Anubis

⁂ O n e

I didn't know where I was.

All I knew was that I was miserable and lost.

Scorching heat coiled around my body, the dress I wore sticking to my skin with perspiration. Ahead, there was nothing. Wherever I looked, there was nothing. It was desolate - miles and miles of coarse black sand and thick, muggy air straight from the pits of hell. Up above, where I should have seen the sun, there were wisps of smoke. It was impossible to see through it.

A scream stuck in my throat. I missed the sun. I missed rain. All that was here was sand and heat. Even after walking for what felt like ages, it was as though I was exactly where I had begun. It was a while before the burning in my throat began, the soreness creeping up on me. Temples throbbing, I forced myself forward. The longer I wandered, the stronger it grew. My tongue ran over my cracked lips, trying to lend moisture it didn't contain. If I didn't find water soon, I would be as good as dead.

Stopping suddenly, I dropped to my knees, close to tears. My hands flew to my head, pressing hard against the sides, trying to stop the constant pounding that had me on the verge of madness. Raising my face, my blurred sight fixed ahead.

There it was. A beautiful stream of glimmering water. It was waiting behind a set of massive gold gates, calling to me. Maybe it was a mirage, maybe it wasn't. Getting back up on my legs, I pushed myself to go on, sandals sinking into the scalding sand with every step.

The space before me rippled, light bursting before my eyes. The shock sent me falling to my knees once more, blinded by the brightness and coarse sand flying at me without mercy.

"I think this ba died."

Raising my face, I blinked up at the two figures standing over me.

The both of them were beautiful, impossibly so. Glowing skin and perfect figures, eyes the same shade of gold as the gates I ached to reach. The boy looked much younger than his counterpart, his face flickering in and out like static disturbing an image on an old TV.

I tried to focus.

One of them knelt - the woman - and helped me to my feet. "There's no need for this, Anubis."

Anubis. The name was familiar - one my grandmother talked about. An old god from Egyptian mythology. Of course, the crazy old bat thought he was real, but the stories she told still intrigued me as a child.

I looked at the boy - his face was gone, the head of a jackal in its place. "Oh."

"Hello," he said, pointed teeth forming a twisted smile. "You're dead."

I didn't even believe in an afterlife - in my entire (albeit short) life, I had been an atheist. There was no memory of how I'd died, no memory of when exactly I'd woke up here. Somehow, suddenly cognizant, I knew I was dead, I could feel it in my bones.

"What the hell?"

"This isn't hell," the jackal sniffed. "You haven't even made it through the first gate."

"Anubis," the woman holding me up began. "Sending them -"

"You're dead," Anubis said, ignoring her. "But congratulations. I'm sending you back."

I tried to think. To process. To try and make sense of all this.

Dying sucks.

But being evicted by an angry Egyptian god from the underworld is worse. What was I supposed to do? Wake up in my coffin and suffocate just so I could die all over again? And what if I'd been cremated? Would I just be a sentient pile of dust, sitting in some jar on top of my grandmother's fireplace?

"No," I said.

"No?" Anubis snarled, looking prepared to throttle me. "What do you mean 'no'?"

"I'm not going back!"

He barred his teeth. "I'm telling you that you can live again."

"Not if I was cremated."

"You weren't cremated, you little brat. Come on. I'm sending you back. Find your killer, kill them, or you'll end up right back here within the week and it won't be pretty."

"Listen dog-man - "

"Dog-man? I am the god of the dead. Show some respect next time I see you, little girl."

With a snap of his fingers, the wind picked up, sand rising with it. It wasn't blowing in or away from my direction, it was going around me. The sand whipped through my dress, burning against my skin, filled my airways until I was back in the ground, writhing, choking,

My eyes snapped open.

No heat. No sand. Only darkness. Fabric was swathed around me - thick and suffocating, confining all movement. The smell of damp earth somehow managed to travel through it, hauntingly familiar. It made my head pound, made it difficult to think clearly.

Buried.

I was buried.

Trapped under dirt and muck, left to suffocate wherever I was. My arms were pinned at my sides - i couldn't dig out until I freed myself. And I needed to manage that before I ran out of air. I tensed my body as much as I could, trying to get a feel for the fabric. It was thick, too thick to claw out of. I wriggled, only breathing when I absolutely had to.

It's going to be fine. This is going to be fine.

Up above, something scraped against the dirt, Muffled barks met my terrified pants. Something - a dog - had found me. It was digging. I could hear it getting closer and closer for ages until my body shifted - the fabric I was encased in was being pulled out of whatever hole I was in.

I pulled myself out of it - falling back onto damp grass, gasping for breath. My mouth tasted of dirt, my nostrils filled with smell of it. I was surrounded by thick woodlands that seemed endless - foliage and towering trees all around. I forced myself to sit up and acknowledge the dog that watched me - a jackal, its black eyes glimmering. Moving to the pit I'd been buried in, it raised one leg.

"You're not taking a piss on my grave!"

The demonic bastard took that as a challenge and went right ahead.

I glanced over at what I'd been wrapped in - a massive scrap of carpet that looked as if it'd been cut straight out of somebody's floor. The edges were jagged, the beige fabric stained with blood.

Find your killer, Anubis had said. Kill them.

Somebody had killed me and buried me out in the middle of nowhere, but I had no idea who.