by Candy Crum
“Yes, child. And quite a warning it is. Come.”
He did not give me an option. He reached out and rested his massive hand on my shoulder. Everything around us changed, and we were suddenly standing on the edge of the Nile. I saw my body lying there, face down in the water. Blood stained the water where I lay, and I knew there was quite a bit of damage. I ran to my side and tried to move my body, but it was of no use. I couldn’t even touch it. I was nothing. Just a spirit lingering in whatever purgatory Anubis held me in.
“I thought you said that it wasn’t my time yet!” I said.
He sighed. “I did. Do not question me. You should know that it is rare that I have the patience to do something such as this. So rare, in fact, that it has never happened. Understand?” I noticed then, in the bright light of the sun, that his mouth did not move. Somehow, I was able to hear him, though he didn’t speak out loud.
I nodded. “Forgive me, Anubis.”
“Very well, then. Come. I do not wish to linger here. I have the ability to freeze time, as the other gods of death from all over the world can. We rarely have cause to use that power, but I feel now is such a time. Your body has been isolated and frozen in its state. You have only been unconscious a few short moments. You will live.”
I stood and made my way back to his side. My eyes were blinded as I looked up in an attempt to see his face.
“There are others like you?”
“Do not be foolish. None other is like I am. We are all unique, but all the same. Unfortunately for you, I believe you will one day come to know this.”
“I will?” I asked. I didn’t like the sound of that at all, but I was terrified to ask too many questions. Instead, I chose to stick to short ones and judge his irritation. Not something I’d recommend, by the way, if ever you come face to face with such a god.
“You are a pure soul. Your heart is one of the kindest I have ever seen, despite your hatred for us, the gods.”
I remember how prideful I felt at that moment. Not only had the gods watched me, Anubis specifically, but he knew me well enough to know that I was a good person. At that moment, the pain that I felt for how I’d grown up disappeared. It had led me to that very moment when I was chosen by Anubis to help in some way. I didn’t know that for sure, but I was certain that he needed me for something. Had I not grown up like I did, I may have been someone else entirely. I may not have been the one that he needed.
“You need my help?” I asked.
Anubis sighed again. “I am bound by nature to be a neutral being. I cannot fight for the side of good, nor can I fight for the side of evil. I am simply a collector. I collect those who have passed on and take them to their final resting place.”
My eyes lit up. “But I can! I can help you in the land of the living. But I must tell you… If you ask something of me that would cause someone harm, I cannot help you. You can allow me to die right there where I lay.”
His lips curled back. I couldn’t tell if it was a snarl or a smile, but his following words confirmed it for me.
“That ferocity, even in the face of a god, is exactly why I have chosen you. You are willing to stand up to someone you genuinely fear, even accepting death—as long as it means you do not hurt another soul.”
“If you can do no good or bad, why would you choose me to do good for you?” I asked. It didn’t make sense to me then.
“My job is to maintain balance. What I have seen… What several of the gods of death have seen… Let me just say that nothing will ever be the same. If it is allowed to come to fruition, balance will forever be thrown off its axis. Egypt will become the cradle of civilization for all those who are damned.”
My brows furrowed as I looked at him. “And in all the world, with everything all of you have seen, I am the only one that can help?”
His eyes narrowed as he looked down at me. “Child, it must be you. If this fate is sealed, you will be the first victim. You will be the first to be eternally damned.”
13:17
Time of Death series book 1
An Eternal Universe Book
Chapter One Preview!
Chapter One
Stop it…
Please, for the love of God, stop the beeping!
Hello? Anyone?
Wait. Was that out loud? No… Try again.
Hello!
Gah! Nothing. I didn’t understand and the blackness was maddening.
Excuse me! To whomever it may concern, you’re a moron. Good effort trying to stop noise. Now it’s broken and just one very long, incessant beep. Scream, really.
“She’s gone,” a man said.
Huh? Who’s gone? Why can’t I move?
“I’m calling it. Time of death – 13:17,” he said then.
Death? Whose death? Hello!
“Such a shame. She’s just a twenty-two-year-old kid. A good kid at that. Her tox screen was clear and she looks healthy. The only bad decision she’s made was choosing a friend that would put her in a situation like this.”
Who are they talking about?
I heard something clanging around. It wasn’t overly loud. More like the sound of tossing a small wrench in a pile of others the same size. Metal on metal. I listened for someone to say something else, but there was nothing. Only the sound of my thoughts.
“We need towels. A lot of them,” someone said.
I heard a door close before silence filled the area. My body was numb and my eyes may as well have been glued shut. They felt so heavy that I couldn’t open them. I’d have sighed, but my body wasn’t doing anything that I was willing it to. It seemed as though I’d laid there for hours, but I had no way of knowing. I felt like I was floating. I couldn’t feel anything from bones to skin.
Oh, God.
I was wrong.
So, so very wrong.
Pain completely took hold of my body. My lungs suddenly began burning as sharp pains ripped through my chest. My head felt as though it would explode. Was I breathing? I couldn’t tell if I was moving at all. Not only was I in horrible, agonizing pain, but my muscles were somehow numb. How could a person be both?
