Night life || Ahkmenrah

Three

"Tell me Damien", his father's eyes were icy cold with their blue. "What is it you're searching for? All these books, your fascination with Egypt, your obsession with the dead".

A sharp disappointed sigh. A hand running through grey-blonde hair. "Damien. It's gothic. It's dark. People think you're mad. There are rumours of the you, the youngest member of the family, our family, sleeping in a coffin".

A thud of a dropped book. "Your smart Damien. Be more like your older brother. Take a interest in socialising. Come out of your study and talk to people. You're twenty one now. High time to introduce you to society. Try and do something before everyone thinks you're some strange, whimsical wastrel".

His father regarded him with those orbs of ice, the sharpness becoming needle pointed as lips pulled back distastefully. "Whatever half-wild dream your looking for, stop. I don't care what it is, who it is, what it means to you. Stop before it drives you insane".

Damien stood stiffly. The frustration and anger in his chest bubbling in his throat. His father looked at him with a steel hardness that Damien knew would not bend. He had no words to explain what he felt. That there was something out there calling him. The very sensation a tugging at his soul. It was as if there was something calling his name, waiting.

Instead of speaking, Damien bit his tongue and stayed silent.

——

"Do keep up Mr Jean!" The professor called, Mr Haynes , shielding his eyes from the harsh glare of the Egyptian sun. The elderly and portly man waved pointedly, his light brown waistcoat blending with the golden dunes around them. Huddling after him like a bunch of ducklings was the fifteen other students. All of them turned and shot various glares and disgruntled looks Damien's way. Annoyed that their posh clothes were being ruined by the sand.

Damien rolled his eyes with a scoff. He squinted through the sun down at the note book in his grip. He brushed a few grains of sand off the paper. Muttering to himself, he concentrated down at the mix of English and hieroglyphics inked on the page. The sand was getting under his shirt and the itchiness was driving him insane. He rubbed his elbows into his sides to try and make it better.

"Damien!"

Damien looked up at the friendlier call. His favourite professor was standing a over by a collection of boulders. The stone sticking out from a dune. Mr Beadle waved at him, glasses crooked on his nose and ginger hair ruffled. The man was in his mid forties, a good decade younger than Damien's other professors. He was the old teacher who encouraged Damien's attitude and his questions.

Damien jogged over, scrambling as much as he could over the sand. His feet unused to the shakiness of the texture. "What is it?" He asked excitedly as he tucked the notebook back into his backpack. Under the sun, his hair was as golden as the surrounding landscape.

"Look here", Beadle pointed at the stone. On the rough surface was the faded lines of etchings carved decades ago. Some were smoothed out from years of weather erosion. But some hieroglyphics characters were still just about visible with the naked eye.

"What does it say?" Damien traced over the lines with his finger, wondering at the history beneath his hands.

Beadle hummed, brow furrowing. "It's a name. Ahkmanrah, I think".

"Ahkmanrah?" Damien exclaimed excitedly. "The pharaoh? He's never been discovered has he?"

"Not yet. But historians know he's buried around here somewhere", Beadle grinned. His aged face looking younger with eagerness.