiko," Yami responded. "But Yami is fine."
"How old are you?" Marto asked.
"Seventeen," Yami answered.
"Where are you from?" Marto asked.
"Smarri," Yami answered.
"Smarri?" Shermon repeated with a confused frown, unfamiliar with that place.
"I suppose it's gone now," Yami muttered, trying to hide the sadness he was feeling. He worried about his people. What happened to them? How did the village disappear from the face of the map? "It was close to Egypt."
"What happened to it?" Marto asked.
Yami shrugged. "I don't know. It was gone by the time I woke up."
"Right… Um… What happened to you?" Marto asked.
"Building collapsed," Yami answered. Surely, they didn't need to know more than that.
"What building collapsed? How did it collapse?" Shermon asked.
"I think it was the main hall that collapsed. A boulder made it collapse," Yami explained, having spoken to Atemu about this in English too since he was struggling a little at the time when they were talking about it in Egyptian.
"What happened to your parents? Were they in the building when it collapsed?" Shermon asked.
"My parents died years before the accident," Yami responded with a slightly cold tone.
"Who looks after you then?" Shermon asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I look after myself. I don't need a babysitter," Yami growled back. "If I can rule a kingdom, I'm pretty sure I can handle myself."
"Rule a kingdom?" Marto asked with a raised eyebrow, looking up at the boy.
"I used to rule over Merita. Had done for three years before the accident. We had our ups and downs, but we survived. I just can't seem to find anything about what happened to my people," Yami responded with a frown, getting more familiar and more comfortable with this language. It was getting easier to speak it as they spoke in it.
"Right… Sure you did," Shermon muttered.
Yami frowned and tilted his head at him, a cold expression forming on his face. "You don't believe me? When did people's minds become so closed to what might be happening around them? They're too obsessed with their own little bubble and can't see the big picture," Yami ranted. "It's like I'm not even in the same world anymore! I mean, even Atlantis, who was extremely advanced, still understood the ways of the people who lived alongside them!"
"Atlantis?" Marto repeated. "That's a myth."
"It really isn't. What is this place if you don't believe in Atlantis?" Yami asked with a frown.
Shermon had a frown as his face, staring at the notes on Yami's file that they had been given. One part stood out. Two professors and an associate reported finding the boy in a tomb in some form of cryogenics. "Yami… do you know who Jesus is?"
"What the hell is a Jesus?" Yami asked with a confused frown.
"What are you doing?" Marto asked as he turned to his partner, a frown forming on his face when Shermon pointed out the part he had just read. "That's impossible."
"Apparently not. Don't you remember the result of the DNA test?" Shermon responded.
"No… I only glanced at it… What did it say?" Marto asked.
"He has no close relatives. Just extremely distant relatives. And I don't mean a seventh cousin. The line had to go back several generations just to find him as a distant cousin. There was only one close match, and it was for a three-year-old child that had been mummified just outside of the Egyptian border," Shermon explained.
"You found my daughter! Return her at once!" Yami snapped, panic growing rapidly. They were never supposed to be able to find her! If the wrong person found her, they'd destroy her mortal body. And her body was extremely fragile to begin with.
The two officers and Atemu all jumped at the exclamation. "Y-Your daughter?" Marto asked, seeing Shermon nod. "Why the hell are you nodding?!"
"According to the report, Yami is actually one of her parents," Shermon responded. "This is quite interesting actually."
"It's insane! And IMPOSSIBLE!" Marto exclaimed.
"Nothing is impossible," Yami responded with a smirk. "I can show you that there's more to life than you know though."
"How?" Marto asked with a frown.
Yami smiled and looked at his hands, using his magic to form a light pink light that transformed into a small blue, pink, and purple dragon. "Welcome back, Merita. How was your sleep?" Yami asked the little sleepy dragon in Meritan.
"Quite nice until you disturbed it," the dragon responded with a yawn, resting her head back on her paws which were resting in Yami's palms.