The pain was proving to be too much for me, and then – it stopped. Blackness enveloped me and there was nothing.
~ ~ ~
My eyes open and the light in the room overwhelmed me. It was like looking directly into the sun. I fought to study my surroundings with squinted, watery vision. My lungs burned for oxygen, but I was unable to breathe. As I struggled to inhale, I felt the rattle of something against my teeth. My mouth was held open by hard plastic and it extended down my throat.
I began tossing my head back and forth as I tried to free myself. There was a sharp sting across the left side of my mouth that felt like tape ripping away. My eyes opened once more and I was again blinded by the intense light. My body began shaking, convulsing even. Was I having a seizure? No… surely not. How would I have been able to think through that? I wasn’t completely sure that someone couldn’t, of course, as I’d never had one, but I imagined not.
I tried to pull the plastic from my mouth, but I was unable to move because my arms were strapped down. I pulled and tugged with everything that I had as I tried to break free. I needed to yank that thing out of my throat. My chest felt as though it had been torn apart. What the hell was happening to me?
Finally!
The bonds snapped and my free hand immediately went to my mouth, pulling a long tube out of my throat. I could barely breathe around it, but I wanted the sweet release of breathing on my own. The tube ripped free, and “ripped” was an understatement. I coughed several times as action scraped and tore at my trachea, nearly puking as the pain of my action combined with a sudden sharp intake of air triggered my gag reflex. I fought it, having bigger issues to worry about.
I tossed the object off to the side and into the floor, straining my eyes to see. They were starting to focus, but the light was like the fucking sun burning into my retinas. Within moments I had the other hand pul
led free. Some straps they were. I was able to break them rather easily. Then again, I was much more alert for the second one than I was for the first.
Instinct drove me to sit up, but that quickly turned into a bad decision.
The pain…
So much pain.
My hand wandered to my heaving chest, my breaths coming so fast and so harsh that I wondered if I’d ever calm down. What I felt shocked me. Mortified me. I wanted to scream, but I was too terrified. Something metal was embedded inside my chest. The entire cavity was splayed open as my fingertips brushed my heart.
My HEART!
I felt it. Warm. Wet. Beating.
I was, in fact, alive. I was alive in a hospital, to be exact. There had to have been a surgery. What was I thinking? I was split in two! Of course, there was a surgery! What had that doctor meant by pronouncing me dead?
“Time of death – 13:17.”
The words echoed in my mind. What did he mean? I could feel my actual heart and it was beating! Why did they leave me open on the table? What kind of an asshole just leaves a patient wide open on a table?
I felt around, terrified to stand up for fear that my heart would fall out. I wasn’t an anatomy major. I didn’t know how that shit worked, nor was I certain of what had been done inside my chest while I was out.
A metal object held my chest wide open. What was that called? Damn it. I’d seen a ton of medical shows and it seemed to be failing me, but that wasn’t real life. Mine was very real and that thing was keeping my vital insides completely exposed.
I managed to release it and it nearly knocked the wind out of me as my ribcage snapped back together. It didn’t close me completely, but it was far enough that I was convinced that my insides wouldn’t end up on the outside if I moved.
Testing my legs was a semi-positive experience. I found they were fine. The numbness had almost completely faded and I was only a little shaky.
Should I really be moving? I wondered to myself. Maybe I should just wait for the doctor…
No. He pronounced me dead. It was hard to say when someone would be coming back. I needed to get help.
I moved my right leg, shortly followed by my left over to the right side of the bed. I stayed as horizontal as I found possible while simultaneously using the most ungraceful movements. My body was shaky, but functional. I’d take it. Finally, I stood and slowly pulled myself upward. Something tugged at my left arm and I looked down to see a blood pressure cuff. I ripped it off before inspecting my other arm. In the right one were the IVs and I ripped those out as well. Blood poured from my arm, but it seemed to stop quickly enough.
My chest shifted with the movements, and I ground my teeth hard as the separated sides of my chest plate scraped against one another. Not wanting that to happen repeatedly, I carefully crossed my arms, using them to pin the gaping hole closed.
As impatient as I was to find out what had happened to me, I made my way across the room to a mirror in a record-breaking snail’s pace. I wondered if it was one of those two-way mirrors and if there was anyone on the other side. I tried to speak, but my throat was incredibly scratchy.
“H-hello,” I said, the sound coming out a choked whisper.
I coughed then, my lungs and heart literally feeling like they would blow through my chest. I nearly collapsed from the agony and mentally wrote that down on the “don’t fucking do that again, you dumbass” list.
Check.
Waving? No. Couldn’t do that either.
Fuck.
As I stood there, staring into the mirror, I wondered how I was even alive. Why wasn’t I bleeding out? I stood there with my chest cavity completely split in two. Without someone to suction it out of the way, shouldn’t I have bled like crazy? How the hell did I even stand? So many questions. Absolutely no answers, save for one.
I’m alive.
I kept thinking those words over and over. I’m alive.
