The Red Pyramid [BTS adaption]

61. I Deliver a Love Note - I

Jimin POV

I'M GLAD NAMJOON TOLD THAT LAST BIT—partly because I was unconscious when it happened, partly because I can't talk about what Bast did without going to pieces.

Ah, but more on that later.

I woke feeling as if someone had overinflated my head. My eyes weren't seeing the same things. Out my left, I saw a baboon bum, out my right, my long-lost uncle Seo Joon. Naturally, I decided to focus on the right.

"Seo Joon?"

He laid a cool cloth on my forehead. "Rest, child. You had quite a concussion."

That at least I could believe.

As my eyes began to focus, I saw we were outside under a starry night sky. I was lying on a blanket on what felt like soft sand. Khufu stood next to me, his colorful side a bit too close to my face. He was stirring a pot over a small fire, and whatever he was cooking smelled like burning tar. Namjoon sat nearby at the top of a sand dune, looking despondent and holding...was that Chim in his lap?

Seo Joon appeared much as he had when we last saw him, ages ago. He wore his blue suit with a matching coat and fedora. His hair neatly styled, and his round glasses glinted in the sun. He appeared fresh and rested—not like someone who'd been the prisoner of Set.

"How did you—"

"Get away from Set?" His expression darkened. "I was a fool to go looking for him, Jimin. I had no idea how powerful he'd become. His spirit is tied to the red pyramid."

"So...he doesn't have a human host?"

Seo Joon shook his head. "He doesn't need one as long as he has the pyramid. As it gets closer to completion, he gets stronger and stronger. I sneaked into his lair under the mountain and walked right into a trap. I'm ashamed to say he took me without a fight."

He gestured at his suit, showing off how perfectly fine he was. "Not a scratch. Just—bam. I was frozen like a statue. Set stood me outside his pyramid like a trophy and let his demons laugh and mock me as they passed by."

"Did you see Dad?" I asked.

His shoulders slumped. "I heard the demons talking. The coffin is inside the pyramid. They're planning to use Osiris's power to augment the storm. When Set unleashes it at sunrise—and it will be quite an explosion—Osiris and your father will be obliterated. Osiris will be exiled so deep into the Duat he may never rise again."

My head began to throb. I couldn't believe we had so little time, and if Seo Joon couldn't save Dad, how could Namjoon and I?

"But you got away," I said, grasping for any good news. "So there must be weaknesses in his defenses or—"

"The magic that froze me eventually began to weaken. I concentrated my energy and worked my way out of the binding. It took many hours, but finally, I broke free. I sneaked out at midday when the demons were sleeping. It was much too easy."

"It doesn't sound easy," I said.

Seo Joon shook his head, obviously troubled. "Set allowed me to escape. I don't know why, but I shouldn't be alive. It's a trick of some sort. I'm afraid..." Whatever he was going to say, he changed his mind. "At any rate, my first thought was to find you, so I summoned my boat."

He gestured behind him. I managed to lift my head and saw we were in a strange desert of white dunes that stretched as far as I could see in the starlight. The sand under my fingers was so fine and white, it might've been sugar. His boat, the same one that had carried us from the Thames to Brooklyn, was beached at the top of a nearby dune, canted at a precarious angle as if it had been thrown there.

"There's a supply locker aboard," he offered, "if you'd like fresh clothes."

"But where are we?"

"White Sands," Namjoon told me. "In New Mexico. It's a government range for testing missiles. Seo Joon said no one would look for us here, so we gave you some time to heal. It's about seven in the evening, still the twenty-eighth. Twelve hours or so until Set...you know."

"But..." Too many questions swam around my mind. The last thing I remembered, I'd been at the river talking to Nephthys. Her voice had seemed to come from the other side of the world. She'd spoken faintly through the current—so hard to understand, yet quite insistent. She'd told me she was sheltered far away in a sleeping host, which I couldn't make sense of. She'd said she could not appear in person, but that she would send a message. Then the water had started to boil.

"We were attacked." Namjoon stroked Chim's head, and I finally noticed that the amulet—Bast's amulet—was missing. "Jiminie, I've got some bad news."

He told me what had happened, and I closed my eyes. I started to weep. Embarrassing, yes, but I couldn't help it. Over the last few days, I'd lost everything—my home, my ordinary life, my father. I'd been almost killed half a dozen times. My mother's death, which I'd never gotten over to begin with, hurt like a reopened wound. And now Bast was gone too?

When Anubis had questioned me in the Underworld, he'd wanted to know what I would sacrifice to save the world.

What haven't I sacrificed already? I wanted to scream. What have I got left?

Oppa came over and gave me Chim, who purred in my arms, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't Bast.

"She'll come back, won't she?" I looked at Seo Joonimploringly. "I mean she's immortal, isn't she?"

He tugged at the rim of his hat. "Jimin...I just don't know. It seems she sacrificed herself to defeat Sobek. Bast forced him back to the Duat at the expense of her own life force. She even spared Chim, her host, probably with the last shred of her power. If that's true, it would be very difficult for Bast to come back. Perhaps someday, in a few hundred years—"

"No, not a few hundred years! I can't—" My voice broke.

Oppa put his hand on my shoulder, and I knew he understood. We couldn't lose anyone else. We just couldn't.

"Rest now," Seo Joon said. "We can spare another hour, but then we'll have to get moving."

Khufu offered me a bowl of his concoction. The chunky liquid looked like soup that had died long ago. I glanced at Seo Joon, hoping he'd give me a pass, but he nodded encouragingly.

Just my luck, on top of everything else I had to take baboon medicine.

I sipped the brew, which tasted almost as bad as it smelled, and immediately my eyelids felt heavy. I closed my eyes and slept.

........................................................................................... 

Hi kittens~

So Jimin is fine and they are camping now...

They have been going through a lot these days...

And Bast is gone...

Would you ever try baboon medicine?

And Seo Joon's escape sounds too easy...

Until next update,

Bye bye~

BORAHAE~