LAND OF THE DEAD
732 Words
The couple decided to spend the night at Al-Kane’s hut, planning to return to the village in the morning. As had become routine, Shambayati chanted long, unfamiliar incantations before bed. Tones too ancient for the human ear, too familiar for comfort. Pearl wasn’t alarmed anymore. It had been happening for weeks, and neither of them understood why, the sound had become part of their nights like waves of breathing.
But the morning brought something different.
Everyone was awake—except Shambayati. That was strange. He was always up before the roosters, usually pestering them about breakfast or philosophy. Pearl found him still in bed, motionless, faint smoke rising from his skin. The sheets beneath him were untouched by heat. She pressed a wet cloth to his forehead. It hissed and vanished.
Something was very wrong.
The Other Side
Shambayati’s soul had already crossed the veil.
He drifted through a black void neither walking nor falling, pulled by a will older than memory. The air or whatever passed for air in that place was heavy with whispers and unbreathable. Beneath him stretched a lake of fire, and on its shore, an empty boat waited.
He climbed in. The lake screamed.
Hands, ashen and skeletal reached from beneath the molten surface, clawing at the boat, desperate to drag him under. One nearly succeeded. He kicked it off, muttering something obscene under his breath. The dead always overreached.
When he reached the far shore, a figure was waiting with open arms. Flames licked his shoulders like a crown of punishment.
“Arthur?... Or is it Shambayati now?” croaked the figure. It was his father, the late King Alfred.
“You reek of the tome. That’s why you’re here.”
Shambayati froze. “The tome?”
“Yes. Before I had it destroyed, I hid it inside you. You are its vessel. That’s why you chant in your sleep. You are being summoned, son to seek counsel from the dead.”
Shambayati’s voice trembled. “Then tell me… how do I restore the kingdom?”
King Alfred’s charred lips curled into something between a smile and a grimace.
“Reverse the curse on Al-Kane. Everything else will fall into place. You are the tome now. You carry the power and the consequence.”
Before Shambayati could answer, something yanked him backward. His soul tore through flame and darkness, slamming into his body like lightning into a tree.
The Resurrection
He awoke gasping, drenched in sweat twelve hours later. His eyes were wild, his hands trembling. He said nothing just stumbled outside, stripped, and walked into the ocean. The water hissed, boiling around him.
When he emerged, calm and dripping, he was no longer entirely human. His gaze burned with something divine.
He returned to the hut, lifted his hands, and uttered three words. The air cracked.
A whirlwind ripped through the room, splintering the roof and flinging Al-Kane into the sky. Sand and light exploded along with Pearl’s incessant screams. When the dust cleared, a man stood coughing, blinking, and human.
No frostbite skin, No hooter hunch. Just Al-Kane; tall, broad, and terrifyingly handsome, his hair gold in the morning light, his eyes still those piercing golden flames.
He touched his face, chest, arms, testing reality. Then turned slowly toward Shambayati.
“…What did you do?”
Shambayati’s voice was calm, almost distant. “You’re going to kill Aurel and reign as king. Only a human of the bloodline can claim the throne.” “Gather an army and march to the palace at sunset in three days”
And without waiting for reply, he walked away, sand hissing under his feet like the world disapproved.
Silence fell suddenly, Pearl stood there, trembling, watching both men vanish in different directions—one toward destiny, the other toward madness. Then her stomach twisted. She staggered outside and vomited into the sand.
Al-Kane sat motionless inside the broken hut, staring at his reflection in the water bowl. He didn’t look triumphant. He looked lost.
“How does one rule a kingdom,” he whispered, “after being a monster?”
Pearl didn’t hear him. Her thoughts were miles away, spinning into a truth she wasn’t ready for.
She was pregnant.
Pregnant for a man who was no longer human.
A man who suddenly knew everything.
A man who had become a god and something
to be feared.
- Writer
