Here it is! Chapter 1! I hope you all enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! IT is the property of Kazuki Takahashi/Shonen Jump. I do, however, own Sarana.
Chapter One: A Visit to Egypt
"Sara, you don't have to go," my mother said for the hundredth time.
I turned my head to face her. "I want to."
This conversation had actually started several weeks ago, when my dad – my mom's divorced husband whom I hadn't seen in twelve years – sent us a letter inviting me to come visit him. The one thing was…he lived in Cairo, Egypt, where he worked as an archeologist. That was partly why he left: he kept leaving on some important adventure at some random dig in the world, and wasn't really at home for my mom or me. So, Mom put her foot down and divorced him. He stayed in Cairo, and we moved to South Carolina, in a little town called Clayton, where my mom grew up.
Then came this letter, which was weird because Dad had never sent anything to us, not after he sent us an ancient Egyptian jar that Mom sent back to prove just how she felt about his obsession.
What my mom didn't know, however, was that there was something else in that package that Dad had sent me, something I had cherished since then: a Duel Monsters deck. The cards were pressing against my thigh in my pocket at this very moment.
"Mom," I said firmly, "I know Dad neglected us, but I still love him, and so I want to visit him. Besides, it will be kind of fun: pyramids, artifacts, mummies – Mom!" She had winced at the last word.
"Yes, it will be fun, but…What if he forgets to get you things to eat, and leaves you alone at his apartment all day, and doesn't take you anywhere?"
"Mom, we'll be fine. If he forgets about dinner, I have money. And he lives a couple blocks from the Cairo Museum, so I don't think I'll be that bored. Besides, he enrolled me in an English-speaking school, so that will occupy most of the time. He also promised to give me a tour of the dig."
"Oh honey, you're up next." Mom pushed me through the airport line. We quickly got my bags on, and then it was time for the long security process.
Twenty minutes later, that was done, and I was giving my mom a good-bye hug before I through the gate.
"I'll send e-mails every week Mom, I promise," I vowed. She wiped her damp cheeks and bid me farewell. I gave her one last wave before I left on my adventure.
The plane ride was long, and I mean really long. The first leg of the trip was a twenty hour flight to an airport not far from Marrakech, Morocco. Good thing I brought a good selection of books, and a Nintendo DS. I had read through most of my Harry Potter books and had re-beaten almost all of the games at my disposal by the time the plane landed.
That aside, the plane finally landed in Marrakech, and I stumbled, half-asleep and getting use to walking, through security once again, and made my way to a plane that was headed for Alexandria, Egypt, where hopefully Dad was waiting.
This trip was much shorter – four and a half hours – but my legs were still numb by the time it was over. After yet another round of security, I made to the lobby. Mom had told me to look for my Dad holding a sign with my name on it, but I saw no such thing, so I sat on a bench and admired the walls.
They were designed to look like the walls of an ancient Egyptian palace. They were made of tan stone, with ancient decorations and hieroglyphics. I had absolutely no idea what they said, so I made a mental note to ask Dad if he could read them.
Suddenly, I had a compulsion to look up, and I saw a man with deeply tanned skin, holding up a sign with my name on it: Sara.
"Dad!" I called, standing and loping to his side. After a moment of surprise, his face broke into a delighted grin.
"Sara! So good to see you again!" He exclaimed, ruffling my hair. "The last time I saw you, you were being potty-trained!"
"Very nice," I said dryly, "how long were you waiting?"
"Only a few minutes, don't worry," he assured me, "I've got so many exciting things planned for us! We can see…" He suddenly stopped. "I noticed that when your mother sent back the vase, your cards weren't in the package. Did you keep them?"
I smiled and pulled out my deck. "I look at them every day and think of you," I said quietly, "Except I never learned how to play the game."
"Well, that just fine, every other kid here plays the game," Dad said cheerily, "Did you know that the game originated in ancient Egypt?"
"Really?" This was interesting. "Um, shouldn't we be going? We can talk on the way," I quickly added.
"No problem," Dad replied easily.
A few minutes later, we were in Dad's pickup on a highway headed for Cairo.
"So how do you know Duel Monsters originated in ancient Egypt?" I asked.
"About a year before you were born, we discovered another pharaoh's tomb, and hieroglyphics on the walls that were depicting the great deeds of his life showed him battling his servants with monsters that were sealed in stone slabs. Couple of months later, a certain man by the name of Maximilian Pegasus remade the sport into a simple card game so that kids around the world could enjoy the dangerous game in a simple, safe way."
"Do you know the pharaoh's name?" I was curious.
"That's a mystery, we saw on one of the last walls the image of the pharaoh battling one his opponents. His name had been on a cartouche on that wall, but it was scratched off. It was almost like someone didn't want us to know the name of the pharaoh. The other thing is," he added, "There was no mummy."
"No mummy?"
"Not even a trace of one. It was an empty tomb, which makes us wonder if it was prepared for a pharaoh and never used."
"Sounds like a mystery, all right," I agreed.
"There was something else, however, that caught our attention," Dad suddenly said, "There was a whole wall of hieroglyphics depicting one of the pharaoh's servants. The writing explained that she was one of his greatest friends, and stood by his side through all wars and conquests until she was killed trying to protect him."
"Did it say how?"
"That's another mystery, we don't understand it. The writing mentioned a 'Shadow Game' and that she lost and had her soul sacrificed to the darkness."
"Wait…do you say she?"
"Yes, and her name was Sarana." He turned his head and grinned at me.
Sarana is my actual name, but I my mom had always referred to me as Sara, as well as everyone else in my neighborhood and at school. Now I understood why: it was something that had reminded her of Dad.
