Chapter 1:Awaken

I barely remember my last moment.

The last time I opened my eyes, A fog covered my sight and memory. I don’t even remember what I was doing before I closed them last. All I can glean is agony, lethargy, and outrage. Agony from pain across my body, Lethargy from a sense that no matter what I could do, I would die. Outrage about how my death came. Not that it would come for me. My tribe recognized that death comes eventually; you can’t truly escape its grasp. But a thought in the back of my mind always came with that thought. 

At Least make my death memorable, at least meaningful, at least a proper end.

I don’t remember the events, but I do remember how I felt. The pure horror that my death would be quiet, unnoticed, and forgotten. 

It's how I know I died. Why else would this dreamless sleep go on forever? There are no images to bring peace, no gods to give peace, nothing but darkness and the noise of my thoughts. 

Had I not served the tribe? Was I not good enough for my sisters? Did the chieftain deem me unworthy of an afterlife? 

Did I deserve this end? To be trapped in endless darkness?

I barely knew anymore. I have been drifting from quiet sleep to endless darkness for so long that any sense of time has long since drifted away.

I felt a slight nudge here and there, the constant sensation of icy void dulled it that it required more mental fortitude to even notice the shift.

The only thing that seemed to be different in so long. The fleeting sensation of a touch.  

Like a hand that grazed against my own, leading me somewhere, but I didn’t quite know if it was pulling me or if it was simply going with the flow it was leading me on. 

It felt irresistible and hard to fight until I let myself go with it. Some small part allowed the silver of hope that it would mean one of two things. That I might wake up or that I can finally stop being aware of the numbness around me.

There was pain. 

Endless pain.

I felt my vital self being mangled and pulled apart like a fragile leaf. A small bug being crushed in a pile of rocks, the tide slamming me against the shore, and every other pain at once.

A strange sense of relief when it passed, I could feel again. A jolt of pain reawakened my sense of self. 

Light filled my vision as fuzzy shapes went around me. Too much light to see detail,s but no more darkness. 

“Uhhhhhhh.” A sound. My voice….it couldn’t be it. I couldn’t say anything for so long. And I can hear it. I can hear my own voice again. “Was I lost?” I asked. I tried to lift my hand to block the light, but nothing happened. I tried to move my head, but it refused to. 

What is happening?

I tried to kick, but nothing happened. No movement outside my eyes was possible. I began to panic.

“Help!” I begged. “Please!” My head was stationary, stuck facing the light. I heard something, whispering, but nothing concrete. A voice suddenly spoke, A language I didn’t know. “What are you?”

“A bureaucrat.” The voice suddenly said in my language. 

“What’s a bureaucrat?” I asked as I saw the outer edge of a person with dark-brown skin. Like that of fresh earth after a shower of rain. 

“A person who takes care of details. Forgive me, your head was awakened before your body.” I felt a sudden jolt, and I could see my hand suddenly move to my face. I still couldn't feel anything. It was comforting to see a hand…until I noticed it wasn’t mine. It was uncalloused, clean nails that were perfectly round, while the rest of the arm was muscular. 

“This is not my arm,” I said with suppressed fear. 

“I can only explain in terms you can understand…Do you want them?” The voice asked. Despite my fear, I felt something behind it. A kind of…reaching out. 

“Please,” I asked, knowing I would find the answer either horrifying or worse, mundane. “I need to know.” 

“You died. A long time ago. This is not your body, not your original one at least.” The voice was blunt, but I heard the hesitation in every break in breath. It had trouble being straight to the point, but it had to be. 

“My sis-”

“It's been centuries.” The voice cut me off. I saw another hand rise up to my eye level with the strange adornment of the other. “Please look down, I need to know the neck is attached well enough. Tell me if you feel it's off.” The voice kept the quick tone and clean sound. 

I did as instructed, looking at a body that was not my own. My mind had a haze over it, but I knew it was not mine. It was taller, fuller, and more sturdy. Not like my body, but of a warrior. 

“Why is it like this?” The voice did not answer. I saw the hands of the voice attached to legs as I noticed I was only a torso and arms. My fear was bottoming out at this point. More questioning how he was putting me together. Like pieces of broken clay being put together. Seeing the pieces of limbs being sealed with a kind of gold sand flowing into them. 

“It was requested of you that it would be strong and able to defend yourself.” The voice said as I tried the now attached legs. Taking careful step after step, nearly tripping on the third. I notice the strange covering over my limbs. Made of a pure white, soft material and with bright yellow adornments. A dash of blue on the material on my legs. My arms were bare but with more of the gold adornments. 

