The Demon of Egypt: Nala's Side by Amber Riel (good beach reads .txt) 📕

          “Whatever….” I stood up and left Grim in the dim light.  I didn’t know where I was heading or where I would even wind up.  All I knew was that I had to get away from the death dealer who took my life and for nothing.  I lost everything that free will had given to me and I wasn’t about to listen to his lies that it was all my fault.

          I walked down a dark path with no light to lead the way when I heard someone move.  I stopped in my tracks and looked around.  All I could see was a dark abyss of nothing.  No light, no trees, no people…. Nothing.  It felt like emptiness when I turned back toward the way I was heading he stood in front of me.  Him the god I had spoken to at the ball.  Anubis…. He stood in front of with a wide smile on his evil jackal face.  I took a step back as I stared at the creature.  “Hello, your highness,” he mocked.

          “Anubis….”

          “Princess, I’ve waited for you.”

          His words hit me like a wave of sand during an extremely bad sandstorm.  I had a feeling that his words were meant to mock instead of reassure.

          He looked me up and down.  I watched as he tilted his inhuman head to look me in the eyes and he lost his smile.  “You mocked us long enough.”  He lifted his right arm and backed handed my face, kind of knocking me back a little.  He was more powerful than I was and that wasn’t something that pleased me.  “We’ve all been waiting to see you.”

          He kneed me in my stomach and even though I was dead I could feel the pain in my stomach as I fell to my knees.

          “Look how pitiful you are…. You’re not so big and bad now are you.”  He kicked me in the jaw with his right foot.  Once he had his fun, he clapped and his inhuman guards appeared and placed shackles around my wrist.  “Just pitiful.”

          The guards stood me up on my feet.  Anubis lifted my chin up to face him as his smile appeared again.  “All I’ve wanted to do is to throw you in with mutts.  That thing I had said about you being my bride was clearly a simple lie…. I’ve been waiting to see your little inhuman face and features here.  I just wanted some fun that’s all.  You know the feeling I believe.  Toying with the humans…. Playing with their lives so you could show them that you’re more powerful than they could ever be…. Why?  When I heard news of your death, I thought well I finally get my chance to teach this mutt what suffering is all about.”

          “You’re supposed to be the god that leads the Egyptians to the under wear or something like that…. You don’t fight or attack---”

          “Child, I’m evil just like the others…. We’re demons, not gods…. Only to do the biding of the devil and guess what?  You’re just as bad as we are.”  He turned his attention the guards.  “Come…. We have feast and ceremony to get to.”

          Anubis led the guards down a dim but lit hallway filled with cells.  The candles were eerie to light the room but they did.  I looked around and noticed Imhotep sat alone in a cell.  In another a few feet away Antinique.  The dragged me to an empty cell and one guard released me from his grip to unlock and open the barred door.  Once the door was opened they tossed me in it after unlocking the shackles from around my wrist.  “Hope you enjoy your stay, your highness,” the evil god mocked with his evil little grin as one of the guards closed and locked the door.  I watched as they left the room, laughing.

          “They found you too, your highness?” Imhotep spoke.

          “Shut up.”

          “Shut up?  I wouldn’t be here if it was for you.”

          “Me?  You and your cheating girlfriend deserve to be here…. I, on the other hand don’t deserve this….”

          “You deserve this just as much as we do....”

          “No I---”

          “Both of you shut up,” Antinique interrupted.  “We’re all in the same boat…. We all need to get out of here somehow…. There’s no telling what those creatures want to do to any of us….”

          I kind of laughed.  “Creatures?  I thought that you human Egyptians worshiped them.”

          “There not like what we were brought up to believe,” Imhotep replied with rudeness in his voice.

          I rolled my eyes.  I hated listening to either of them speak but I was stuck with them.  “What did Anubis do to you two anyways?  Did he beat you?  Because that’s what I had to go through…. He back handed me…. Kneed me in my stomach and when I was down he kicked my jaw….”

          “We’re being paid back for the evils we did on Earth,” a familiar voice had spoken but it wasn’t Antinique or Imhotep who had said anything.  “We’re suffering for our sins.”  In the cell across from me sat…. Niki…. I couldn’t believe it was him.  His chest had cuts and bruises.  His face was decoying and he was almost unrecognizable.  My brother the one I….

          “You’re not dead, Niki…. You’re supposed to be with father fighting our uncle and cousin,” the words spilled from my mouth as soon as I opened it.

