Chapter 13: The Eyes Don't Lie, Nor Does the Odor

In my mind I had given up.

There was no shame or disappointment in it. In a way, it had felt inevitable. What control did I have? No matter what I did, my fate would always be held to the whims of the gods. I had of my own will submitted myself into their world. What had I gotten myself into? Why did I try to run away from it, run from the judgment of the gods to only fall into the clutches of another greater evil? There was no point. I couldn't even work if I had ended up within the snake Apep by my own doing or if fate had carved this path for me and I was only blindly stumbling to a dance to an ancient prophecy.

There doesn't seem to be words to explain the horror and panic to know I will die and nothing I did would save me. My mind was screaming Let me out! Get me out of here! I don't want to be here! I don't want to die! The mantra was stuck in repeat and felt like shackles that held me where I was. I had staggered backwards, my back hitting against the round tissue wall that my shirt clung to the moisture of. I sunk to my bottom, my limbs shaking from the cries of terror that won't seem to come out.

How boring, the voice in my ear hissed. The snake's body started to twist in turn agitatedly and I was thrown this way and that. I let my body limply move with the movements of my prison. Tears started sliding down my cheeks and nose wondering which moment would be my last. What would happen to me, to die already in the afterworld in a god Anubis nor Osiris can reach? Would there be nothing in the end?

I felt relief at the idea of escaping my current torture and quickly hated myself for it. How selfish I am. I would never be able to return home to my Aunt and Uncle and tell them how sorry I was for leaving them without a word. I'm the only one who Anubis has to help collect his heart, and I he would lose that with my death. It was so sad, seeing how the world would play out after I was gone from it. This world is too cruel.

I could feel acceleration despite being rooted to the ground. The cavern twitched in move in clipped precision. I could physically see the muscles bunching up and tightening around me. Every second I could feel my end coming closer and a numb feeling washed over my body as all my emotions abandoned me. I silently waited for the fate to impose its force to me.

There was a roar that caused a bleeding sharp pain in my ears that ripped my sense of balance. I felt dizzy, and almost didn't see the tunnel wall beside me rip open. A wave of black ocean blasted at me. I was cradled in its current. It broke into my prison and pulled me from its walls. I wasn't sure if the sandy water was rapidly throwing me around or if it was my head that was making feel this. I was holding my breath, acutely aware that I would have to breathe in at some point, and I wouldn't have any air to breathe when that moment came.

I felt something grab me. From the glowing red energy I guessed was coming front the monster I had just escaped I was able to see a clawed hand adorned with gold jewelry. Its sharp claws dug into my wrist and I panicked. I pulled away and managed to kick at the arm until it let me go.

Then I was taken away again by the black current. All light left me into darkness, and I allowed the darkness to take away my consciousness.

I could hear the soft sound of ocean waves lapsing on a beach. I vaguely wondered how I ended up on a beach somewhere. When did I fall asleep? Anubis and Paws should still be around here somewhere… but for some reason the thought of seeing Anubis made my stomach twist tightly.

I opened my eyes expecting to see a sunny sky, a wide beach of white or golden sand and blue ocean water. With a jolt I instead saw a dark, dank beach made of onyx sand and ocean water equally as dark as the shoreline. Reality slapped me in the face, and I was again confronted with the terrors of the last… hours? Days? Weeks? How long have I been here?

I lifted myself to my knees. I was covered with sand all over my limbs and clothes. As I wiped the sand off of me, I couldn't help but think I looked like a poppy seed bagel. The idea struck me as being so hilarious I burst out in an uncontrollable fit of laughter. I laughed until I was shaking and my throat was on fire, but I couldn't stop. 'Hungry, Apep? Here's a human covered in poppy seeds. Be careful, though. Eat too many and drug tests will say you're on opium. We wouldn't want anyone thinking you're crazy enough to do drugs, now do we?"

I rolled to over clutching my sides and was instantly sobered. I noticed the beach wasn't the only thing here. Across the shore was a stretch of thick, lush reeds growing clustered tightly together. I stared for a while processing their presence. The bright green color was almost blinding compared to the blacks and greys I had become accustomed to seeing. I slowly lifted myself up, but I wasn't sure what to do. Something in me said that there was something or someone in those reeds. It terrified me after all the encounters I have already had in the duat. But I didn't want to be alone, and that's what carried my feet in front of the other into the lush greenery.

It didn't take long for me to feel lost. The reeds were so dense, I couldn't see far past the area I was in. The environment had drastically changed. It felt warmer, with some humidity but not the unpleasant kind. I could hear birds singing songs, though I never saw any of them. The mud seeped into my toes, my shoes having been lost long ago.

