Judgement of souls

[Amon/Alex's POV]

"Let him be. He's still new to this," Merenre had said with a smile. Amon had frowned upon his brother's statement. New to this? His father had educated him properly and he'd long outgrown the age of a boy. His brothers comment had felt very condescending.

It wasn't until later that day, long after the boat had arrived at the temple, even after the three hours Merenre had spend treating Otto, that he realized that he really didn't know anything.

"It's up to her now. If she's a fighter, she'll make it, but ..." Merenre had said once he was finished. His brother's words had ripped the carpet straight from underneath him. It felt as if his world had suddenly flipped upside-down. Or maybe it was Alex's world that had turned upside-down? It wasn't clear.

After that, everything got blurry. Merenre's words kept echoing through his head.

This couldn't be real.

There had to be a way to fix this?

But how?

Even the best priest of the country said he couldn't do anything more for her.

Otto was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He wanted to help her. He wanted to heal her like Ma'at had healed his headache; instantly and painless. But he couldn't...

He thought that he had felt helpless when he couldn't find the twins, but now? He'd never felt more useless in his life. In both of their lives!

That's when Alex's blurry memory of a motionless Otto in the snow came to mind.

Maybe that was the dilemma his future-self couldn't solve on his own? Maybe he needed to realize how powerless he really was? Maybe this flashback thing would last until Otto was dead?

A deep frown creased his forehead. Did that mean he had to wait for Otto to die, just so he could do it all over again in the future? He'd rather die himself than witness something that horrible twice!

A hand waving right in front of his eyes pulled him back from his destructive thoughts. Under normal circumstances it would have been impossible to sneak up on him. Yet, he hadn't noticed anyone nearing at all. No need to say, he wasn't feeling on top of his game.

Two figures towered over him, which wasn't special because he was sitting on the ground. As he looked up, he recognized the two worried faces looking back at him; Amenemhat and Intef.

"Why do you look so worried?" he asked, even though he knew they wouldn't answer. The boys glanced at each other. They were having one of their secret conversations again. Amon wondered if they'd ever tell him what they were about.

Then suddenly Amenemhat sagged his shoulders, making it clear that their secret discussion was over and he'd drawn the shorter end of the agreement. Intef dragged his brother to the nearest illustrated wall, urged him to grab one of the hieroglyphs, grabbed the one next to it himself and they both started pulling.

Amon couldn't believe his eyes! The wall opened up to a doorway! When he took a look inside, he found a long ascending staircase that went on and on as far as the eye could see. It was hewn to perfection into limestone and was illuminated all the way down.

"Is this why we can't find you at bedtime?" he asked incredulously. Amenemhat laughed as he seemed to think that his question was hilarious, but Intef flushed and quickly shook his head in denial.

Then they simultaneously pushed him towards the stairs. Amon instinctively resisted. All of his senses were suddenly on high alert, screaming at him that this was a bad idea.

"You want me to go down there?" he asked confused. The boys nodded synchronously. Even though the stairs looked sturdy, he still was reluctant to go.

The boys pushed him gently a second time, but he resisted once more.

"Are you sure it's safe down there?" he was seriously considering to go get his full hunting equipment, but the boys nodded in a reassuring way and he felt himself deflate.

Was he being ridiculous? The boys wouldn't send him somewhere dangerous undefended, right? So he heaved a heavy sigh and set a foot on the first step of the staircase, but the feeling of dread didn't get any better.

He doubted and looked over his shoulder, but noticed the boys showed no sign of following. Instead, they motioned for him to go on.

"Bunch of traitors! Sending me into the lions den without a word of explanation," Amon grumbled to himself, but continued anyway.

And so, Amon went down the stairs. He kept going down for what felt like hours. The quality of the staircase never went down. Neither did the temperature drop or rise. It felt as if he'd gotten stuck on a loop in time; all the stairs were identical, there wasn't even the slightest detail to tell them apart, the end still not in view and his starting point long gone from view.

He started to think it was useless to go on and wanted to go back, but was reminded of a joke from his life in the future; two prisoners wanted to escape from prison, but to do so, they needed to climb a hundred walls. The prisoners start their escape and they make it to the 99th wall until one of them says; "I'm tired, I'm going back."