          Niki looked up at me confused.  He clearly had been trapped down in the cell for more than a couple of days.  “What are you talking about?”

          “I saw you…. I talked to you…. Imhotep saw you too….”  I remembered back to the other humans like our father and Antinique who had stared at me with confusion when Niki had appeared.

          “It’s true, Prince Niki,” Imhotep replied.

          “I don’t know what you two are talking about,” Niki replied.  His lost and confused gaze turned toward me.  “The day I told you that we were practically immortal I had met this boney man who looked to be dead and had no skin on his bones.  He wore a black cloak and had eyeless sockets.  He carried a sithe in his hand.  He walked over to me and without saying a word he tapped my shoulder and the next thing I knew the world went black.  I wondered into the dark abyss until I was found by Anubis and his guards.  Since then they’ve placed me in battles for their own fun.  I’ve been cut, beaten, stabbed, and whatever else you could think of all for their fun.  Whoever you two saw wasn’t me…. At least, wasn’t really me.”

          Grim took my brother’s life to prove a point, I thought as anger grew inside of me.

          We heard the metal doors open and heard footsteps walking along the stone floor.  I didn’t bother to look to see who had entered.  I figured it was one of the Gods or Goddesses to have their fun and sure enough my cell door opened.  A couple of guards walked in and placed shackles on my wrist again.

          Anubis walked up to me and stuck his long slim black snout in my face.  “Princess Nala, we have so much in store for you.”  He used his human hand to remove my wig and let my wavy almost black hair fall past my shoulders.  He laughed under his breath evil as he revealed a small golden tiara on top of my head.  “A princess must never go without her crown.”  His words were mocking.  He grabbed my face with his hand and played with my cheeks.  “It’s time to show you that you can’t mess with us, your highness.”  He motioned for the guards to follow him as he started to leave the cell.

          I was trapped, walking with the guards as we followed Anubis out into a large round stadium.  I looked around the room and the place was filled with the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses from Nut to Osiris.  The place was packed with them from left to right.  The guards followed Anubis into the middle of the stadium, dragging me along with them.

          “Ladies and gentlemen,” Anubis began, “I am pleased to tell you that I have brought with me today her highness from Egypt…. She is finally in our territory once and for all.  I proudly present Princess Nala.”  He motioned toward me and the crowd went wild.  They had been waiting for my arrival but I hadn’t known for how long.  It was clear that they were pleased to see me in their mist but I couldn’t understand why.  I was popular for some reason then I thought back to Niki and how damaged he looked and wondered if that was going to be me.  “Our pawn has finally arrived.”

          Pawn?  Pawn?  I’m just a toy to them?  They can’t do that to me…. I’m practically one of them those evil demons.  How could they treat me like no more than a mere mortal?  I’m not like Imhotep and Antinique…. I’m much more powerful than they are.

          “Now, let’s see how her highness does in our territory.”  Anubis nodded for the guards to release me from the shackles they had placed around my wrist.  Once they had released me, Anubis and the guards left me standing alone while the passage ways closed with walls that I knew wouldn’t let me leave even if I had tried to teleport.  The Gods and Goddesses of Egypt had prepared for me, and unlike the humans who were weak and defenseless against me, they clearly were much more powerful than I was.

          I stood and looked around until my eyes locked with the one God I knew was in charge over all of the others: Amun-Ra.  He had dark colored human skin and the head of a falcon.  He wore a round plate? Or something like that on his head with a head of a king cobra coming out of it.  Of course it wasn’t a real cobra but that’s what it looked like.  I knew from the images of him engraved on the walls of the palace who he was.  “Amun-Ra…. Why do I have the honor of standing in front of you and your crowd of Gods and Goddesses?” I asked, kind of mockingly.

          “Your highness, we have been waiting for you,” the God replied as he stood to his feet and looked down at me.  “When we got news of your death, we knew that we must find you and as always Anubis was the one we sent after you.”

          I shook my head at his words.

          “Now enough talking.”  He stood with pride as his bird like eyes locked with mine.  “It is time for our fun to begin, ladies and gentlemen.”

          The crowd began cheering with excitement as I heard a loud unusual noise coming from the wall which sat in front of me.  I tilted my head in confusion, trying to figure out what was making that strange and oddly loud noise.

          “Release the creature,” Amun-Ra demanded from above.

          I heard a noise which kind of shook the ground.  I looked over at the wall in front of me and watched it as it opened upward, revealing a secret passageway which was blocked by some kind of strange looking