Chapter One: Awaken
I barely remember my last moment. The last time I opened my eyes, A fog covered my sight and memory. I don’t even remember what I was doing before I closed them last. All I can gleam is agony, lethargy, and outrage. Agony from pain across my body, Lethargy from a feeling of emptiness, a sense that no matter what I could do, I would die. Outrage that my death came. Not that it would come for me. My tribe recognized that death comes eventually, you can’t truly escape its grasp. But a thought in the back of my mind always came with that thought.
At Least make my death memorable, at least meaningful, at least a proper end.
I don’t remember the events but I do remember how I felt. The pure horror that my death would be quiet, unnoticed, and forgotten.
It's how I know I died. Why else would this dreamless sleep go on forever? There are no images to bring peace, no gods to give peace, nothing but darkness and the noise of my own thoughts.
Had I not served the tribe well enough? Had I not been good enough to my sister’s?
Did the chieftain deem me unworthy of an afterlife? That I deserved this end?
To be trapped in endless darkness?
I barely knew anymore. I have been drifting from quiet sleep to endless darkness for so long that any sense of time has long since drifted away.
I felt a slight nudge here and there but the constant sensation of icy void dulled it that it required more mental fortitude to even notice the shift.
The only thing that seemed to be different in so long. The fleeting sensation of a touch.
Like a hand that grazed against my own, leading me somewhere, but I didn’t quite know if it was pulling me or I was simply going with the flow it was leading me on.
It felt irresistible and hard to fight until I let myself go with it. Some small part allowed the silver of hope that it would mean one of two things. That I might wake up or that I can finally stop being aware of the numbness around me.
There was pain. Endless pain.
I felt my vital self being mangled and pulled apart like a fragile leaf. A small bug being crushed in pile of rocks, the tide slamming me against the shore and every other pain at once.
A strange sense of relief when it passed, I could feel again. A jolt of pain to reawaken my sense of self.
Light filled my vision as fuzzy shapes went around me. Too much light to see details but no more darkness.
“Uhhhhhhh.” A sound. My voice….it couldn’t be it. I couldn’t say anything in so long. And I can hear it. I can hear my own voice again. “Was I lost?” I asked. I tried to lift my hand to block the light but nothing happened. I tried to move my head but it refused to.
What is happening?
I tried to kick but nothing. No movement outside my eyes was possible. I began to panic.
“Help!” I begged. “Please!” My head was stationary, stuck facing the light. I heard something, whispering but nothing concrete. A voice suddenly spoke but the words made no sense. A language I didn’t know. “What are you?”
“A bureaucrat.” The voice suddenly said in my language.
“What’s a bureaucrat?” I asked as I saw the outer edge of a person with dark-brown skin. Like that of fresh earth after a shower of rain.
“A person who takes care of details. Forgive me, your head was awakened before your body.” I felt a sudden jolt and I can saw my hand suddenly move to my face. I still couldn't feel anything but it was comforting to see a hand…until I noticed it wasn’t mine. It was uncalloused, clean nails that were perfectly round, While the rest of the arm was muscular.
“This is not my arm.” I said with suppressed fear.
“I can only explain in terms you can understand…Do you want them?” The voice asked. Despite my fear I felt something behind it. A kind of…reaching out.
“Please,” I asked knowing I would find the answer either horrifying or worse, mundane. “I need to know.”
“You died. A long time ago. This is not your body, not the original.” The voice bluntly but I heard the hesitation in every break in breath. Like it had trouble being straight to the point but It had too.
“My sis-”
“It's been centuries.” The voice cut me off. I saw another hand rise up to my eye level with strange adornment of the other. “Please look down, I need to know the neck is attached well enough. Tell me if you feel its off.” The voice kept the quick tone and clean sound.
I did as instructed, Looking at a body that was not my own. My mind has haze over it but I knew it was not mine. It was taller, fuller, more sturdy. Not like my body, but of a warrior.
“Why is it like this?” The voice did not answer. I saw the hands of the voice attach legs as I noticed I was only a torso and arms. My fear was bottoming out at this point. More questioning how he was putting me together. Like pieces of broken clay being put together. Seeing the pieces of limbs being sealed with a kind of gold sand flowing into it.
“It was requested you would be strong and able to defend yourself.” The voice said as I tried the now attached legs. Taking careful step after step, nearly tripping on the third. I notice the strange covering over my limbs. Made of a pure white, soft material and with bright yellow adornments. A dash of blue on the material on my legs. My arms were bare but with more of the gold adornments.
