Masika Aarahm

She prayed on knees as the demon had come closer with her hands clasped together in front of her face. Her lips formed a gentle whisper to the Goddess of the Sky, no louder than the rustle of barley in a soft wind. As soon as her name had left her lips she felt somewhat light – almost as though she wasn't real. The gravel no longer dug into her knees and the voices had died around her.

"O Goddess Nut!" she whispered in a shaky voice with her eyes closed as she envisioned the stars that would be dominating the navy sky, "Spread yourself over me, so that I may be placed among the imperishable stars and may never die. Protect me from Earth, save me from the world that lay under't as I pray you give me your strength,"

Her heart thundered in her chest much like the sky did on a stormy day. She screamed in fright as a pair of hands grabbed her from behind.

I'm dead, she cried in her mind as she thrashed about. She could see her bare feet kicking against the coarse red gravel and feel the pain as the stones dug under her skin.

"Let me go! Let me go!" her voice cracked as she frantically writhed her body under the unfamiliar touch. She'd changed her mind – she wished she didn't give her name. She wished that Nut would listen.

Her feet suddenly hid something harder – wood. Her feet began to slip on the boards as she felt her captor pull her up a steep rise. She stopped screaming and yelling for a moment. It was just long enough for her to hear the gentle waves lapping up against the wood and just long enough for her body to feel the mild swaying of the ground. She went to speak but no words came out. As soon as she felt the pressure release from her arms she ran forward – much to distress of the shouts behind her – and clutched onto the banister in the side of the boat. Her eyes searched the hideous crimson and grey shoreline until she finally saw what she searched for – the demon.

Four bodies lay around him as he stared at the boat with such malice that made Masika want to cower. Yet, she stood. Masika's eyes stared him down as the boat drifted further down the river. She could see the horrible smirk on his face but this wasn't one of hunger. It was as though he knew something that the people on the boat didn't. Her own eyes burnt with rage and she felt an odd nauseating feeling in her stomach. Suddenly, a showed formed over him and his body – and the ones that surrounded him vanished into the air with remnants of blackened ashes floating away in an unfelt breeze.

She blinked twice to make sure he was gone before turning her back on the shoreline. Her mind was slowly coming to terms with what happened. She remembered saying her name to the demon but what had gone wrong? Did they take her place? If they did, Masika had never experienced such selflessness before. No one had ever given their life for hers – she wasn't sure that she even liked the idea.

That's why they were chosen, Masika told herself, for their bravery.

Masika could barely believe that she had been brave enough to say her own name and, then, when Nut had saved her she had stared him down to show that she didn't fear him any longer.

Did Nut save me though? Masika found herself actually questioning who had saved her – the Gods or the humans who worshipped them. She always placed her faith in anyone but when no one had said their name, her faith in humanity had faltered. Masika had never questioned her faith in the Gods but the sight of the four bodies made this faith also falter.

She turned away from the banister and let the rocking of the boat calm her thoughts. Each wave washed a new thought over her while replacing another. She thought about the dancing rituals she had been in to worship the Gods. She thought about her undying love to please the Gods every day. She remembered when they would forget to make it rain. She remembered celebrating their victories. But not once had Masika been asked to save a God.

She stumbled as a wave knocked the boat and felt a gust of air blow the shawl from her face.

"Why would it speed up now?" someone questioned.

"Is that fire?" another person yelled.

Masika, still caught up in her thoughts, ran to the front of the boat that was quickly getting closer and closer to the bottomless river. She tried the think of a prayer but her thoughts were still twisted with the times when the Gods had truly forgotten about their people. Yet Masika's loyalty to them was still intact.

Did you save me Nut? Did you really? She asked depsarately in her mind. Her cocoa eyes turned into chocolate coloured molten lava as they were illuminated by the white fire. Because I remember a time when the Gods weren't there and when you didn't help us or save us. I remember you left us. But when you came back we celebrated you – now you need to do the same.

Her mind was rushing at a million miles an hour. When her throat was drier than the desert itself, the Gods hadn't answered their prayers. When they gave up their food as sacrifice, their rewards were never worth the price. Masika, more than anything, wanted to believe that the Gods could save her now.

"If you have done nothing sinful, then the flames shouldn't harm you," Nut's voice sounded as though it was beside her but no one else could hear it. Masika held onto the words as the white tongues of flame began to devour the boat. Nut had finally replied but she wasn't going to take her from the Underworld. The blaze curled around her feet as though they were cautious to taste Masika's flesh.

She tried to remember if she had acted sinfully in the past. She tried not to lie and tried to act kindly but her memories were slipping away from her as she rushed through.

You gave your name to an evil spirit and survived, Masika tried to calm herself, You can survive.

And survival was her only option.

The boat dropped suddenly and Masika closed her eyes.

She waited.

It was like looking at the sun with your eyes closed – an odd red tinge seemed to taint the normal blackness. Sometimes white spots danced in her field of vision but as soon as she thought about following them they would disappear.

She waited.