"A-A dragon?" Marto asked with wide eyes, staring at the little scaley creature.
"Can I touch her?" Shermon asked curiously, rising from his chair.
"Of course. Just be gentle. She won't bite unless you're too rough," Yami responded, moving his hands closer to the officer. "How long have you been asleep?"
"About four thousand years," Merita answered.
"FOUR THOUSAND YEARS?!" Yami exclaimed, shocking the others in the room. Merita groaned and placed her paws over her ears.
"What just happened? What did she say?" Atemu asked, seeing Yami start to panic.
"I-It's been four thousand years?! How?! Why?! Why was I asleep so long?! It should have been a year or two at most!" Yami ranted.
"You didn't start to question it? Your own memory that you showed me showed when they were going to put you to sleep," Atemu pointed out.
"Y-Y-Yes… But… It shouldn't have taken so long. A few years at most. There were plenty of advanced kingdoms around that could have helped me. I know Atlantis had fallen by that point, but there were other kingdoms around and Atlantians still walked the Earth," Yami responded.
"What's he saying?" Shermon asked with a frown.
"He only just realised that he had been asleep for four thousand years. He knew he was put to sleep, but he thought it would have only been a few years. Yami thought they would send him to another advanced kingdom like Atlantis or track down an Atlantian who had survived the downfall of the kingdom," Atemu explained. "He thought it would have only taken a few years. Not four thousand years."
"Goddamn. Four thousand years is a long time to be asleep," Shermon muttered, scratching the little dragon's head. Merita purred as she tilted her head, her light blue eyes half lidded in pleasure.
"This is all impossible," Marto muttered.
"Nothing is impossible," Yami responded softly as Merita yawned and disappeared into a puff of smoke. "Except stopping time or undoing the past. Well… not easily anyway. That one needs help from the gods."
"Have you ever met the gods?" Shermon asked curiously.
"Probably. I just wouldn't have known it," Yami responded, hiding a yawn.
"What's the true religion?" Shermon asked.
"There is no true religion. Every religion is correct. It's just which god or collection of gods that chose to present themselves to the people of the time. Some religions even share a god or gods with one another. Sometimes you have a shape-shifting god playing multiple gods for the same religion. They all share the same principles though- love and kindness," Yami explained, eyes glowing slightly. "They see what we do down here but feel it's not their place to step in. A wrong move may result in the gods themselves fighting which would destroy the universe. The only time they will actually step in and stop something is when someone who is spiritually connected to them calls on them. I haven't felt that sensation since I awoke, so maybe they cut that cord back. Perhaps too many people were trying to call the gods into a fight where they didn't belong."
"Do you share that connection thing with the gods?" Shermon asked curiously.
"To some extent. They only offer that power to someone they think won't abuse the right. If they're iffy because your family has betrayed them before, your connection will be limited. My father betrayed their trust which is why I was punished. I had to ask their help just to kill him and end his tyranny," Yami answered.
"You killed your own father?" Marto asked with a frown.
"I think it's long past the punishable time limits and the laws currently in force probably didn't exist back then," Atemu pointed out.
"I did indeed kill my father. It was done completely legally though. We were at war and the only way to end it was to kill him. It wasn't just a random assassin attempt. It required an army just to destroy that bastard," Yami responded, seeing Atemu starting to realise that he hadn't needed help translating in a while. Merita was secretly giving him a hand.
"Anyway, I think that's all of our questions for now. Thank you for your time, Yami," Marto said with a smile as he stood up.
"What will happen now?" Yami asked with a frown as Shermon also stood up.
"I'm unsure at the moment to be honest. I've never had a case of someone being over four thousand years old showing up under my jurisdiction. I'll speak to my supervisor so that we can work out what to do. I doubt he'd believe us though," Shermon responded since he felt that Marto was still trying to resist believing what they had seen.
"Thank you," Yami said with a tired smile. The two officers nodded their heads in response and left the room.