My Love Will Laugh With Me (Before Morning Comes)

An Unwelcome Welcome

Meritamen opens her eyes smiling brightly. She ignores Ahmanet's scowl instead softly touching her cheeks. Immediately, Ahmanet's sneer fades. Her jaw unclenches lips settling into a small pout. Meritamen rubs the soft skin of her cheek with her thumb, and she can't help leaning into the comfort of Meritamen's touch. Slowly the black in Ahmanet's fiery brown eyes fades like a fire drawn back to its hearth.

"You are Pharaoh," Meritamen promises. Her hands still hold Ahmanet's cheeks. Yet as she kisses the corner of Ahmanet's mouth, Ahmanet pushes herself closer.

"I will enjoy raising her with us," Meritamen continues. She moves a hand to press a second, deeper kiss, to Ahmanet's skin. "It'll be like raising another you. The Pharaoh is old and never sired sons before. Think of this as an opportunity. When he falls, your sister will be your heir...our heir," Meritamen's smile crinkles her eyes until they almost disappear. "No male needed."

Ahmanet closes her eyes for a moment.

She opens them: the warrior is gone, princess hid, but Ahmanet's softness.

"I am so tired of waiting," she whispers. She leans close to Meritamen past her eyes to nip her earlobe. "I want Egypt," her voice deepens." I want you." Ahmanet nuzzles into Meritamen's neck. "I want my queen," Ahmanet rasps.  She mouths her neck...her clavicle. Meritamen exhales shakily pulling Ahmanet closer as the shoulders of her dress fall to the floor.

Lelah comes to slowly: eyes fluttering open.

She opens her eyes to a new world of metal. Blurry eyed, Lelah blinks once, twice and again waiting for the slate grey walls to go back to gold. They don't. Instead the van's metal walls rattle through her ears, and her body trembles as the vehicle races on the road. Even as Lelah's body shakes, she never falls off her prison. Thick black material wraps tightly around Lelah's frame securing her to the metal pallet built in the van. 

Lelah tries and fails to calm down.

'Is this how Ahmanet felt stuck in that sarcophagus?' the thought crosses Lelah's mind, unbidden. 

'Worse,' a voice similar to her own answers. Lelah shuts her eyes to think. There Lelah sees...Lelah. She is lighter: more olive than tan with a body thinner from a world of no labor. Two thick straps curved over her shoulders exposing her décolletage as the thin material dropped to her ankles. Wine red lips watched Lelah warmly as her blood-red fingertips caressed Lelah's face.

Meritamen smiles at her reincarnation.

"We could not save her in the last life," she says staring earnestly into new copper brown eyes. "Save her in this one."

She leans into Lelah pressing soft lips against her cheek before disappearing as Lelah's eyes open.

Chris Vail's glossy white eye stares back at her.

Lelah chokes on her own scream.

His skin is fading rotting darker shades of grey and black. In some places, his face is already peeling revealing the muscle underneath. A single dark brown eye watches Lelah almost sadly as she gags.