The Valley of Kings and a Queen

Chapter 36

When I finally make it home, I run straight to my room. I take a long shower letting the warm water soothe the sorrow aching in my bones. After showering, I change into my pjs and curl up into my bed burrowing myself under the layers of covers and blankets. I lay in my bed wide awake unable to fall asleep since it's not even seven o'clock. I am unable to hold back my tears as I tightly grip my pillow in my hands.

"I just want to go home," I cry to myself hoping that speaking the words out loud would bring me some sort of comfort. I hate this place. I hate that I moved so far from home. I hate that I let myself give this place a chance. And I hate myself for being so stupid. This is why you never wear your heart on your sleeve for if you leave it out there in the open then it is no longer safe. No longer protected. No instead, it is left to be stolen and hurt. For people are not to be trusted, not with such things as beautiful and precious as a heart.

I hear a knock on my door, Olivier I assume. A summoning for dinner I am guessing, but I refuse to stir. The knocking fades away leaving me alone in my thoughts. My sadness consumes me eventually forcing myself into a deep slumber.

I fall into the duat, or so I thought. No, I'm somewhere else. My sleep has taken my spirit somewhere else wanting to show me a vision of some sort. My spirit travels back to the Valley of Kings. For seconds I am standing facing the mausoleum, the sand swirling around my spirit or whatever I am in this form. Then, I am shifted to inside the mausoleum traveling through the labyrinth of tombs and chambers. Except this time, I stop in a chamber that I have never visited before. Hieroglyphics stain the wall telling tales that I am unable to fully process. There's a golden sarcophagus standing upright against the wall open and empty as though the body that had previously been laid to rest within it had escaped. Chills run down my back. The sarcophagus must be that of some royalty or pharaoh to be encrusted with golden and dazzled with jewels.

"I see you made it past the guards. They keep this place quite well-kept," a regal voice lets out. I turn to the direction that voice comes from hoping to get a glimpse of the figure. Instead I am blinded by whatever aura is emitted from the statue or is it just that the sheer beauty of the figure is just too striking for me to look at?

A disembodied voice responds softly, a blunt remark, and a guttural laugh lets out low and coldly – the laugh is so recognizable, I just cannot quite piece the familiarity of it together as my head starts pounding inside me. It is as though a hammer is being sledged into my head over and over the ratchetting of it making the ache inside me swell up engulfing my thoughts.

A pass out cold on the floor of the mausoleum. For how long, I have no clue especially since I am still in my dream state not actually here.

This time the chamber is empty, the sarcophagus is closed, tightly sealed. I have a strange desire to run towards it and give a free rein to the mummy inside. The tomb seems to be beckoning. To be waiting to be summoned. Waiting for whatever endless power inside to be unleashed without yielding. Though my desire is scorched, the second I tilt my head to the right where the corner of my eyes see what is sketched on the chamber floor. Dark, red blood encrusts the flooring. Despite only being in a dream state, I gag trying to prevent any upheaval of whatever might retch out of my spirit. I force myself to fixate my eyes closer at the blood trying to make sense of it being spilt out -why here of all places? There is no carcass or bones around to suggest foul play. No sense of death lingering as though it had come to claim someone. The encrusted blood appears to have been used for some ritual of some sort. Similar to what led me into this Egyptian mess to begin with. I silently curse the gents who loved their sacrificial games and bloodletting. They always seemed to be tiptoeing on death's doorstep as though death is a friend that one can merely call out to politely just to play a simple game or two.