Chapter 002: Awakening

As the darkness of the night descended, the old man, only recognized as such because his eyes, the only thing revealed from his attire apart from his wizened hands, while clear, hold a tiredness that seemed directed at life itself, pitched a small tent not far from a dune to use it to block the windy affection of this part of the Earth while avoiding the possibility of being buried by it in case of an accident.

Once in the tent, after lighting up a candle, the old man uncovered the body and using a moistened tissue, he started cleaning it, showing special care to the wounds it presented. Afterwards, taking out bandage rolls from his cloth bag, he proceeded to use them to cover the body from head to toe, giving it the appearance of a mummy.

If a stranger was to witness the scene of an old man suspiciously covered, showing only his hands and eyes, working on a body beneath the candlelight with shadows dancing around, he would certainly have goosebumps while wondering what damn voodoo ritual was taking place here.

Finishing what he was doing, he dragged the sheet with the body/mummy on it out and left it beside the tent unprotected from the winds before going to sleep after snuffing out the flame of the candle with his fingers.

The next morning, after taking down the tent and tidying himself up, he resumed his journey, still dragging his burden along. The following night, he went to sleep once again while leaving it outside beside the tent.

Keeping that routine, on the seventh day, he arrived at an oasis. It was small, about three meters in diameter, murky and certainly with little depth since it seemed to be drying judging from the sparse yellowish vegetation around.

Putting his cloth bag and his tent to the side, he took the body/mummy out of the sheet he used to drag it and dropped it into the murky water. Sitting beside his belongings, he started to observe it, almost like he was waiting for something.

By now, the bandages were already wet and the body/mummy was starting to sink. A few minutes after it was totally submerged, bubbles started to oddly appear above the head position of the body/mummy.

The old man, unfazed, continued to observe and a moment later, the body/mummy suddenly sat up. Thankfully, there was no ordinary old woman beside the old man to get a cardiac arrest from the situation.

The body/mummy started gesticulating wildly and once it managed to free its face from the bandages, it actually opened it's eyes and started coughing violently while looking around in panic.

After calming down a little and taking stock of his surroundings, he fixed his clear brown and white eyes on the old man's dark blue and white ones and asked a little forcefully :

"Who are you?"

The old man, still calm and unfazed, responded :

"I-"

"No, wait."

The resuscitated man, after cutting off the old man, started to grope his crotch with his bandaged hands. Seemingly not satisfied with the vague results he was getting, he stood up from the murky water while frowning and started to pull the wet bandages on his crotch apart.

Under the weird gaze of the only spectator, he heaved a big sigh of relief when he finally managed to confirm the integrity of his manhood. It was still the same, not too big but definitely not too small, with the two indispensable eggs beneath it.

Now reassured, he had the latitude to notice the weird gaze he was getting since a while ago. Raising a brow, he retorted :

"What's with that look in your eyes? Don't you know that everything but that can be compensated with money? Even the richest man won't be happy without it unless he is not sane of mind."

Having resolved the old man confusion, he remembered his unanswered question from earlier :

"And, old man, who are you again?"

"I am-"

"Bleurgh..."

After being interrupted once again, this time by a disgusting vomiting sound, even with all his I'm-old-wise-and-already-tired-of-life attitude, the old man could not prevent the corner of his mouth from twitching, showing the birth of a flash of irritation in his heart.

After waiting for the resuscitated man to be done throwing up mud, water and whatever bile he could find in his stomach and without letting him talk again, the old man hurriedly said while swallowing his frustrations :

"You are lucky to be alive. If you want to continue being in the world of the living, you'd better listen to me."

This made the ex-mummy swallow everything he wanted to say while covering himself with his hands. According to his last memory, he should have indeed died. He really didn't know the cause of his miraculous survival.

The old man, satisfied, continued :

"Good. First, you should know that you are now different. You survived due to sheer luck because you were at the right place at the right time in the right circumstances. The place was a node, the starting point of the new era; the time, which should be evident, is the very beginning of the said era, the point where the old cycle ends and makes way to the new one.

As for the circumstances, you should have been dying while clinging to life, maybe because of some regrets or unfulfilled wishes and, paradoxically, you were accepting the end of your life, quite a surprising state of mind for a young one.

The balance you achieved in that dichotomy, between resistance and acceptance, allowed you to resonate with the world and through that, you came in contact with the very first essence of the new cycle. It changed you into more than a simple human or rather, you are still human but reconstructed from the genes with some limits removed.

Unfortunately, since that essence was too concentrated but incomplete with only one aspect of the world without the others to attain balance, you were taken to an extreme.

If you don't want to be assimilated, there is a journey waiting for you to complete."

By now, the ex-mummy, still standing in the murky water was frowning hard while feeling incredulous at heart. However, taking the attitude of rather believe for now than not in the fantasy novel worthy nonsense he was hearing and finding the time later to prove or disprove it, he took the opportunity while the old man was making a pause in his speech to shoot several questions in succession:

"What extreme are you talking about and what about the aspect of the world you are talking about? How did I change and what do those changes represent? How will I be assimilated? What journey are you talking about? And more importantly, who the hell are you?"

Almost shouting by the end of his tirade, he could not help glaring at the old man.