The professor stared deeply into the foam of her coffee and only saw hieroglyphs.
That little swirl of chocolate she had added to the mocha concoction sort of looked like an ankh, didn't it? The Ancient Egyptian symbol of life seemed to mock her as it swam on the beverage's surface.
Gods, not even coffee was free of her obsession.
Her first boyfriend broke up with her because she was "in love with Tutankhamun." Her third because she muttered spells in her sleep. The one fiancee she had managed to keep long enough for a proposal left her after her loss of the engagement ring in an archeological dig.
Yes, it was safe to say that Egypt was her one true love—a lover so jealous that it sabotaged all rivals in its path.
True to stereotype, the professor lived in a too-big house with cats her only company. All the surfaces in her living space were scattered with remnants of the dead—papyri lounging on her couch, ancient manuscripts seated in her stuffy chairs.
But that didn't matter.
He was all that mattered.
One day, she would find him, remove the jagged talons clawing at her sanity. One day, she would unravel the mystery of his visit—if it didn't unravel her first.
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She had been watching Dora the Explorer when she first saw the god.
Thunder roaring outside the window assailed her young ears, at odds with the cheerful voices blaring from the screen. "Ariba up...abajo down..." Dora belted out in a rhythm reflecting that of the storm's. A clang and crash like a broken dinner plate caused her to burrow further into the safety of her scratchy blanket.
One moment later and darkness descended. Dora's map stopped singing. The lights flickered and died, doused by the night sky.
When the rain and the barrage of winds suddenly quieted, she peeked her head out from under the blanket and saw...
And saw...and looked...and saw...
She rubbed her eyes. Monsters weren't real.
But this one was here, in her living room. On her worn, faded rug, next to her pink, sparkly book bag.
His canine teeth gleamed in the dim shaft of moonlight that seemed to shudder as it touched his skin, doglike head sitting on top of a vaguely human body. Gold draped from his dark form, some sort of weird striped cloth adorning his head. A strange staff danced in his hands. Years later she would learn that it was the was-scepter. A symbol of chaos. Of violence.
Without even knowing who he was, her young self had felt his otherworldly energy. But as dark and vortex-like as it appeared, as terrifying as he seemed, she did not feel threatened.
She couldn't even bring herself to move when he opened his maw and words spilled out.
"Remember, there is no oasis without the desert." What was this dog-man talking about?
Before she could muster the strength to respond, the canine head winked at her, zapped the television with his staff, and disappeared in a tornado of red sand.
Dora resumed her spiel. The storm faded to a soft pitter-patter of rain. The power surged to life.
"Are you okay, mija? Don't be afraid, my tormentita." Her mom rushed in with a hug.
As the young girl stood motionless in her mother's arms, she felt a wicked smile spread across her face. Her insatiable curiosity flared to life, a gnawing abyss desperate for knowledge. Was she okay? A moment's thought preceded her response.
"I'm excellent."
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Reality seemed absurdly mundane after a visit from the Ancient Egyptian god of destruction. And he did visit. Despite what all her therapists, friends, and relatives had tried to tell her, she was not insane. Seth was out there, taunting her, waiting for her to find him. And she wasn't one to back down from a challenge.
The professor reached for the pendant at her neck, a vial filled with the red sand that Seth had left behind in her living room. Countless times she had presented her evidence, attempted to share her story. Countless times she had been ridiculed, ostracized, and belittled.
It wasn't easy, being the only Egyptologist who actually believed in the gods that she was studying.
But the more she learned of Seth, the more paradoxical he became. What sort of purely evil god would visit a random child only to give her a vague piece of counsel, turn on her TV with his staff, and vanish into the sands of time? Plenty chaotic indeed.
As she dove deeper into mythology and history, she uncovered an abundance of Seth's wrongdoings: the murder of his brother, the inciting of a civil war, and the attempts on his nephew's life to name only a few.
Nevertheless, behind those tales lurked other stories of Seth. Seth the protector of Ra. Seth the patron of foreigners. Seth the holy warrior, using chaos as a weapon against Egypt's enemies.
The more she learned, the more she built the idea of him up in her mind, the more she felt she knew the god more than any mortal. Empathized with him, understood him. Sure, his brother had been first in line to the throne, but what did Osiris do to deserve kingship more than Seth?
The professor became so buried in her readings that she neglected her teaching duties. What was the point of wasting precious time lecturing sniveling undergraduates when she could be searching for traces of Seth, tracking his pathway throughout history? When she could follow Seth's imitations and parallels from cultures worldwide: Loki, Ares, the fallen angel Lucifer himself—they all paled in comparison.
She never stopped searching.
She didn't stop when she was fired from her university. She didn't stop when she was nearly caught breaking into museums. She didn't stop when she became internationally wanted—banned from six countries, then seven. She didn't stop when she was labeled the "Papyrus Pilferer" by the media or when she escaped her first high-security prison. She didn't even stop when she was forced to kill those that stood in her way—the "Papyrus Pilferer" becoming the "Sarcophagi Slayer" for the way she attempted to immortalize her victims by wrapping them in the linens of a makeshift mummy.
But tonight, that didn't matter. Tonight, she was so close she could practically taste it. The pyramid before her seemed to embody the god she searched for, moonbeams recoiling from its surface as they had from his skin so long ago. If Seth was buried anywhere, wouldn't it be here? In the heart of his beloved red desert, in the foreign lands he called home?
A rhythmic chopping interrupted her breathless trek to the tomb. "Put your hands in the air!" They shouted from their helicopters, guns all trained on her sprinting form. "Stop or we'll shoot!"
But even then, she didn't stop. She couldn't. Her beloved Seth, the answers she so desperately needed, the belief in her own sanity that she had lost—they were all finally in her grasp. Just ahead. Right there–five more steps–then two–
The first bullet struck bone. The second lodged in soft flesh. As her vision blurred and movements slowed, she dragged her bleeding limbs to the pyramid and reached out, just a little bit more, and—there. Her fingertip grazed its limestone surface.
She knew the next bullet was headed for her skull. Even then, even then she had to turn her face toward the pyramid, toward hope, toward the afterlife, toward eternity. And when it came, it felt as warm as the desert sands.
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BREAKING NEWS: FLEET OF HELICOPTERS DESTROYED IN FREAK RED SAND TORNADO. SARCOPHOGI SLAYER PRESUMED DEAD.
What the article didn't say was that her body was never found.