“What I am wearing?”
“Khemetic basic.” The voice said. Now being free to move I looked around but the source of the voice was not near me. I saw the thing my head was in was a kind of strange mechanism with two block on top of a slab with a gray shine on it. The room around me looked to be made of a yellowish stone and a bright white light suspended above me.
“Where are you? Are you a spirit?” I was ready to bow in respect before I heard it again.
“No, I am neither a spirit nor a god…I do work for one but I am not one. Squashing that one right now.” The voice explained. “I am talking from another room. You will have a medicine man look over you to help with your, and I hate phrasing like this, transition. Look for the silver fabric and side pony- right you do not have a frame of reference for that. Ask for Martin, tell him the bureaucrat said you were ready.”
I stood there, as I saw an opening in the stone room bleed through with more bright light.
I saw and knew what he said.
But I was still unable to move. I thought I couldn’t physically move anymore but I saw that my hands were trembling. My legs, slightly shifting.
“You said someone wanted me to be strong. Did they also want me to be alive again because it was me? Or was it a chance?” For a while the voice was silent. Leaving me in the empty room with but light.
“I can only say it was a friend and they missed you. We would not have gone through the trouble of bringing back to kill you again.” I didn’t know if the voice wanted me to feel safe with those words but I took what comfort I could with them.
Tentatively I took a step forward. I felt the need to take breath but it was also needless. While I felt fear I felt nothing else. Not tiredness, not fatigue, nor even my own heart.
When I realized that feeling I kept going forward, as I did it felt easier, with no physical affirmation to make it worse. Every step closer into the light that blinded me. The sound of whistling wind, I held my hand over my eyes, seeing a path in front me with nothing to its side.
I took small steps as my vision adjusted. While the fear tried to build again. I did my best to focus on the part of me that no longer had feelings. While disturbing it did make me able to ignore the fear.
“Hey you!” I heard a new voice now. A bit older and smoother than the last. “I’m not wasting time on this unless its important so you better give explanations.” The voice was also more severe, a kind of edge that was buried under the smooth tone.
“Are you Martin? The other said to tell you the Buerrecrat sent me ... .something about you being a…medicine man?”
“Yes, and if your using that name then you can call me mister silver, or Doctor Love, maybe another dumbass name because mister “bureaucrat’ Apparently think this calls for codes names.” The voice said with bitterness. The light dimmed and the man was visible.
A strong frame with a man of great height and prominent shoulders. Hair locking into a single rod of brown with half of it being looser. His eyes had a bright color below his eyes. Glitterly with a shine of silver along with pitch black above the eyebrows in a distinctive style.
“I am Martin. Martin Oni. I am apparently your doctor for the foreseeable.” Martin had an exasperated look on his face. The kind of annoyance that made it clear he was helping her not for goodwill but obligation.
“Docter?”
“Medicine man.” Martin clarified. “Come with me.” He clapped his hands from the walls and out came two large men made of stone with rectangular torso’s. When I saw them walk out of the wall, I also saw that the path I was on was a bridge. One above an endless void that whistled with constant wind and high above was a ceiling with the image of a blue woman with stars on her skin.
I followed Martin forward with his stone men. Leading into another room with various silver tools and an assortment of tools.
“Let the tests begin.” He pointed to a raised plateau with a white fabric on it. I looked at him and sly lips and then the stone men. I barely trusted either but there was little choice in what I could do.
I got onto the plateau as he did his ‘tests’. Using what seemed to be blunt axes on my knee, elbow, and my forehead.
“Nothin?” Martin asked. I nodded. “Well…I don’t know if that is a good thing for you.” Martin knitted his eyes. “Why did he think any of this was a good-” He wiped his face with his hand. “So what can you feel?”
“I feel my emotions?” I explained. “And that’s it. I can hear and look. Not much else.”
“Lovely. Your senses are shot.” He sighed.
“Do you remember your name?”
“My name is-” My mind went blank, my mouth refused to continue. I knew my name, I knew I had one. But I cannot think of it or even try to sound it out. “I am-I am-I am.”
“Enough of that. The subject cannot remember or speak its former name.” Martin took out a small gray rectangle with small holes on the side. Touching a part of it that depress when touched. “You're going to need a new name.”
“What are you really?”
“Excuse you?”