“What am I wearing?”

“Khemetic basic.” The voice said. Now being free to move, I looked aroun,d but the source of the voice was not near me. I saw that the thing my head was in was a kind of strange mechanism with two blocks on top of a slab with a gray shine on it. The room around me looked to be made of a yellowish stone, and a bright white light was suspended above me. 

“Where are you? Are you a spirit?” I was ready to bow in respect before I heard it again.

“No, I am neither a spirit nor a god…I do work for one, but I am not one. Squashing that one right now.” The voice explained. “I am talking from another room. You will have a medicine man look over you to help with your, and I hate phrasing like this, transition. Look for the silver fabric and side pony- you do not have a frame of reference for that. Ask for Martin, tell him the bureaucrat said you were ready.” 

I stood there as I saw an opening in the stone room bleed through with more bright light. 

I saw and knew what he said.

But I was still unable to move. I thought I couldn’t physically move anymore, but I saw that my hands were trembling. My legs, slightly shifting. 

“You said someone wanted me to be strong. Did they also want me to be alive again because it was me? Or was it a chance?” For a while, the voice was silent. Leaving me in the empty room with but light.

“I can only say it was a friend, and they missed you. We would not have gone through the trouble of bringing you back to kill you again.” I didn’t know if the voice wanted me to feel safe with those words, but I took what comfort I could with them. 

Tentatively, I took a step forward. I felt the need to take a breath, but it was also needless. While I felt fear, I felt nothing else. Not tiredness, not fatigue, nor even my own heart. 

When I realized that feeling, I kept going forward, and as I did, it felt easier, with no physical affirmation to make it worse. Every step closer to the light that blinded me. The sound of whistling wind. I held my hand over my eyes, seeing a path in front of me with nothing to its side. 

I took small steps as my vision adjusted. While the fear tried to build again. I did my best to focus on the part of me that no longer had feelings. While disturbing, it did make me able to ignore the fear.

“Hey, you!” I heard a new voice now. A bit older and smoother than the last. “I’m not wasting time on this unless it's important, so you better give explanations.” The voice was also more severe, a kind of edge that was buried under the smooth tone.

“Are you Martin? The other said to tell you the Buerrecrat sent me ... something about you being a…medicine man?” 

“Yes, and if you're using that name, then you can call me Mister Silver, or Doctor Love, maybe another dumbass name because Mister 'Bureaucrat’ Apparently thinks this calls for code names.” The voice said with bitterness. The light dimmed, and the man was visible. 

A strong frame with a man of great height and prominent shoulders. Hair locking into a single rod of brown, with half of it being looser. He had a bright color below his eyes, on top of where bags would be. It was glittering with a shine of silver, with a pitch-black counterpart above the eyebrows in a distinctive style.

“I am Martin. Martin Oni. I am your doctor for the foreseeable…ever.” Martin had an exasperated look on his face. The kind of annoyance that made it clear he was helping her not for goodwill but obligation. 

“Doctor?”

“Medicine man.” Martin clarified. “Come with me.” He clapped his hands from the walls, and out came two large men made of stone with rectangular torsos. When I saw them walk out of the wall, I also saw that the path I was on was a bridge. One above an endless void that whistled with constant wind, and high above was a ceiling with the image of a blue woman with stars on her skin.

I followed Martin forward with his stone men. Leading into another room with various silver tools and an assortment of other tools. 

“Let the tests begin.” He pointed to a raised plateau with a white fabric on it. I looked at him and his sly lips, and then the stone men. I barely trusted either; there was little choice in what I could do.

I got onto the plateau as he did his ‘tests’. Using what seemed to be blunt axes on my knee, elbow, and forehead. 

“Nothin’?” Martin asked. I nodded. “Well…I don’t know if that is a good thing for you.” Martin knitted his eyes. “Why did he think any of this was a good-” He wiped his face with his hand. “So, what can you feel?”

“I feel my emotions?” I explained. “And that’s it. I can hear and look. Not much else.” 

“Lovely. Your senses are shot.” He sighed. 

“Do you remember your name?”

“My name is-” My mind went blank, and my mouth refused to continue. I knew my name, I knew I had one. But I cannot think of it or even try to sound it out. “I am-I am-I am.” 

“Enough of that. The subject cannot remember or speak its former name.” Martin took out a small gray rectangle with small holes on the side. Touching a part of it that depresses when touched. “You're going to need a new name.”

“What are you really?”