It felt kind of nice to know that I was named after a nameless pharaoh's great servant.
"Speaking of hieroglyphics, Dad, did you see the ones at the airport?"
"I did, as a matter of fact, and they told the story of King Tut." He grinned again. I couldn't help but grin, as well.
Ten minutes later, we parked in front of a dig.
"I thought you might like to see where I work real quickly, before we go to my apartment," he explained.
"Sure," I said enthusiastically, and he grinned again.
We stepped out of the car and made our way across the dig. There were archeologists digging into the ground with small trowels, brushing dirt off artifacts stubbornly stuck in the ground, and examining newly dug out jars, weapons, and tools.
"Robert!" someone called, and we turned to see a tall man with long silvery hair, wearing khaki pants and shirt and a wide-brimmed hat, striding towards us in a confident manner.
"Pegasus!" The two men shook hands, and Dad introduced me. "This is my daughter Sarana, or Sara, who I was telling you about the other day. Sarana, this is Mr. Pegasus, head archeologist and creator of the modern card game Duel Monsters."
Pegasus gazed down at me with a friendly smile. "Ah, so the lovely Sarana has finally arrived. Your father was quite chatty about you when he knew you were coming." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dad blush. "He mentioned that you have a deck…?" He didn't need to finish his question for me to know what he wanted.
"Yes I do, Mr. Pegasus," I pulled my deck out of my pocket and showed it to him. "Only I never learned how to play…"
"Not a problem! Everyone here knows how to play, so I'm sure that anyone would be willing to teach you!"
"Speaking of which, Mr. Pegasus," Dad interrupted, "I was hoping that we could show my daughter the stone with her namesake…"
"But of course! It's this way." Pegasus turned and motioned to us to follow. He led us into a tent on the other side of the dig.
"Here it is! The stone tablet depicting the mighty Sarana!" Pegasus announced.
I studied the stone. The woman on the stone was very beautiful, I decided. She stared to the right in the same style as ancient hieroglyphics I had seen pictures of. In front of her was some kind of long-bodied red dragon spewing lightning. Behind her was what I assumed to be the pharaoh because of the clothes he was dressed in.
To her right was a much darker image: a man dressed all in black who had summoned a horrible creature which bared its fangs at the pair.
"The hieroglyphics say that Sarana loved the pharaoh more than anything," Pegasus explained quietly, "And he cared for her, too. However, when this pair of fiends," he indicated the pair on the right, "attacked Egypt with a lust for power, they demanded that the pharaoh face them in a 'Shadow Game,' or so they say. Sarana, in her love, refused to let the pharaoh be harmed, and offered herself in his place. The evil pair agreed, and she battled them with her dragon, believed by many of the archeologists to be a form of the heaven god Osiris.
"When the pharaoh learned about her sacrifice, he attempted to find and rescue her, because the battle was held in a secret place, but by the time he found them, it was too late. Sarana had already lost her soul to the shadows. Impassioned and deeply upset, the pharaoh also battled the pair, and this time the force of Sarana's love for him augmented his for her, and he was successful, but because Sarana would not have killed them, he held fast to her memory, and he sealed the beasts into his…" Pegasus frowned. "We are not sure what it means here, but it is said that they were sealed into the 'Millennium Puzzle.'" He pointed to a pendant around the pharaoh's neck. "We believe that the hieroglyphics mean the pendant he wears." He turned to look at me.
"Something happened then, because this is the last mention of the pharaoh. The rest of the hieroglyphics describe the mourning for his death, but there is not a mention of a death anywhere, except for a wall in which everything was mysteriously rubbed away." He frowned again. "But everything else is in perfect shape. We only know that it mentions a death because of one very faint mark that translates into 'death.'"
"Wow," I commented, "That's a really big mystery. I wish there was something I could do to help…"
"Not really," Pegasus admitted, and then he looked at his watch. "Oh, my goodness, look at the time! It's just about time to finish work for the day!" He rushed out of the tent.
Dad put a hand on my shoulder. "We should be going, too," he said, "There's a nice Mexican restaurant by the apartment. I thought you might like it."
I couldn't help but laugh. A Mexican restaurant in Egypt? I'm sorry, but it sounded really funny. "It sounds awesome, Dad."
He smiled. "I knew it would be a good idea to invite you to stay with me."
"Really good Mexican food," I commented as we left the restaurant.
"Yeah, I enjoyed it too," Dad agreed, "So, you ready to see where you'll be living?"
"Sure."
Cut to the apartment…
"Wow…" was all I could say as I studied my room.
Three out of four walls were colored a rich brown. On the fourth wall, however, was an enlarged image of the stone that I had observed earlier, the colors made much brighter than the millennia-old stone. There was a queen-sized bed with a thick tan comforter and two fluffy pillows. There was a bedside table on either side of the bed, each topped with a lamp. A dark-brown dresser stood by a wall. The whole place was wonderful.
"Dad, it's…it's great!" I said with feeling.
"I hoped you would like it," Dad grinned. "I, uh…I'll let you unpack." He left me to appreciate the room
Without hesitation, I put my bags down and made a running start at the bed. With a "Whoop!" I leapt towards it and landed with a soft thump. It was indeed a very very soft bed, I decided. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out an iPod, and listened to it until I felt tired enough to slink into pajamas and crawl into the bed. Within moments, I had fallen asleep, but the rest was disturbed by dreams of darkness and battles with monsters and a woman falling to the floor just as the pharaoh burst in…
The suspense has already begun to build...What is Sarana's destiny? Just keep reading! R&R please!