Night life || Ahkmenrah

One

The first time Damien became conscious it was to the noise of shouting. He pushed himself off the desk behind him and looked around. He was in his tent. The off white canvas draped over his head, light under the Egyptian sun. His belongings were all there. Messy with life and his lack of general tidiness. What was strange was the lack of a tent flap. Where the tent entrance should have been was a rectangular square hanging in the air almost like a doorway. Through it Damien could see a room with a dark floor and gold patterned wall paper. There were glass cases holding objects he recognised. Historical objects of gold, some of which he had held himself when they were first unearthed.

This was strange for he distinctly remembered dying. The whistle of shells and the echo of explosions was still a memory in his ears. He had died. He had definitely died. A shell had blown him to pieces and there was no coming back from that. So where was he and how was he here? Here in 1930, back in his tent in Egypt aged 23 again.

His curiosity was eating away at him. Through the door he could hear screaming and shouting. The noises echoed round the room and through into the tent. It didn't sound pleasant. While he was extremely curious, Damien was also extremely confused. He couldn't explain how he was there. It both terrified him and annoyed him. He hated not knowing but his fear out weighed his curiosity.

He spent the first night in his tent, watching the room outside. Pacing the floor and listening. The shouting continued at irregular intervals throughout. Harsh banging and screaming that echoed Through the door. Damien keeping time on the little pocket watch he kept on his desk. Ten hours, then he was back to being nothing.

——

The second night he gathered up his courage. The screams were less desperate this time. They stopped after half an hour and Damien took the chance. He pocketed the small clock and approached the doorway. It was a hanging space of empty air. The lights of the gold room were dimmer than the sunlight shining through the tent. Damien stuck a hand through, wriggling his fingers experimentally. He half expected for there to be some change. For cries of alarm to sound or a trap to spring. But other than a change in temperature, there was nothing. The air on the other side of the doorway was just air. It was colder and Damien took his jacket off the back of his chair and pulled it on. Then, with a inhale, he stepped through the door.

The floor was slightly lower on the other side. His boots clicked against the marble as he stepped down, sand grains coming loose from his trousers and littering the black surface. Damien looked around. He felt fine. He was breathing and his heart was thumping. He turned back to his door and froze, eyes catching on the centrepiece of the room. His doorway was slightly in the corner, obscuring half the room from sight. Now he could see the whole room and it's adjoining corridor.

In the centre of the room lay Ahkmanrah's sarcophagus. The gold and blue designs gleaming under the show lights. Behind it on the wall hung the tablet. Damien vividly remembered holding the tablet in his hands, the gold seeming to glow was he brushed the sand off it. The sarcophagus was in a larger glass and steel box obviously for display. Damien crossed the room without even thinking about it, hands brushing over the glass in wonderment. In the steel up near the top of the sarcophagus, where the visage of Ahkmanrah's was laid in gold, was a black plaque. Damien read the English words, eyes widening as he realised what was going on.

He was in a museum. The museum of New York, America. Quickly, he crossed back to where his doorway stood in the wall. Except it was not really a doorway, he realised. It was a photograph. The photo of him in his tent after a long day's work. It had been taken by a friend and fellow student. Damien read the matching black plaque on the wall next to it, feeling his stomach tighten.

He had died. He was dead, had been for decades according to what was written before him. Something had brought his photograph to life. Something had brought him back to life. By some mystical or religious reason, Damien was standing in his twenty three year old body in a museum on the other side of the world. He ran his hands through his hair, feelings a turmoil in his gut.

A thud disturbed him. Damien turned and flinched. Two stone jackal headed guards were facing him. They were obviously guarding the pharaoh's body just as they had in his tomb. It had taken a lot of heavy lifting to move them from the entrance to the tomb's inner chambers. Now they stood facing him, long golden spears held in their hands. Despite their lack of visible eyes, Damien could feel their gazes on him. Judging, assessing. What ever had brought him to life, had obviously worked for them too.

With a terrified yelp, Damien jumped back into his tent. He backed as far from the door to the museum as he could. Outside, the jackal guards peered at him through the door. Their fifteen feet frames too tall for them to enter. After a heart thudding minute, they retreated. Damien collapsed weakly on his cot, panic starting to fade. Deciding he'd had enough excitement for that night, he took off his boots and tucked himself under the thin blankets. Curling up on the cot with his back to the museum door, Damien shut his eyes and tried to sleep.

——

The third night, with his mind clearer, he once again stepped out into the museum. The jackal headed guards turned to look at him as soon as his feet touched the stone. Damien held up his hands in the universal sign for surrender.

"I bring no harm!" He called. One of his peers had taught him a bit of ancient Egyptian during the excavation of the tomb. The man had been a professor specialising in dead languages and hieroglyphics. Damien had spent the first hour of the night pouring over the note on his desk and hoped that the language would work.

Much to his relief, the guardian's stopped. They lowered their spears in a nonchalant pose but kept staring at Damien. He bit his lip and tried again. "I am a friend to the pharaoh. I am his devoted subject and wish no harm upon him". As the old words left his lips he knelt down and prostrated himself on the floor before the sarcophagus in a sign of servitude and honour. The jackal guards relaxed and turned, resuming their posts. Damien flopped on to his side on the cold stone. A relieved laugh bubbling out of him. Thank god he had kept those notes on his desk.

A scream made him jump. He rolled to his feet as screaming and banging echoed round the chamber. The sarcophagus was shaking in the glass box. The lid banging against the glass as the pharaoh entombed inside fought to get out. Damien hastily shuffled back from it as fast as he could. Ahkmanrah sounded angry. Furious even.

Damien didn't want to get on the wrong side of a mummified king. Pushing himself to his feet, he fled back to his tent. Ahkmanrah's screaming chasing in echoing waves after him.

Unedited