Alex liked to think that the prisoners were poorly informed, like he was right now. So he took comfort in that and kept going.

After what felt like another few hours, the bottom of the stairs finally came into view.

Amon slowed down, cautious of what secrets should be hidden behind a magic door and stairs that went down for hours and hours.

When he glanced around the corner he found a relatively large room. Not large like a temple, but larger than any room in his house. In the middle of the room stood an enormous set of scales with on one of the scales a brilliant white ostrich feather. Yet, the scales were perfectly balanced. Behind the scales was a gate and next to the gate was a-!?

Amon sucked in a breath of surprise as he quickly hid behind the wall again. A monster! It was a huge real life monster!

Well, something like that. It was an animal, but a combination of a few animals; the bottom half of a hippopotamus, the top half of a lion, and where the face of a cat should have been, there was the face of a crocodile. And it looked like the hippopotamus part was the deciding factor to the creature's size!

That was Ammit, Amon knew. The creature that ate the souls that were deemed unworthy of the afterlife.

But if Ammit was here, that meant these stairs had lead him to Duat?! The underworld, were Osiris ruled. What the hell were the boys thinking?! Sending him here?! His thoughts might have been dark, but he wasn't actually ready to die!

"Ok, calm down!" Amon mumbled quietly to himself, trying to push down his panic. "No one knows you're here yet, it's not too late to just-"

In that moment Amon noticed a long green nose, with sharp teeth lining a large mouth and a relatively small eye peeping at him from around the corner. The eye glinted as their eyes met.

Amon's immediate reaction was to run away, fast! But Ammit was faster. Before Amon had as much as turned around to run back up the stairs, the creature had grabbed him with its ginormous mouth and picked him up from the ground as if it was nothing.

Amon screamed and trashed as panic took a hold of him: Ammit, the devourer of souls, had caught him. He was going to die!

"Amon? Is that you?" a calm and steady voice asked him. Amon froze mid-struggle and instinctively looked towards the voice. He found a sickly white, almost green, person sitting on a throne. He was dressed like a pharaoh, but here and there bandages and stitches came peeking from underneath his royal garbs.

Why did this person know his name? What the hell was happening?!

"It is you!" the sickly white person concluded delightedly, yet calm. "I'd heard from Ma'at that you'd found your way back to us! It's so good to see you, old friend!"

"I- I'm sorry," Amon stuttered. "I can't concentrate while I'm dangling upside-down between the teeth of the most dangerous creature alive."

That made the sickly white person laugh.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "She eats souls, not human flesh. It would upset her stomach gravely if she tried to eat you."

His comment made Amon realize that Ammit had indeed not killed him yet. Or more precise, she hadn't hurt him at all.

"Doesn't mean she can't rip me to pieces," Amon remarked, not convinced in the slightest, his face twisted in a very concerned frown. This had the sickly white man laughing again. It sounded very patronizing.

"Looks like you really have lost your memory," he said as he made a gesture towards Ammit to put Amon down. She whined like a scolded dog, but obliged and put Amon back on his feet completely unharmed. Though, she didn't back away until she'd dragged her tongue over the full length of his back. If he'd had hair, it would have been standing up straight from all the saliva the lick left behind. Amon froze as he suppressed a shiver of disgust.

"My name is Osiris," he continued uninterrupted. "And this is Ammit. And yes, she could rip you to pieces, of course, but she loves you far too much. She recognized you immediately. Honestly, it was her affectionate reaction towards you that made me realize who you were. It's not like you look anything like your previous human shell. Plus; humans usually don't come here if they haven't died yet."

"Osiris?" Amon asked dumbfounded. Of course, he should have known. The king of the underworld. Once a loved ruler, but murdered by his brother and resurrected by his sister/wife.

"You," Amon said as his brain slowly worked its way passed the adrenaline rush. "You can save her! Will you please save her?"

This time a sad frown slid over Osiris' face.

"No, I can't. And I must urge you not to ask my wife. Being brought back to life in such a forceful way is ... very unnatural. Take me for example; I'm stuck here in the underworld, not dead and not alive, unable to go back and unable to pass on..."

