"Hippo! Hippo!" Steven yelled once him and Marc stopped screaming.
"Oh, man!" Marc chuckled a little, "Wow, these meds are really amazing."
"Is he always so intense?" The hippo was excitedly.
"Who, him?" Steven looked at Marc and slight pointed, "Yeah, pretty much."
"So, are you two, like, twins?" The hippo asked.
"No." Marc replied with shaking his head.
"Well, yes...sort of." Steven said looking up to the hippo.
"Okay, great. That's really cleared this whole situation up for me." The hippo laughed and squealed excitedly.
"That makes two of us." Marc sighed and walked up to Steven, "Just a second ago, I thought I'd been shot to death."
"Oh, I'm afraid you're actually quite dead." The hippo replied happily
"I'm sorry, what?!" Steven asked looking at Marc then hippo.
"I'm dead? We're dead?" Marc pointed to himself and then to him and Steven.
"Yes. Yes, Marc. I think she's right. I think we...died." Steven stuttered a little. Marc looked at the hippo and he saw Echo.
"Come back! Come back please" Echo said in a distorted voice. Marc looked at Steven then to Echo and back to Steven.
"Steven can you see Echo?" Marc asked
"Yeah...yeah" Steven replied with then echo disappeared.
"A-ha!" The hippo yelled in excitement and held up some cards, "Okay, here we go."
"Welcome, gentle traveler... Travelers, to the realm of the Duat." The hippo read
"Duat?" Marc looked at the hippo.
"The Egyptian underworld. This is Taweret, goddess of women and children..." Steven explained pointing to the hippo.
"Uh-huh" Marc gave Steven a confused look.
"...and she's guiding us through our journey to the afterlife. Wow." Steven excitedly explained.
"Okay. Right. So, this is the afterlife? The afterlife? An afterlife." Marc said as he was led to a new hallway but close to still see and heard them.
"Not the afterlife. You'd be surprised how many intersectional planes of untethered consciousness exist." The hippo explained to Marc happily.
"Yeah." Marc sighed sarcastically.
("Like the Ancestral Plane. Oh! Just gorgeous. Anyway." The hippo gasped, "I do actually have cards for all this if you just wait, and..."
Steven looked excited and Marc put is head in his hands and started rubbing his face.
"I'm sorry. Wait..." and the hippo fling cards everywhere
"Okay, so... Because the Duat's true nature is impossible for the human mind to comprehend..." the hippo read
"Right." Steven nodded smiling slightly at the hippo
"...you may perceive this realm as something more easily recognizable to you. Uh-huh. A psych ward's a first for me, but, hey, we can roll with it, right?" The hippo said excitedly and smiled at Marc and Steven.
"Why would we imagine this realm to be a psychiatric hospital?" Steven asked
"Because we're insane." Marc sighed loudly, "We're insane. This talking hippo, talking dead bird, you're outside of my body now. And now the afterlife, right? That's the reality and this..."
"But Marc, Marc." Steven said as Marc started to walk backwards.
"The hospital. That's the imagination." Marc sighed
"Sorry, he's..." he apologised to the hippo.
"Oh, man. Dr. Harrow's right." Marc stopped and sighed.
"Dr. Harrow?" Steven asked
"This is an organizing principle." Marc replied with.
"Is he a doctor now?" Steven asked looking at Marc.
"I'll prove it you. So, like, right through these doors, for example" Marc gestures to the door, "we go through here, there's gonna be patients, and there's Crawley probably about to yell bingo!"
Marc pushed open the double doors revealing a deck of a boat that's sailing in the sand. "Oh, my God!" Him and Steven yelled as Steven followed behind Marc.
YOU ARE READING
Open wounds
FanfictionWhat if Khonsu has a daughter with a human? You heard me a human making his child a demigod. Echo Camila Grey. Who lived a 'normal' life. Because Echo is a demigod their abilities Are shadow manipulation, making people see there darkest fear, mind...
