In Love with a Jackal

13.

Anubis would not let go of my hand again. Even after I told him that the horrifying feeling scratching at the back of my neck had faded and the path had gotten too narrow for the both of us to walk side by side, his tight grip on me did not budge.

"I'll let go when its safe." he'd told me as I'd stumbled up the remaining way after him.

By the time we finally reached the top of the mountain, I was too exhausted to care if we were still holding hands or not. If squeezing the life out of my sweaty palm served some sort of magical purpose, then heck, he could go ahead and continue.

And I was pretty sure that it served a purpose. Unlike that ominous feeling from before, the warm flow of power raidiating up my arm had yet to dissappear.

As we climbed up the last few steps together, I used my free hand to shade my eyes from the glare. The sun was still blazing high in the sky and at this altitude the rays were especially strong too. Usually I enjoyed the never ending amount of sun you got here daily, but today it was really being a menace. I could already feel the burn that had formed on the highest point of my cheeks and no doubt about it, on my bare shoulders too.

My eyes adjusted to the lighting and I got my very first glimpse of what we had spent hours hiking up towards.

A giant, empty, rock filled plateau.

Gravel crunched under my feet as I halted midstep, inadvertently stopping Anubis along with me.

I couldn't believe it, there was nothing up here. Just a circular shaped platform ringed by some rocky outcrops and a rickety old fence clinging to its edges, barely protecting you from what looked like a 50 feet drop to your rather equally rocky death.

I couldn't really tell you what I had expected to find up here but I was dissapointed by it nonetheless. I guess after experiencing so many things I once thought were bound to the realms of imagination, like being transported to the egyptian desert with only so much as a kiss, I had developed some sort of expectation for what was supposed to be the 'fates legendary lair'.

However the only thing I could find that gave me even a little satisfaction was seeing the metal elevation sign that had been nailed onto a post near the lookout.

We were one thousand and four hundred meters above sea level and I had hiked up ever single one of them on my own. I finally felt a sense of achievement I hadn't experienced in days. Even before Anubis had shown up, the odds hadn't exactly been going in my favor.

Trying to distract myself from thinking any further about all the ways my life was slowly going down drain, I stole a glance over the side, checking to see if the view had changed from up here or not.

As I expected, it was pretty much the same as before. Pine green woods outstrechted over hills that rolled far into the distance. The only new thing visible now were the arid patches of land that had been ravaged by the wildfires last year. They spotted the scenery like a cancerous disease, the blackend stumps sticking out in a grim warning of what a little fire could do.

Anubis suddenly squeezed my hand and my attention flicked back over to him. He nodded to the side and I followed his line of sight.

At the other end of this plateau, standing near what I now saw must be some sort of cave opening half jutting out of the floor, were two men. It appeared like they'd just come out of the cave and with their shorts, t-shirt and hiking boots, I couldn't exactly say that they looked out of place. Still it didn't stop me from feeling a bit nervous at the sight of them, even after I noticed that they weren't grown men but just a pair of teens.

Giving us a similar uneasy look when we caught their attention too, I watched them slowly make their way across the platform in our direction.  They didn't seem keen on interacting with us at all and I was glad about it.