Darling…

I froze. The voice belonged to a woman and sounded to be only just a few feet ahead. I crashed through the leaves trying to find the holder of the voice, but there was nothing. Just more green reeds.

You shouldn't be here, baby.

This time the voice was a man's. I kept pushing through the reeds to wear the voices teased me. I could hear my panting coming in rasps, their pace becoming quicker.

I croaked, "Mom? … Dad?"

I waited, but there was no response. I clutched at a bundle of reeds, holding on as though they were what kept me rooted to the world. My entire body burned. I had been beaten up in so many ways and felt like I've drowned several times. But none of the pain I felt was anywhere close to being as painful as what the long second of their absent voice left me feeling. I felt a sob coming up, but it turned into a fit of coughs in my throat. My eyes felt like they would seal themselves shut. I sunk to the ground, still desperately clutching at the reeds.

You can't give up, darling. You have to keep moving, I heard my father's voice beckon me.

"How?" I cried. "Why are you here? Why can't I see you?"

This is Aaru, sweetie, my mother said softly. We came here after having our hearts weighed.

"No!" I shouted and I heard the bird's songs die. "How could you go through with that? It's dangerous! You could have… could have…" I couldn't say it. The image of that beast leaping at the heart in the scale was too horrible to say out loud.

We knew, baby. But you gave us that chance, so we had to try. We couldn't let the opportunity go to waste.

"… How was I a part of it?"

Osiris listened to your prayers. With so little still believing in the gods, your prayers were easier to hear. He sent Anubis to collect us at the first gate. We were taken to Osiris and we were asked if we would have our hearts weighed so we could reach paradise.

Don't cry, darling… My mother crooned softly.

"You could have died again… I would have lost you again…"

We wouldn't have failed, darling. I'll lived were blessed by you.

A shaky sound escaped my lips. I was in a giddy ecstasy I wasn't sure was real. I still couldn't see them through the thick brush. Sometime their voices sounded like they were coming in different directions.

"I want to see you…"

You can't, sweetie. You don't belong here. Someone who is alive cannot experience true paradise in this world.

You have to return to the living world.

"I don't want to. I don't want…"

Darling, you must.

I shuddered a breath, shaking. I wasn't sure if I could even get up. Or was that just an excuse? I didn't want to lose my parents again. I wanted to stay here and listen to their voices forever. But as I sat looking around me I doubted myself. I couldn't see anyone here. Even the sound of the birds had escaped. I could never be sure their voices were real. Just that would be enough to drive me insane.

"All right…" I pulled myself up with the reeds I kept in my grasp. I let go and looked around me. "Where do I go?"

Just then I saw a pure white bird flying through the breakings of the reeds. I broke into a run after it. It couldn't be… I thought, remembering being in a similar form during one visit to the duat. 'Unless you want to stay a bird, you should calm down,' Anubis' voice echoed through the memory. I couldn't breathe as I ran. I felt light headed and had to stop to throw up, which is pretty embarrassing thing to do in the Egyptian heaven. I thought I would have lost the bird, but it flew in the corner of my eyes and I was able to chase after it again.

The dirt under my feat was changing from mud to rocky dirt. I started seeing stone blocks in my path every so often. I pushed harder on my feet despite how suffocating it felt. But if I could just catch up with the bird, maybe, just maybe…

Stay safe, baby.

We love you so much.

"No…" I whispered faintly. I came around a row of reeds the bird had passed through. It was gone. I had burst out of the clearing into a spacious stone corridor. It resembled the hall where the gods collect in the other part of the duat, but there was less of the onyx black stone and redder clay and sandy colored stone. There was a tall, spacious staircase where a brilliant light shined down from above. The staircase was spilt in half by the black river flowing against gravity up the staircase until the light swallowed it. I took a step towards the staircase.

I jumped when immediately after making a move I hard deep growls from either side of me. I looked to see to beasts coming toward me at either side. No matter how many times I see the bizarre creatures in the duat, they never failed to surprise me. I had seen sphinx before, but always at a distance. They were far enough that if I only glanced at them I could pretend their faces were just normal lions. These two sat directly in front of me, siting side by side blocking my path.

In their manes where a feline's face should be, there were two female faces looking at me. They were beautiful, with the facial characteristics that defined them as Egyptian women. Their straight noses ended before their plush lips and smoothed out under the high cheek-boned curves that framed everything. Their eyes, I thought, looked large in roundness and brown like mine.

