Yatadhakar

Pharai

I frowned as I looked at the golden eyed man. Maybe there was a time I had met him or a time I had met someone who looked like him and had truly forgotten. Yet he did not look like any other human I had ever seen either.

His skin was too flawlessly golden and smooth. No dye in this world could get him the hair colour he had. It was too perfect, luscious and long. His eyes were another factor no science could explain. If I had met him before I would have surely remembered. He was not someone you could forget.

Then there was the chance my mind was playing tricks on me. That maybe today the exhaustion had caught up with me once again that it caused me to hallucinate. It had been a while since I had been this busy so maybe that was the explanation.

"I don't know you, I'm sorry," I sighed and shook my head, "I don't know what you are or who you are but if we met before there's no way I could forget you. You're ruining me and I don't deserve to live in fear. Whatever this is can it please stop?

I just got a new job, I'm in a new country with a whole different culture that I want to learn and respect. What are my co-workers going to think that I just got here and I come with a truck load of baggage? Just let me live."

He shook his head as he kneeled down to the mat covered tiled floor next to the bathtub. He placed his unusually large hands on the edge and studied my face with a look of pure heartbreak. "But you always remember me. Just try for me please."

I felt my cheeks heat up as frustration took over me. I did not understand what he was insisting on. There was no way I could force my brain to bring me a memory on someone I truly believed I had never met before. On someone-

Before I could finish my thought, he moved faster than I would have ever imagined and held my face in his hands, "Yatadhakar." The thunder and demand in his voice almost made the earth feel like it was quaking under us. (Arabic: Remember.)

His whole eyes had turned completely black as he bared his teeth that extended out to almost form wolf like canines. The temperature in the room had increased in just seconds that it felt like the water in the tub was close to boiling point.

I let out a hiss and just as my lips parted to let out a scream as I felt my skin burn, he pressed his lips to mine. The world started spinning under me and what suddenly felt hot felt just as cold in seconds.

Then everything went dark.

The air passing my nostrils felt damp yet dry, hot yet cold. The scent of my surroundings immediately reminded me where I was. I was in the water again. With the smooth silky mud under my feet and current coming from the south going to the north. The warm water enveloped me just the way my bathtub had seconds prior.

I was back at the Nile. Back in the dream that had been haunting me for months on end that seemed to be the cause of all my problems. The dream that had me barely able to sleep because I relived it every single time I closed my eyes.

I opened my eyes and much to my displeasure instead of catching the woman with the honey coloured skin that was dusted in fine gold powder bathing, she was staring at me. The water became cold, the mud grainy and our surroundings became deadly silent.

Her bright golden eyes piercing into my soul that I had to take a step back in fear as she watched me with such an intensity it felt like she could snap my neck with just a flick of her wrists.

"Min 'anti?" she growled out as she stood up straighter not caring that she was in fact naked. Luckily her hair covered most of her chest and the water covered her from her stomach down. I had always thought she was kneeling when I had the dream but to my surprise, she was just that tiny. (Who are you?)

I opened my mouth to respond to her but instantly froze when a commanding voice came from behind me. An intense chill travelled down my spine. The hair at the back of my neck stood in attention, but the strangest part of all of this was my heart.

It felt as if a hand had wrapped itself around my heart and squeezed it. I pressed my hands over my chest in panic but this was not a feeling of pain. It was a feeling of deep longing.

"Kayf tajru ealaa altahaduth maei bihadhih alnaghmati?" a low thunderous voice responded. (How dare you speak to me with that tone?)

I spun to look behind me and almost fell to my knees when I saw it was Golden Eyes. Yet he looked extremely different. His hair had been braided into the most complicated cornrow design I had ever seen. His skin was just as beautiful as it had always been but he seemed to have the power of the sun with him as he almost blinded my eyes.

Once again he was barely dressed except for the cotton cloth wrapped around his waist that was held together by a golden chained belt with a blue scarabs; the ancient Egyptian blue beetle.

"Wakayf tajru ealaa altahaduth mae malikatik hakdha? Anhanaa 'amami 'aw qabil nihayataka," she looked at him like he was the gum under her shoe. She seemed to not have an ounce of fear in her especially for a woman who was naked alone in a river. (And how dare you speak to your queen like that? Bow before me or meet your end.)