Schnee Corp Lawyer
STILL not over Birthright's ending
At the center of a black hole, both time and gravity are infinite forces
-----------------------------------------------
Prologue: Star of Anubis
--------------------------------------------------
Ancient Egypt - 2642 B.C.-----------------------------------------------
Prologue: Star of Anubis
--------------------------------------------------
There was a new star in the sky this night.
On any other night, the man who noted it as he laid on his back in the sand would have been astounded. He was Henenu, astrologist to a local viceroy, and what a new light in the heavens could signify for his patron would certainly take his thoughts by storm. Yet this was not any other night. His breathing was heavy, and the cold sand was poultice and comfort to the ragged spear wound on his leg. All the star was was a reminder that tonight felt very wrong from the start, and he wanted it to end. But he could lie here no longer. He had to move. If he was found, then-
“HENANU!”
The moment he heard his own name carry across the sands, he let out a groan as the tension left his shoulders along with any hope of survival. He tilted his head up to see the man striding purposefully over the final dune between him and his prey, and Henanu let his head fall back as he gave into despair. “DID YOU THINK YOU COULD GET AWAY AFTER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?! MY DAUGHTER IS SOILED NOW! SHE WAS TO UNITE MY FAMILY WITH ERTU’S!”
The ranting continued as his death approached, but Henanu drowned it out as he looked up to the sky once more. What an ill portent this star must have been. He should have checked the skies before he left for his love; a new light it may have been, but it was an evil one now that he studied it closer. Even against the depths of black that made up the tapestry of night, a circle of darkness could be made out around it. It was as if Anubis’ own eye looked upon him, damning him to face his judgement in the moments to come.
The star had done this to him.
Perhaps it was merely the blood loss talking, but perhaps it could undo it to him. If it was truly the omen of a god, then maybe, just maybe, it would hear his plea.
“Please” he whispered. “Help... me...”
The star did not respond.
A weak laugh puttered out of his lungs and he looked back up to the furious father with a forlorn smile. “What a poor way to die-”
A terrifying roar filled the air as a tempest of sand and wind ripped through the desert between Henanu and the father. Both of them shrieked in terror, and both of them immediately tried to flee. The one with a working leg, unsurprisingly, did so faster. Henanu tried to struggle to his feet, but the sand beneath him was starting to pull towards the middle of the tempest, as if the desert’s sand was draining out like water in a whirlpool. He stumbled and cried out in fear once more as his stomach hit the sand, and he desperately tried to claw his way in the other direction with a horizontal climb, but it was to no avail. The pull was inexorible. It was quicksand that was actively flowing against him. What terrible god was this, that answered his prayers only to kill him in return. The frustration bubbled over into one last, horrified, furious scream of defiance that did not even come close to matching the howl of this awful storm.
Until it stopped, and he was screaming into silence. The sound of his own voice surprised him, and he tried to push himself back to his feet only to slip backwards on something smooth beneath it. It was not soft sand that greet him, and there was a heavy thunk as his butt hit. He winced , but as he slowly opened his eyes the pain gave way to awe. It was not mere rock that he had fallen on, revealed by the displaced sand.
It was glass.
A perfect half circle of glass in the desert sand. A bowl that he’d fallen into. The half-hearted noise he made wasn’t anything close to words, but it conveyed his wonder and terror just as well as any syllables. It seemed the black star was not so bad an omen as he thought. He could not wait to show its power off to his lord, and after a few slips and stumbles he managed to haul himself out of the wonder of glass and hobble off into the dark.
The next night, the star was gone.
------------------------------------------------------------
London - Present day
Tammy Delend was not having a good day. It had started when she woke up an hour late for work because her apartment complex had lost power. There were twenty two flights of stairs after that. Then sixteen blocks of walking, because whatever had knocked out the power had tanked the underground as well, and a convenience store part timer couldn’t afford a cab with the pocket money she carried. It was almost enough to make her stay home by that point, but she couldn’t reach her work on her cell either, and that meager paycheck was still better than being fired. So she grit her teeth and started her commute. When she reached the store, the bad day showed no signs of slowing down.
Half the store front was missing.
She saw it from a few blocks away, yet that didn’t stop her from breaking out into a jog towards it. Her paycheck may have been questionable in her future, but human curiosity was an indomitable thing. She slowed to a halt before she broke through the yellow tape that surrounded the site, and stared with both dread and fascination as men in hazmat suits slowly stepped through the debris and broken bottles.
“Its a perfect circle…”
“What? Oh, shit Ted, you scared me. What the hell happened!?”
Ted, propreitor of this store turned wreckage, Tammy’s boss, and usual asshole, couldn’t find it in himself to snap back as he stared at the remains of his livelihood from where he’d walked up behind her. “I… I dunno. Some old lady got her purse snatched outside, she yelled, and all of a sudden…” He gestured vaguely at the building. “But lookit. The sides. Its like… a big, quarter of a ball just smushed it all. Or sliced it.”
“Balls don’t slice, Ted”
“Well, yea, but…” Once more, all he could do was point.
“...So… any chance I could still… I dunno. Do you need your house cleaned?”
“Eff off, Tammy.”
-----------------
Sixteen blocks and twenty one flights of stairs later, Tammy’s bad day continued. Her cell service had returned, and some quick searches of the net revealed some disturbing news. The power was out due to what was being considered a terrorist action at the power plant. Some sort of new bomb was the thought, with a strange blast pattern. The description sounded eerily like what was left of Ted’s store, but as much of a dick as he tended to be, Tammy couldn’t see him drawing the ire of some… evil spy… terrorist...thing. Whatever this was. She opened her door, and yelled in shock as the building shook. “What the fu- Skittles!” She tried to pull the door shut, but the ball of orange fur that bolted out the it was faster. She groaned and turned to sprint after it down the stairs. “Skittles! Skittles you get back here right now-”
-------------------
Thus did the bad day reach its climax; Tammy standing under a tree, with sirens in the distance staring forlornly up at her cat in the highest branch. The news stories had only gotten worse as she searched for her pet. Terrorist action was being ruled out; more and more of the strange explosions were being reported, not only in london, but across the entire continents of Europe and Africa. No one knew what they were, only that they were dangerous, incredibly so. They left nothing in their wake, and they struck seemingly without warning. Before her cell service cut out again, repeated messages to stay indoors and underground had inundated her phone. But she couldn’t just leave Skittles. She loved him. He was all that got her through the day, most days. He was a good kitty, he’d just been scared.
And now, when the world was going crazy, he was stuck in a tree. One she’d tried to climb three times now and failed. She could hear him meowing up there. Terrified, big eyes staring down at her, just begging for help, and she couldn’t do anything.
*Sniffle*
This may have been a bad day, but Tammy did her best to play tough, and these tears had been building up over what had honestly been a bad year. She just wanted her friend back. She wanted him safe. But there was no phone, and no emergency crew was going to help her get her cat when so many other strange things were happening.
“..c-can’t someone help me?” She asked, to no one at all.