Scattered Memories


Kara Rossii wandered through the temple, gazing at its magnificent beauty. It was absolutely amazing how the Ancient Egyptians could have constructed these gigantic stone columns without the aid of modern machinery.


Kara paused to read some hieroglyphics on an alabaster pillar. "Praise to the god Re, as he rises from the Eastern horizon of heaven." She said aloud. Kara was an Egyptologist, and particularly fluent in Ancient Egyptian. Kara had come here, to Luxor, to study the ancient temples.


Kara brushed a lock of blue-black hair out of her dark eyes as she scanned the pillar. There were different prayers to different gods, but most of them were for the god Re, which was understandable because this was the temple of Amun-Re.


Today, the temple of Amun-Re. Tomorrow, she would visit the temple of Osiris. It was that temple that had interested her in Ancient Egypt in the first place. It was said that the entrance to the high priest's chambers was secret, and had been lost at the end of the 19th dynasty.


The last high priest of Osiris that had occupied the secret chambers was Imhotep; adviser to the Pharaoh Seti I. Imhotep had murdered the pharaoh then attempted to wake the dead, therefore being condemned to the Hom-Dai. Imhotep didn't have time to have an apprentice who he could tell the chamber's secret location to.

Kara didn't know why, but something about that high priest had always interested her; whether it was that he murdered a pharaoh, had a secret relationship with one of the pharaoh's concubines, or that he had awakened twice over the course of history, she didn't know. But she kept a 1933 picture someone had taken of him in her purse.

Kara looked at a few more inscriptions before calling it a day and returning to her hotel.

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The next day Kara had woken up early out of excitement and was at the temple at dawn. The night watchmen had given her strange looks, but did not object to her waiting outside the ruin.

When the temple finally opened, Kara dashed inside, feeling like a kid in a candy shop. Where to start? Kara promised herself that by the end of the day she would read every hieroglyphic symbol in the entire temple. Yeah, right.

At about 8 o'clock the rest of the tourists arrived, and Kara was no longer allowed to wader about the temple at her own will.

Oh, well. She thought, Might as well take the tour with the rest of them.

They had queued up and now a lanky 15-year-old boy with red hair, pimples, and braces was leading them through the temple.

As the tour group passed a blank stone corridor, Kara felt a wave of nausea. She stopped to rest herself. This heat must be really getting to me... she thought as she held on to a pillar to keep herself from toppling over.

Suddenly Kara's eyes rolled back into her head and she swayed on spot. When her vision returned into focus, Kara gasped. The walls around her were no longer cracked with 3000 years of age. Bright torches were lit along the corridor, and she was standing on marble, not sand. Suddenly, the wall in front of her began to move.

First it moved outward a bit, then it proceeded to slide over about ten feet to the side, like a sliding glass door one might have leading to their backyard. Kara watched in awe as a girl with long black hair looked around before stepping out and shutting the door. Before the wall was slid back into place, Kara saw the inside of the room. It was the High Priest's chambers!

The girl shut the door and turned around. Kara gasped. The girl had her face! Yet, it appeared she could not see Kara.

"Umm, hello?" Kara tried, "Uh, my name is Kara, and I'm, uh, sort of lost..."

But the girl the just turned without acknowledging Kara's presence. Kara heard her cursing to herself in a language she recognized as Ancient Egyptian.

"He wasn't even there! How stupid can I get?"

Since the girl didn't know Kara was there, she figured it wouldn't hurt to follow her and see more of this dream.

Kara followed the girl out of the temple and into the street. Kara gasped. There were farmers herding sheep and goats, and men in loincloths floating stones down the Nile on an ancient style river barge. The girl walked into, what Kara recognized as, the pharaoh's palace. Kara followed her into to the entrance hall, where they found a man.

He was dressed in black robes with his head cleanly shaven. Kara noted the scarab pectoral on his chest. He must have been a high priest. Suddenly, she took out her purse and leafed through her wallet until she found her 1933 picture of Imhotep.

Kara held the picture up to her face, and then changed the focus so she saw the real man, who was waiting by a golden statue of Bastet. The picture and the man matched perfectly.

