Prisoner of Time

Chapter 5: The Awakening

There was a rushing behind my eyelids but I was so tired I didn't even try to fight anything anymore. It was all pointless and the depths of the Nile felt so comforting as they whispered onto my skin. I wondered in my subconscious if I was going to heaven or maybe even hell...

I never believed in a God of love and peace until now because suddenly there was a blinding white light that was so painful but felt healing at the same time, it was inexplicable. 

Then once more there was the sultry darkness of my death.

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A native boy around the age of fifteen walked over to the great Nile's shore with his kind mother. As they drew closer to the edge they noticed a girl wearing strange clothes apparently unconscious and laying in the muddy bank.

"Do you see that woman over there son?" the elderly woman exclaimed.

"I do, but I wonder if we should help her. We don't know anything about her...." but the mother wasn't listening anymore as she was already placing her pot that she would fill with water down and made her way over to the strange woman.

"Sephora don't!" the son cried out, but that seemed to awaken the slumbering girl as she began to stir.

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I heard a male's voice shouting and a pair of gentle hands coaxing me to turn over and I groaned as I felt sore all over. For a moment there was nothing, just a bliss of simple ignorance. Then it all came rushing back in one sucker punch to the gut and I shot up and screamed in fright.

The sun blinded me for a second and I hugged myself and shook violently looking everywhere to understand my surroundings.

There stood a young man a few feet away from the crouching woman in front of me. They both wore ancient looking clothes and the woman had a scarf over her head. I balked at the sight having only seen it in movies and history books from the Cairo university.

"Is this a prank or a movie set? Have you seen the man who stabbed me?" I reflexively felt my side for where the fatal wound was bleeding out but there wasn't one. Just a gaping hole in my muddy dress in the exact spot that he had stabbed me in, no flesh torn.

I looked up with confusion plain in my eyes but the two people looked just as confused as me. The woman reached out and grabbed my hand reassuringly and I flinched at the sudden contact. I still wasn't over what happened (last night?) and knew I probably wouldn't be for a long time.

"What is a... movie..set? Are you hurt? My name is Sephora and my son over there is Sechi and we just found you unconscious on the river bank. " She spoke slowly, as if I were the dumb one. I looked around for the cameras, I mean this all had to be a joke, right? a fleeting thought passed through my head and I shook it away.

"Will you help me up? I think I am hurt and I just want to go home." The woman smiled kindly at me and nodded her head. 

As she helped me up her son begrudgingly came over to us and said, "They will know she is not from here if they see her hair. Quick mother give her your head wrap." I had no idea what they were going on about I mean it wasn't weird that I had blonde hair or anything. 

I looked at them closely as we began walking up. The woman I assumed was the young man's mother and she looked to be fairly young with tanned skin and dark hair and eyes. The son, Sechi, resembled his mother  with dark curly hair and eyes that seemed to notice everything.

I looked around for my car but I didn't see anything. In fact, I couldn't even see the city, which had me freaking out because I was supposed to be just outside of it. Maybe I had floated down the river some, I told myself to avoid the lingering thought I had in my head.