This next story is the original draft of my entry for the Torum Freewriting Assignment. This version is twice the allowed number of words and did not clearly take place on Planet Torum in the Metaverse I had to edit it.... a lot. So this is not the entry, but still a very cool story.
But as I really liked how it turned out I decided to post it here. You can find the short version I edited for Torum here:
I guess I am a little put out of place and out of time-
Last time I checked I was calling on Osiris. Osiris the god of fertility, agriculture, but that was not why I needed him. I needed him as the god of life, death, and the afterlife.
While I am telling you this story my head is still spinning because of all the things I have been seeing. But the last thing I can truly recall is performing the ceremony. The girl was bound to the Altar and I was calling upon Osiris to expand the life expectancy of our people. The cost of it was low, the effect unproven, still the rich families were more than willing to offer their offspring.
Once every year, when the blood moon would arise we would meet at the Giza Plateau. One of the daughters of our beloved land would be dressed up wearing golden ropes and ornaments. She would walk the honor mile, head up watching the stars, and carry her own weight which would be doubled by the gold she wore. She was not allowed to look down, pause, or even catch her breath. She needed to show Osiris she was worthy.
This year it was my love Nefretiti that was the chosen one.
I have been in love with her since I first laid eyes on her. Her olive skin, green eyes, luscious hips, and sensual mouth were accompanied by a feisty attitude. And she too was an adept of the powers beyond. Not yet a master as women would never become a master according to the ancient laws. But her powers were often able to match my own.
These festivities took months of preparation, luckily for us as that gave us time to counter this outdated ritual. Nefertiti was the queen to Pharaoh Akhenaton. But these marriages were not voluntary. She was promised to him when she turned 8 years old, I only met her 4 years later, and fell in love and over time so did she. She married the Pharaoh two years after we met, and we were able to keep our love a secret for 10 years.
If it had not been for that creepy soothsayer that warned Akhenaton she would not be standing here wearing her own weight in gold. The fact that the Pharaoh offered his own beloved wife was a sign of greatness. Giving his love for the people's prosperity, little did they know this was pure punishment.
Akhenaton knew I was the perpetrator, and the one carrying out the ritual of sliding the throat before setting fire to the body and sending her spirit into the godly realms. He was punishing us both in the most sadistic manner.
I went ahead and performed the ritual. I had no choice, I could not even look into Nefretiti´s eyes. The idea of losing her forever made me sick and I had to use every last bit of willpower not to start shaking. This ritual needed to be performed perfectly if I did not want to hurt my love more than I already had.
I lit the circle of fire surrounding us while praying to Osiris. The flames reached much higher than they normally did, but nobody seemed to notice. All were holding their breath.
Then I took out the Ritual Ankhknife and slid her wrist. The fire was hiding us from the sight of the crowd. Then I slid my wrist, bound our wrists together with the rope we had been filling with our magic, love, and wishes over these last months. With my unbound hand I reached for the torch meant to set her on fire.
Holding the torch I looked up at the sky and so did my love, in perfect harmony, we spoke: "Osiris, we are ready. Feel free to take us, or let our ashes enrich the soil of this land."
Then I dropped the torch onto the piles of dried pig dung surrounding us, they caught fire immediately and the smoke started to suffocate us. We must have both passed out before the flames reached us....
The next thing I remember is waking up here, looking around, seeing that same blood moon through a window and below it the great clock, which I later got to know as Big Ben.
We arrived where Osiris wanted us to raise our offspring. Our little magicians would heal the world in his name. To do so he allowed us to arrive in the 21st century wearing what we wore on the day of our departure.
The time at which we arrived was insane. An abundance of people, all knowing about each other's existence even if they had never met. Machines driven by black gold, birds of steel, it was too much to take in.
Nefertiti and I went into hiding for a long time, so we could adjust and of course, generate our offspring. The richness of her robes allowed us to school our children in the ways of the old and the new world. Maybe one day you will meet them.
Epilogue
Probably the greatest thing in this modern age was the internet.
Looking at what was known from my time I was surprised by how much knowledge was still kept. I found out that after Akhenaton’s 12th regnal year, one of the princesses died, three disappeared, and Nefertiti vanished. The simplest inference is that Nefertiti also died, but there is no record of her death and no evidence that she was ever buried in the Amarna royal tomb. Her body has never been found.
I wondered if our action would have had any reproduction on the people of Egypt, and it seems it did as one millennium later Cleopatra and Marc Antony were defeated by the Roman Emperor Octavian (Augustus) in 30 B.C., Egypt became a province of the Roman Republic, bringing an end to the last of the ancient Egyptian dynasties.
Gif was made by me using the Torum Market Place with permission as it was part of the free writing assignment)