Stepping forward, I inspected my naked form. My legs were pale, in stark contrast to my normal tanned skin. The veins looked bright purple, as if my skin was a thin, fragile barrier. Like wet tissue paper. It was so transparent. I moved up to my stomach and saw that it was orange in spots. I wondered if it was that stuff they use to sanitize the skin before cutting in. Betadine.
Fear took hold of me then. I didn’t want to look at my chest. I didn’t want to see what had happened. I didn’t want to know. Ignorance was bliss, right? Isn’t that what they say?
Normally, I’d have taken a deep breath to ground myself before looking at or doing something rather shocking, but that was the worst idea ever in this case. Before the urge to do so even took hold, I made sure not to listen, or great pain would follow. My eyes wandered upward and the sharp intake of breath happened against my will. Actual shock seemed to be a much better drug than morphine, as I barely registered the pain.
My chest was stained with that orange glow, but it was also painted with my blood. There was blood everywhere. Pain be damned, morbid curiosity took hold. I slowly released my arms, my chest popping open just the tiniest bit. My sternum held my heart in place, but I could still see it peeping through, beating. It looked so strong. It was incredible to me that it had been weak enough not but a few moments ago that someone would have called it dead.
I inspected the incision and saw that it was clean, straight. The surgeon must have been very steady. Not good enough to realize he was pronouncing a perfectly live girl dead, however, but steady at least. Somehow seeing and studying it made the situation better. I managed to calm down then. It was horrifying seeing myself that way, but I was alive and I wasn’t bleeding out even with a cracked chest. What the hell happened to me?
My mind wandered as I tried to come up with something. There must have been something. What landed me there? What could I have done to need my chest cracked open?
I remembered back to the surgeon’s words. He’d said something about picking the wrong friends. All of my friends were good people, though. They helped when they could, they volunteered to help those in need, donated to charities. As far as I was concerned, I had the most amazing people for friends. Who could possibly have been bad? Hell, none of them even did any dru…
Oh, God.
There it was. The surprise of my life. I’d completely forgotten until that very moment. Everything came flying back all at once, along with the pain. My eyes closed tight as my body tensed up, fighting for control against the torture that it felt.
~ ~ ~
Will looked at me, his green eyes soft and sweet. He always knew how to get me. He knew how I felt about him and he used it against me. We weren’t together and that hurt at times, but I was happy just being around him. He was my best friend. The type of guy that everyone wanted to be around.
“It’ll be fine,” he said. “I promise.”
The wind ruffled his dark blonde hair as a smile spread across his face.
“You know me,” I said. “I just get uncomfortable going to the house of someone that I don’t know. Especially when there are multiple people there.”
He laughed. “I know. You are definitely skittish sometimes, but it’ll be fine. They’re all very nice. I promise. We won’t even be here long. I just had to stop by for a minute and then we’ll be on our way to paintball.”
It was only because I could make him feel the sweet sting of one of my pink paintballs as payback that I acquiesced. I rolled my eyes and smiled. “Fine.”
We walked up to the door and he knocked. Within moments a large man opened the door.
“Hey, man! What’s up? Who’s the hottie?” he asked.
Charming. I liked him already.
“This is my friend Mia that I told you about.”
“Yeah…” the big guy trailed off a bit. “You said she’s good. You’re responsible for her. Come on in.”
He seemed hesitant, which furthered my discomfort. What the hell did that mean, anyway? Will was responsible for me? I was at a greater risk of cleaning his cabinets out of f
ood than I was stealing a TV or shanking anyone with a shiv that I made of something random. Like a bar of soap.
“It cleans the area as it slices and dices your insides!”
I suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as a kid. As I got older, my body slowed down and I didn’t move around so much, but my mind still snuck completely random things into my otherwise normal, though very sarcastic, thoughts. It could be annoying, but it kind of amused me, too. I didn’t like boring. If anyone ever got into my head… Oh, God. Heaven have mercy on their soul.
The house was pretty nice. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing really hung on the walls, though. Nothing screamed “home” to me. It just seemed like a house that people stayed in, but didn’t truly live in.
Will held my hand and took me to the living room, following the yet-to-be-formally-introduced large fella.
“Hang out here for a minute,” Will said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Wait. What?” I asked, pulling him down to me. “You’re going to leave me here alone? I don’t know anyone. I get nervous talking to people I don’t know.”
My eyes shifted around the room and I saw at least three other large men and two young girls, probably around my age, that were dressed less than classy. The bad feeling that I had outside was worse inside. I attributed it to my anxiety at first, but I was certain that was something else. One of the guys was eyeing me like a hawk and everyone else didn’t seem to be much different.
“Everything okay over here?” Big Guy asked.
Will smiled. “Yeah, man! Everything’s fine.” He looked down at me then. “I’ll be right back. If anyone talks to you, just talk back. Simple. Otherwise, you can feel free to just sit there. I’ll just be a minute. Try not to worry so much.” He winked and walked away.
“Hey, Bitch,” one of the girls said as she plopped down on the chair across from me. “What’s your name?”
What… in the actual fuck? Well, she was even more charming than Big Guy. I could tell that I was really going to like her.
“Mia,” I said.