"I'm not asking you to resurrect her," Amon remarked a little confused. "I don't think she has even died yet. I'm asking you to prevent her from moving on to the afterlife in case she isn't strong enough to heal in one go. You know, to give her a second chance at healing."

Osiris frowned and thought deeply for a moment.

"It's worth a try," he said with a sigh, "but remember; Just this once. There won't be a second time. I'm only doing this because I'm indebted to you."

"Thank you," Amon said with a relieved smile but then frowned. "You know? You are the third god to act so humble towards me. You make me sounds like an equal..."

Osiris looked at him with tired eyes, as if he would drop dead any second.

"It must be really inconvenient to lose your memory every time you need a new shell," he sighed. "I blame the gate. It erases all sadness, pain and anger of everyone who passes through."

"A precaution?" Amon asked sympathetic.

"Of course," Osiris said with a small smirk around his lips. "Can't have any vendetta's in the afterlife, now can we?"

Amon snorted, entertaining the thought. If he remembered correctly, there was no such rule in the futuristic version of heaven. Heck, hell was created by one of the most cherished angles God kept around.

"I can't help but feel responsible," Osiris continued. "So I'll tell you what I know."

Amon blinked in surprise at Osiris's words.

"You are much more powerful than any of us will ever be," Osiris said so serious it made Amon want to swallow. "We gods depend on the energy that flows all around this planet. But you created that very same planet. Well, you and your soulmate."

"You're kidding, right?" Amon asked doubtfully. "Don't you think that if I had that kind of power, I'd know about it?! That I'd be able to use magic, like Ma'at can? To heal someone instant-"

He choked up as he remembered why he'd felt miserable in the first place.

"Aha," Osiris sighed in a knowing way. "Could it possibly be your soulmate that you're trying to save? That would explain a thing or two..."

"Why would you say that?" Amon asked confused. His heart gave a squeeze as it didn't look like Osiris was joking. It made him feel sick to the stomach and he could feel a dull headache coming up. He wasn't even sure anymore that he wanted to know the answer to his question.

He vaguely registered Ammit looking at the scales behind her with a worried expression, and the dull chime of one of the scales hitting the stand, but Osiris was looking at him so intently that he couldn't look away.

"Because in all the years I have existed," he said in a pondering way. "I have never seen you love anyone else. You only have eyes for her and you are always chasing after her. Hiding away in this pinhead of a planet when you should be managing the universe."

"He's lying," Amon thought. "It can't actually be true... right?"

Yet, he couldn't deny this nagging feeling that he had been forgetting something. That he had been blind to the truth all this time, and had been happy to do so. He dropped to his knees as the headache became unbearable.

"Amon! Are you ok? Please calm down," he heard Osiris call his name, but he could barely hear him. He could barely see. He was vaguely aware of the scales making a clattering noise, of Ammit whining in fear, of Osiris standing up and trying to reach him.

But none of it mattered.

All he knew was that his head and heart were at war. His heart was beating so fast that it hurt. As if it was trying to jump straight out of his chest. And then there was his head that was denying everything.

"None of this is happening, none of it is true. There is nothing to remember, so don't try to," it was chanting with a head-splitting force.

Amon screamed out in pain, clutching his hands over his ears in a futile attempt to stop the chanting and then suddenly a loud crack could be heard and everything went quiet.

The war between his head and his heart had stopped as suddenly as it had started.

Breathing heavily, he let his gaze glide over his surroundings: the scales were still swaying from side to side like wind-chimes after a gust of wind, Ammit was retrieving Ma'at's feather that had been blown halfway across the room and Osiris had stood up from his throne and was examining the gate to the afterlife.

"It cracked?" he muttered in shock. "The gate to the afterlife actually cracked? Well, that's going to be a problem... What was I thinking?! Provoking the creature that created the thing, I must have lost my mind."

Amon's vision was fading away fast. He could feel gravity pulling at him.

"Ah! Anubis! Right on time, as always. Could you bring him back to the surface? I think he needs some time to... clear his head," were the last words he heard Osiris say before he lost all consciousness and fell to the floor.