One opened their mouth to speak, and I was struck with a crushing headache. I saw the Seattle Opera house surrounded by a police line, the barren Australian wasteland, and distantly heard I was Yesterday and – was – called Sef. Then the other one opened her mouth, and again I was struck with a flurry of images; a train speeding through some countryside, a cat squeezing between cargo boxes, and Anubis crouched to the ground, pushing a Canopic jar away. There was a female voice that purred through it, but I couldn't make out what it was trying to say.

I reeled when the pain in my head left and I could focus on where I was again. The Sphinxes didn't move. They stood eerily frozen in place with me locked in their sighs.

"Umm… okay… Will you… will you let me through?"

My head ripped open and I became lost in a tirade of images and words that moved to quickly I couldn't piece them together. A jackal breaking into a glass cabinet in my home. Through the petals. A heart place in an onyx scale, white feathers dancing just out of sight. Survive the Drought. Anubis and Kebechet standing together before a landscape in a storm of fire. Meaningless Prophecy… Nephthys in a black and scarlet Victorian dress playing at a grand piano. Plague the Jackal – Amun standing with his hand outstretched invitingly before him.

Whither.

I was on the ground gasping what little air I could, clutching my throbbing head. It took a moment to be aware that I existed, because I had somehow forgotten. I looked up from where I was stooped, and the Sphinxes still watched me from their spot unmoving. I staggered back to my bare feet, but I had no urge to neither move nor speak. I was stuck, and my mind was still half way stuck in the random images and reality to think clearly.

The Sphinxes finally broke their eyes away from me, looking at something behind me. I turned to look at what caught their attention. In a distance I could see a boat floating towards us. It was made with a lighter colored wood than the one I had been sailing in the past months. It was larger from the outside as well, looking spacious enough to hold at least fifty people. As it sailed close I saw Horus' eye painted on its side along with other hieroglyphs that changed between being gold to black as I looked at them. There were scars in the wood as well, as though someone had taken a crowbar and chainsaw and gone crazy on it. Despite the flaws, it didn't seem to be in too bad of shape.

At the front of the boat I saw a tall figure looking down at us. He was a tall, tan skinned man that's defined muscles were easily visible from the Egyptian garb her wore. I plate of straight black hair ran down his back and his golden eyes focused ahead steadily. When I didn't look directly at him, I could see a circular halo of light floating above his head, but whenever I tried to look straight at it the ring wasn't visible.

The boat eased to a stop before where I stood with the Sphinxes. I felt myself shaking, once again aware of being in the presence of a god and one I didn't know. The god looked at the scene in great seriousness. "Human," he said in a soft, but very commanding voice.

"Y–yes?"

"What has brought you to be in this place?"

"I'm… I'm lost."

His brows furrowed at my response. He contemplated me for a moment. His eyes widened slightly before whispering, "You are still living…"

I nodded, not sure what to say. The God strode away and I lost sight of him. He came back in a short amount of time and this time a woman was by his side. She too had a tan complexion and similar eyes but these were the only traits the two shared. The woman wore many pieces of gold jewelry around her wrists, arms, and ankles. Her hair had many colors; oranges, blacks, browns, and white. The colors clumped together and mixed in other places. She had cat ears coming from the top of her head that lay back almost flat on her head. Her hands also looked like a mix of human and feline, with claws I realized in horror looked familiar from before.

But the most curious was her eyes. They were gold like the other god's and slit like a cat's. But something about them glowed. I couldn't say it was completely visible. It was very much like how the Canopic jars would glow for me when I knew they were only glowing in my eyes and no one else's. They burned in a yellow fire that gave power to her stare. It drew me to it, but not in such power that I couldn't resist like the Canopic jars.

She glanced at me only a second before saying something I couldn't hear to the other god. He nodded and in the next instant my surroundings completely changed. I was now standing on the deck of a spacious boat with the two gods standing in front of me.

The goddess twitched her nose in my direction and quickly pulled back in repulsion. "She reeks of that dog!"

"What is your name?" the other god asked unfazed by the goddess' exclamation.

"Nakia," I replied.

"Nakia, how did you manage to come to the duat?" he asked with an incredulous tone.

"Anubis brought me here."

"Anubis?" He stared fixedly at no place in particular. "He should know better than anyone than to bring a living human here."

"I would believe it…" the goddess said apathetically.

"You would?"

She smirked while looking me in the eye. "Well she smells like him, and I can see it in her eyes.

"She's the Eye of Anubis."