“Why can I not speak my name? How was I brought back? What are you to the voice?” I asked in order of importance to myself. “I want answers that are straightforward.”
“You're asking the wrong family if you want that. As for the rest of what you want.” Martin drowned. A tone that gave away that he knew I would ask that. “It's part of the way you were resurrected I suspect, we used our traditional magics and a decent amount of cheat at its rules, and…I am no snitch. I can say he is the source of most of my headaches and that he is a he.” Martin said he stared at a nearby wall.
“He is your…lover?” She questioned.
“No.” He said flatly. “Don’t ask again.” He went over what seemed to be a flat material with symbols on it. “As far as names go…Kor will do for now. Your body is based on a character from a story. It will work for now.”
“It's not awful.” She agreed. Still spiraling from the suggestion she can’t use her name. “What happens now?”
“Again, no clear answer. I suggest you figure out ways of occupying your mind for now at least. Your body won’t need food, sleep, or breathe. So yeah, think of stuff to keep you busy.” He flicked his wrist and in an instant, an object appeared with more of that thin material between two thicker slivers. “This is a book, try to learn to read it. It's like pictographs but more of them and smaller.” He left the books near me. “Bye.”
He went toward the wall he stared at earlier with the two stone men walking with him.
“Are going to leave me here?”
“No, but I am going to send someone over who needs to fulfill his part in all this. Just sit tight.” Martin promised as I sat alone in the room as he and the stone men melded into the wall. I stared at the books next to me opening them all to see the small symbols on the thin slice of material. The grain feel it had and its bendable properties kept some attention.
To be honest, the only thing keeping me focused were my thoughts. I didn’t know what he meant by read and the books were full of things I couldn’t understand either way.
What I ended up doing was speculating. Getting a few questions out of it that I wanted to get answered.
Who ordered me to come back?
Am I near home or far from it?
What happened to my family and why was I the one given a second chance?
It was not much but my mind went from noisy to deftly quiet. What should I do with so much time? I remember taking naps, doing light work, and mostly spending time near cliffs.
“There is nothing to keep me occupied here.” I admitted out loud. The empty room took the words and swallowed them in silence.
“I can lead you somewhere.” I tried to see where the sudden voice was but I saw nothing until I saw a strange creature. A long face, partially pink faced creature with bright blue and gold adornments on its body.
“Are you a ze-”
“I am Baboon.” The creature said. “You may call me Jabroni, servant of the Oni family and chief assistant of the master.”
“And we are back to something confusing.” Kor said with a sigh.
“My apologies, My vocabulary can be erudite for those with only rudimentary schooling.” The baboon nodded. “I can present you with alternate options to boredom if your are willing to listen and be receptive.”
“Okay…I don’t think I really have a choice.”
“You do, you always do. Maybe not fair choices but choices regardless.” The baboon said with a firm stare.
“Alright? Look, I just need something to do. I know that I am not escaping…whatever this place is.”
“This is the lower halls of the great mansion of the Oni family. I am not at liberty to speak of its path to you at the moment but I can lead you through its least dangerous avenues.”
“So lead me down the paths where I won’t die…again.”
“Precisely.” The Baboon pressed a hand against the wall and a doorway opened up for both of us. “Feel free to walk when you're ready.” The baboon said as it walked its way through the now open pathway.
I looked through it and saw another narrower walkway over the void.
“Are you sure that it's safe?”
“You know, if one must exhibit fear, one must also be able to show strength to fight that fear. It's the way of the beast and man…or women.” The baboon corrected.
I was still unsure. I didn’t hear it move when I walked on it last time but I heard the whistling of wind and how it died when it drew further away. I felt the pit in my being when I thought about what would happen. I could see the infinite void beneath me. My only thought beyond the sense was what would happen if I die again?
Would I awake again in this body? Would I simply end? Would I go…somewhere else? It gnaw at me. Stacked itself against me like a falling tree. Slow enough to follow my path but not quick enough to be a mercy.
“Fine. If it means I am not stuck in a room doing nothing. Even if I am a prisoner or kept here for some strange purpose, I am at least doing something.”
“Certainly more productive than simply waiting. Please follow Lady Kor.”
“That is…you don’t have to call me that.” I said with apprehension. “I’m…not really anybody.”
“That may be partially true in terms of titles, but you matter in that you are here and deserve respect. I will not call you that if you wish but I am a primate of politeness.”
A small smile comes across my face. “Okay, lead on Jabroni.” I said with my first steps.