D I E

You wouldn't die for me, I've died for you
You wouldn't die for me, I've already died for you
You wouldn't die, you wouldn't die, you wouldn't die!

You're going to deny me again tonight, aren't you? How dare you.

You don't remember, you say. You don't remember me dying because your Pharaoh caught me. You don't remember that my last look – my last smile! – was for you and only you. You don't remember the hell I visited again and again so I could stay close to you. You don't remember the time I left so you would realise how much I mattered to you.

And you did realise, you know? But you've forgotten. Oh how notoriously poor your memory is. It always was. You forgot the most important things, forgot that I was the King of Thieves, forgot that your loyalty was entirely to the Pharaoh – I will admit to having something to do with that, however – forgot that the other priests had eyes and ears beyond their own, and that we were a secret.

How could you forget that we were a secret? That made it enticing. That made it difficult. But you never understood how I liked challenges. You were a challenge. When I beat you, I had to find more ways to make it interesting. I had to visit at least once every seven days and then twice and then three times and then once during the day and then stay for a full day and it kept getting more and more dangerous until I was finally caught.

And then I died.

I died for you. Do you see? I died once, when I chose to work parallel to the Pharaoh. I died for you then. I was closest to you then. You were mine, then. You thought it the other way around, but you were wholly mine. Always.

But I died for real. For real. I remember dying. It was quick, but far from painless. It hurt. It hurt more knowing that I had to leave behind my possessions – my you.

You died. But you died sleeping. You weren't killed. And worse, you weren't held on to. There was nothing to anchor you to that time – you were through. It was over. It ended. You died because you were tired of it. You died because there was nothing left. You died for you. I died for you. Why is it that we both died for the same person?

I died for you twice already. I'm dying for you again. You killed me. And you don't remember.