Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Something about these prisoners feels very familiar even from this distance. And that’s when I see him. Batty, or whatever his real name is. His huge black wings are drooping so low, they drag on the dusty ground behind him like the tail of a too-long cloak. And once I recognize him, I recognize more. Eyebrows, and Cookie, and Frecks.
Poor Frecks. I really do feel bad about that.
Why they are here, and how they became prisoners of this god-man who is my father, I have no clue. But, of course, it’s an important detail. A detail that I probably once understood, but now don’t.
The carriages in front pass through the massive columns and come to a stop in the middle of a mosaic five-pointed star on the ground.
The door to the first carriage is opened by a servant, who bows low when a man gracefully exits. He is everything I imagine when someone says the words ‘ancient Egyptian god.’ Hard, muscled body that reminds me of stone. Eyes focused with intent. Power flowing off him like it’s a scent.
I don’t really possess the vocabulary to properly describe what he is wearing because as far as I’m concerned, I’ve never been to ancient Egypt. But he’s not wearing a shirt. There are plenty of decorations on his top half though. Arm and wrist bands and colorful, jeweled chokers around his neck. He’s wearing a skirt, heavily embellished and made of something gold. And in his hand is some kind of scepter. His face is painted like the statue of me in the stoa of my tomb.
“Shit.” I mutter this out loud. Because I had actually forgotten about that fucking statue. I never liked that thing. It never made sense to me. And I had a compulsion to just walk past it as fast as I could every time I entered the tomb.
But that statue is a connection between me and this place that I hadn’t thought much about over the centuries.
Then again, I haven’t thought about much at all over the centuries, have I?
It’s almost like forgetting was part of my curse.
Even so, I’m pretty sure this guy here is ‘Father’.
Just then there is a loud knocking on my apartment door. I leave the terrace and when I open the door there is a group of human men on the other side.
The one in front bows low. “Your Highness. Your father has returned and is requesting your presence in the throne room. We will get you ready.”
I sigh, ready for this hallway experience to be over. I want to find Pie. I want to set things right with the other monsters. And I want to fix the sanctuary, not let it crumble into pieces.
But I know better. If the hallways want to trap you in the past, you’re just gonna be trapped in the past. So I swing the door open wide and beckon them all in with a wave of my hand.
2
The humans wash me very thoroughly. Dozens of them come in with large pots of steaming-hot water and they pour it into a massive copper tub, filling it so full that when I get in water splashes over the sides and trickles down slabs of perfectly angled marble to a drain in the floor.
Then they are all over me with soft, soapy cloths. Scrubbing me, and shampooing me, and massaging me.
Which, if I’m being honest, is quite nice. It’s a pampering I’ve never gotten from any of the slave caretakers. Not even Pie—who does like to soap me up in the shower—has ever paid such close attention to my cleanliness.
Once that’s done, and I step out, there is a white cotton robe waiting for me. They hold it open and when I slip my arms inside, they close it around me. It’s short enough that it doesn’t really cover my lower half, but once I am led over to a chair that sits in the sun, I understand why. They comb my furry legs as they dry in the sun, while others massage my horns and hooves with pastes that smell like cinnamon. Another massages oil into my shoulders and chest and all of this feels so good, I close my eyes and almost fall asleep.
It takes these humans hours to get me ready and it reminds me of something else I had forgotten. How slow life used to be. How deliberate, and purposeful, and careful everyone was about ceremony.
Modern life is nothing like that. And even I, a monster who has been locked up in a curse for two thousand years and pays almost no attention to what’s happening beyond my walls, could feel this change as it was happening.
Because that change was both recent and quick. Like a switch was flicked and the whole world was suddenly different. Well, recent if you’re immortal, as I seem to be. A hundred years is nothing on my timeline. But for a human, I guess it was kind of gradual. So gradual, perhaps they didn’t even notice.