“Excuse you?” 

“Why can I not speak my name? How was I brought back? What are you to the voice?” I asked myself, in order of importance, “I want answers that are straightforward.”

“You're asking the wrong family if you want that. As for the rest of what you want.” Martin said in a dry tone. A tone that gave away that he knew I would ask that. “It's part of the way you were resurrected, I suspect. We used our traditional magics and a decent amount of loopholes, and…I am no snitch. I can say he is the source of most of my headaches and that he is a he.” Martin said he stared at a nearby wall. 

“He is your…lover?” She questioned. 

“No.” He said flatly. “Don’t ask again.” He went over what seemed to be a flat material with symbols on it. “As far as names go…Kor will do for now. Your body is based on a character from a story. It will work for now.”

“It's not awful.” I agreed. Still spiraling from the suggestion, I can’t use my name. “What happens now?”

“Again, no clear answer. I suggest you figure out ways of occupying your mind for now, at least. Your body won’t need food, sleep, or air. So yeah, think of stuff to keep you busy.” He flicked his wrist, and in an instant, an object appeared with more of that thin material between two thicker slivers. “This is a book; try to learn to read it. It's like pictographs, but more of them and smaller.” He left the books near me. “Bye.” 

He went toward the wall he had stared at earlier, the two stone men walking with him.

“Are you going to leave me here?” 

“No, but I am going to send someone over who needs to fulfill his part in all this. Just sit tight.” Martin promised as I sat alone in the room, as he and the stone men melded into the wall. The strange pictographs held my eye for a few seconds, but I tossed it when the images shifted

To be honest, the only thing keeping me focused was my thoughts. I didn’t know what he meant by reading, and the books were full of things I couldn’t understand either way. 

What I ended up doing was speculating. I got a few questions out of it that I wanted to get answered.

Who ordered me to come back?

Am I near home or far from it?

What happened to my family, and why was I the one given a second chance?

It was not much, but my mind went from noisy to deftly quiet. What should I do with so much time? I remember taking naps, doing light work, and mostly spending time near cliffs. 

“There is nothing to keep me occupied here,” I admitted. The empty room took the words and swallowed them in silence.

“I can lead you somewhere.”  I tried to see where the sudden voice was, but I saw nothing until I saw a strange creature. A long-faced, partially pink-faced creature with bright blue and gold adornments on its body. 

“Are you a ze-”

“I am a Baboon.” The creature said. “You may call me Jabroni, servant of the Oni family and chief assistant of the master.” 

“And we are back to something confusing,” I said with a sigh. 

“My apologies. My vocabulary can be erudite for those with only rudimentary schooling.” The baboon nodded. “I can present you with alternate options to boredom if you are willing to listen and be receptive.” 

“Okay…I don’t think I have a choice.” 

“You do, you always do. Maybe not fair choices, but choices regardless.” The baboon said with a firm stare. 

“Alright? Look, I just need something to do. I know that I am not escaping…whatever this place is.” 

“These are the lower halls of the great mansion of the Oni family. I am not at liberty to speak of its path to you, but I can lead you through its least dangerous avenues.” 

“So lead me down the paths where I won’t die…again.”

“Precisely.” The Baboon pressed a hand against the wall, and a doorway opened up for both of us. “Feel free to walk when you're ready.” The baboon said as it walked its way through the now open pathway. 

I looked through it and saw another narrower walkway over the void. 

“Are you sure that it's safe?”

“You know, if one must exhibit fear, one must also be able to show strength to fight that fear. It's the way of the beast and man…or women.” The baboon corrected. 

I was still unsure. I didn’t hear it move when I walked on it last time, but I heard the whistling of wind and how it died when it drew further away. I felt the pit in my being when I thought about what would happen. I could see the infinite void beneath me. My only thought beyond the sense was what would happen if I died again.

Would I awake again in this body? Would I simply end? Would I go somewhere else? It gnawed at me. Stacked itself against me like a falling tree. Slow enough to follow my path but not quick enough to be a mercy.

“Fine. If it means I am not stuck in a room doing nothing. Even if I am a prisoner or kept here for some strange purpose, I am at least doing something.”

“Certainly more productive than simply waiting. Please follow Lady Kor.” 

“That is…you don’t have to call me that,” I said with apprehension. “I’m…not anybody.” 

“That may be partially true regarding titles, but you matter because you are here and deserve respect. I will not call you that if you wish, but I am a primate of politeness.” 

A small smile crosses my face. “Okay, lead on, Jabroni,” I said with my first steps.