Oh my God, Kara thought, this man is *the* Imhotep! And that must be... She looked at the girl with her face, who had walked up to Imhotep and was running her hand over his face without touching him. Anck-su-namun!

They began to kiss, and Kara was filled with what she could only describe as: jealousy. She wanted to be kissing that man, but she didn't know why. She had never seen him alive before. Imhotep moved his hand onto her arm, smearing the gold and black paint.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. "The Pharaoh!" Imhotep cried in Ancient Egyptian. Anck-su-namun directed Imhotep to go hide behind some curtains as Seti I walked in. Anck-su-namun leaned up against the statue of Bastet.

Seti took one look at Anck-su-namun's smudged paint and said, "Who has touched you?"

Anck-su-namun diverted her gaze, trying desperately to think of an answer. Kara wished she could run up and smack Seti. For some odd reason, she hated him deeply. Why, she could not say.

Suddenly Imhotep appeared from behind the curtains. He took Seti's sword from his belt. Seti stared.

"Imhotep?! My priest?"

Without warning Anck-su-namun had drawn another dagger and had stabbed Seti in the back. Kara drew back with horror, glad she wasn't a part of this scene.

Imhotep then plunged the sword into the pharaoh and for the next few minutes they hacked away at his body. Kara retched and almost fainted.

When the deed was done, the three, Kara included, heard banging on the large gold doors.

"Pharaoh's bodyguards!" Imhotep stated.

"You must go – save yourself!"

"No!"

"Only you can resurrect me!"

Imhotep looked afraid, but let himself be lead away by his gold-skinned priests. "You shall live again!" he cried, "Anck-su-namun!"

Imhotep left, but just in time. Men with the tattoos of the MedJais burst in through the door and saw Anck-su-namun standing over Seti's mutilated corpse. Anck-su-namun drew herself up with the dagger and cried, "My body is no longer his temple!" And flung the knife into her own stomach.

Kara's head spun and black clouded her eyes. There was pain in her stomach, more pain than she had ever experienced in her entire life. She doubled over and fell to the ground as the whole world went black.

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"Miss, are you alright?" Kara opened her eyes. Everything was blurry, but she could make out two things – the crumbling statue of Bastet by her head, and the fact that she was lying down on sand.

"Miss?" The voice said again. Kara could not see the speaker, but it was defiantly a man.

Kara rolled over, realizing the excruciating pain in her stomach had disappeared. A man in long black robes was kneeling over her. He was bald, and Kara could've sworn she knew him from somewhere, but what had happened in her dream had all become a blur. She barley remembered anything.

Kara groaned, and the man helped her sit up against the statue. "Are you alright?" He repeated.

"I... I think so... I don't know..." Kara whispered shakily. She slowly brushed the sand out of her hair, trying to recall anything. Anything at all from her dream.

Kara suddenly looked around. "Where am I?" she asked softly.

"The ruins of the pharaoh's palace." He answered gently, seeing she was very shaken and afraid.

Kara was confused. Hadn't she been in the temple of Osiris just a few moments ago?

"I'm sorry." She whispered suddenly. The man's eyebrows furrowed.

"What for?"

"I... I don't know. It's just... I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He put his hand on her shoulder. "It's okay. Maybe you've just had too much sun. Would you like to go to my office and have a cup of tea? That might help."

"Your office? You work here?"

"Not here here. I work in the temple of Osiris. I'm the curator. I saw you walking away from your tour. Your eyes were all zoned out and you were walking as stiff as a zombie. I just followed you here, then you screamed and fell to the ground."

"You didn't see...?"

"Didn't see what?"

"The murder."

"What murder?"

"I..."

"Yes, you've defiantly had too much sun. Come on, I'll take you back to the temple."

He helped her to her feet, where she swayed a bit before regaining herself. "By the way," he said as they were walking slowly. "My name is David."

"David." She echoed. It didn't sound right. No, it didn't suit him.

"And you are?" he asked.

"Anck... Mee... Kar... Kara." She said distantly.

"What?"

"Kara. My name is Kara." That didn't sound right either.

"Oh."

They entered the temple and began to walk along the path she had taken on the tour. He stopped at a door just down the hall from the large, blank wall, but Kara continued walking.