The hairs on her arms tingled but she could feel her skin. There was nothing to feel other than the bliss relief that there wasn't pain. It wasn't hot like she thought it would be. It wasn't slightly warm. It was like she was floating in the Nile River with a cool liquid surrounding her body – unbroken as she drifted down its current.

She waited.

And then, she felt an oddly pleasant wave of pain that slowly increased its intensity.

More pain than the cracking of her toes when she pirouetted on their ends. More pain than when her muscles would feel when she leapt into the air. More pain than she thought she would ever feel in her life.

Then, it faded away as slowly as it had come upon her. It took away her breath along with the pain and Masika felt the rough wooden boat against her cheeks. Here, it was peaceful. She lazily lulled the words to the song her mother had danced to just a few days before. Her eyes were gently closed with a small smile on her lips. She was in her own world.

Yet, in her serene daze, a small thought hid in the depths of Masika's mind. She found herself wandering why she had experienced pain. It meant she had been sinful.

But that didn't worry her now. For now, Masika dreamed of the sky.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nour Tahir

Nour Tahir liked to think of himself as an honest man, but when looking at a lake of fire, there are some things that are hard to shake out of your mind.

Like when he'd yelled at Seti for dropping the laundry a few weeks ago, because it had taken Alaya hours to learn how to fold it right and he didn't want to upset the girl.

Like when he'd stayed a few seconds too long when delivering oils to the royal guardmaster and overheard sensitive information.

Like when he'd done anything wrong.

Set had prepared him - somewhat. The wind that had followed him out of the grasp of the river god had seemed to whisper in his ear a warning of fiery judgment, of flames that would consume his sin, his wrongdoing in the lake of flame and leave whatever came out to continue on the journey.

He knew there were far worse on this journey - he also knew that there were far better men than him on the journey to find Ra, to restore the sun, but he had been chosen by Set. He was a servant, a loyal one, to the pharaoh - he had never been treasonous, never wished ill on his pharaoh as he'd heard others do. Still, he knew that he would not be the most honest, the most pure man to walk through the river.

He could only hope that admitting that would win him some points.

The ship approached the river of flames, rocking ever so slightly, just enough that Nour was afraid he'd dip into the fire early. His knuckles turned white as he clenched the railing, and he could feel the heat emanating from the river below him as the boat started to smoke, and then, all too suddenly, it plunged into the river before he even had time to take a breath.

Not that he needed one - he was too busy screaming in pain.

Surprisingly, his whole body didn't feel like it was engulfed in flames - parts of it were only warmed, even comforted by the feeling. Those parts were ones that had never done any harm, never committed any wrongs in the eyes of the gods. The ones that had, though, were more what he was expecting.

His hands burned with the heat of Ra's sun - punishment for being too quick to slap the trainees when they did wrong and too slow to build a fire in the morning. His ears felt like they were being slowroasted for the gods' meals, for eavesdropping. His stomach, the subject of secret nights of gluttony, was seared and scalded a hundred times over. His mouth, the source of years of chastising and yelling at Seti, at Alaya, at any of the other hundred servants he supervised, felt the worst as every word he'd uttered in a harsh tone, every gossipy sentence he'd spoken, every rant and rave came back to bite him in his own scorched vocal chords.

He had never felt pain so before, but he knew in his heart that he had bestowed such pain on others - with every harsh word, with the knowledge that he wasn't slow to cuff a servant around the ear for misbehaving, with every extra sip of food that he knew he didn't deserve, that he had just as well as stolen from someone who needed it more. Nour had never felt such pain, but he had also never felt any regret as poignant as his in that moment.

It lasted for a lifetime, and for every second of it, Nour knew that he regretted his choices. He watched them flash before him as the boat travelled down his path of wrongdoing, increasing the heat with every memory of every sin.

Still, would he have done any of them differently if he'd known?

He wanted to say yes, but then, what kind of man was he, that he would only have done good to save himself the pain? Perhaps the punishment was the only thing that made him contrite - perhaps, when, or if, he escaped the lake of flames, he wouldn't feel any regret.

He did not know, though, if he would ever escape.

The ride seemed to last for longer than he'd been alive, as his hands burned and his throat was branded by the white-hot fire and Nour suffered under the weight of his sins. He screamed, but he made no noise through the flames. He cried, but the water made no difference to the thick wall of fire that surrounded him.

He surfaced, and he realized that he had been one of the lucky ones.

Although his body was charred, his hands would still move when he flexed them, and his hair was nearly all there. His skin was pink, not blackened by the blaze that had engulfed him and spat him back out. His throat was raw from the inferno and the howling, but he coughed and it did not pain him too much.

Others had done better than he - they stood with skin pinkened healthily, like a blush from a crisp winter wind. His neighbor looked as he did - some parts red, near blistering, others fine.

The rest of the ship was near death, it seemed, as people moaned on the ground, their skin a mass of blisters, their bodies blackened by flame. Still, it seemed that all had survived.

He had survived - that was the important part.

The ship continued sailing, and although Nour could still feel the heat from the boat under his feet, he also felt a cool breeze pass by his face, ruffling his hair and cooling his burned palms, and seeming to whisper, I picked you for a reason.

For the first time, Nour Tahir knew that he would succeed.