The Mummy Returns

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AN: Any medical fact discussed in this book is the result of a semester of BIO 102, and is not to be trusted. But it's not like the game itself makes biological sense either. Correct me if I'm wrong about this, or about anything else (I did my research on child development and the LDS church, but I most definitely could have missed something).

This chapter was originally written and posted later than The Prodigal Son, so instead of fixing them to flow properly in their current arrangement, I'm just going to tell you and hope you don't hold it against me.


Utah, July 2277.

-

It was incredible how disgusting a surface could become in 200 years of disuse. Take this tile floor, for example. Uniformly square, original color indeterminable, once-deep grout packed flat with who-knew-what. Not the thing to be pressing one's open wounds to. But Joshua didn't have a choice — his entire body was an open wound. And he could not get up.

Midday heat had driven him into the abandoned gas station. Thirst had drawn him to the bathroom. Exhaustion had dropped him, and fever kept him there. And now, he was dying.

There was no other word for it. Some force of will had kept Joshua moving north for the past eleven weeks, but his condition was not improving out here, and difficulty had finally crossed over into physical impossibility. He couldn't get up until his fever broke, and he would be dead long before then. He couldn't even reach the sink for more water.

Maybe Edward really is a god, thought his feverish brain, because only he could have orchestrated a fate so pathetic. Eighty days of torture, only to die like a rabid dog a few miles outside of New Canaan, on a floor that had been collecting grime for centuries.

A door opened.

Don't eat me until I'm dead, Joshua complained internally. But he wasn't really in a position to be making demands, was he?

Footsteps. Voices he couldn't quite focus on. Through his eyelids he could see a beam of light cast into the dim room. The voices turned hushed and frantic. Joshua thought they must be speaking some other language, because he couldn't seem to figure out what they were saying...

-

The door slammed again, waking him. He was aware of more voices now. He couldn't bring himself to care one way or the other about it.

Time wasn't moving normally, but after an immeasurable moment, a hand touched his carotid artery, searching for a pulse. Joshua's eyes flew open with a flinch.

A face swam in his vision, tan, bearded, and hatted. Surprised. Joshua clenched his eyes shut again.

"Sir... er, Joshua," the man murmured breathlessly. "You're going to be okay."

"Mordecai didn't teach you to lie," Joshua tried to say, but he wasn't sure it came out as words. This man came from New Canaan. That meant help, but it also meant facing the people he'd disgraced.

The only thing more frightening than death was going home.

His breath hitched at a tugging on his ragged shirt. It was slowly cut and stripped away from his body, along with the scraps of cloth he'd been wearing on his hands and neck. He fumbled at the assault, but the hands were unyielding. The clothing had come off a random skeleton, so it was no great loss, but now he had no shirt. Worse, they stuck to the seeping wounds covering his chest and arms. Removing it not only pulled at his skin, but exposed more to the air. Joshua struggled to breathe as pain consumed the edges of his world.

The man in the hat noticed his discomfort. "I'm sorry. Everything is going to be alright. We're going to help you," he whispered, like he was calming a frightened animal. He sounded a bit frightened, himself, to be staring down at this puddle of decaying flesh. Joshua didn't respond, out of equal parts exhaustion and spite.

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