"Where are you going?" David asked, confused.

"Your chambers... office." She replied, sounding as distant as when she had decided on what her name was.

David shrugged and followed her, to see where she was going. Kara walked up to the large wall and slid her fingernails in between the top and bottom lines of a brick. She then pulled, and it swung out on hinges. Inside the hole in the wall was what looked like a lock.

David watched in awe as she pulled out the middle, a gold scarab beetle, and twisted it twice to the left, once to the right and pushed it back into place. Suddenly part of the wall sprang forward, as if something holding it back had just been taken away.

Kara swung the brick back into place and pushed the door to the left as one would close a sliding glass door. It moved on hidden wheels, and David gasped as inside he saw the high priest's chambers, that had been lost for over three thousand years.

Kara smiled as David walked up to her, mouth agape.

"How'd...? How did you...?" he stammered.

Kara's smile suddenly turned into a look of concern. "I... I don't know how I knew... I just... did."

"But this – this is the high priest's chambers!"

"It is." Kara entered the room. Everything in it felt oddly familiar.

"Look at all the dust and cobwebs." David whispered.

Kara laughed, snapping back into her old self. "Is that all you're looking at? I mean, can you believe it? Everything intact and undisturbed for over 3000 years! An archeologist's dream."

"I take it you study Egypt."

"Yes. I'm an Egyptologist, actually."

"Oh."

Kara looked at the walls. Their bright paint had been faded, but was still interesting to look at. One of them in particular caught her eye. It was a picture of a man with a scorpion's body, who had a scepter or something shot straight through his heart.

Kara walked up to the carved image and ran her hand over the alabaster stone. "The Scorpion King..." she whispered. She leaned her head against the wall as a fresh wave of memories entered her brain.

The Scorpion King, Ahm Shere, Imhotep, Nefertiri, Seti, MedJai, O'Connell, Anubis, Hom Dai... Everything was coming back to her. She turned her head to look at "David," who was examining some hieroglyphics on another wall.

"Imhotep..." she breathed. It was him!

Tears seeped from Kara's eyes as she ran over to him. "I'm so sorry, Imhotep! I'm so sorry!" she cried.

David raised an eyebrow. "Kara? Are you okay? Who's Imhotep?" He picked her up by her shoulders and helped her walk over to the bed. They both sat, Kara still crying out apologies.

"Kara? What's wrong?" He asked.

"My God, Imhotep! I'm so sorry!" Kara threw herself at David, who hugged her back, trying to calm the girl down.

"Ssh. Kara, it's okay. You didn't do anything."

"I know! I just left you there like an idiot! I'm so sorry, Imhotep! I love you."

"What?!"

"Imhotep..." she sobbed into his robes. David took her by the shoulders and shook her.

"Kara? What is wrong with you?"

Kara said nothing, but lifted her hand and ran it over his face, extremely close to touching his skin but not actually coming in contact. It had been their special greeting...

David stared for a second before breaking into a smile. "Anck-su-namun."

"Imhotep?"

"I'm here, my love."

Anck-su-namun fell into his embrace, still sobbing. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking. I just couldn't... wouldn't... I'm sorry!" she cried.

Imhotep caressed her hair lovingly. "Ssh. It's alright, love. It's fine."

"No it's not! How can you love me after what I did to you?"

He smiled. "I have my ways."

"But Imhotep--"

"Ssh. I told you that I would always love you no matter what, right?"

"Yes, that was what you said, but I don't think my actions qualify under 'no matter what.'"

"Anck-su-namun, it's true, you did break my heart."

Anck-su-namun groaned as Imhotep toyed with her glossy hair.

"But I forgive you."

Anck-su-namun's head shot up suddenly. "You... do?"

"Yes. And I love you."

"I'm sorry. I really, truly, am."

"It's okay. Apology accepted."

"I love you, Imhotep."

"I love you too, Anck-su-namun."

The End

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AN – Okay, that was short. Well, shorter than my other fics, anyway. This idea came from KatieScarlet's 'To Begin Again', which is a great fic. I hope this didn't suck too badly. Anyway, please review!