Wings of Time

Overlap

The fabric of the landscape looked torn and mismatched. The bright Egyptian sky had stripes of dark rain clouds across it, as though the blue had been clawed at revealing the greyness beneath. The glittering Nile flickered with black stone and the Pyramids in the distance kept straightening into tall, gleaming rectangle like buildings. Below his vantage point on top of the tower, the streets of Thebes were filled with panicking civilians. Atem's hands hurt from how hard he was clenching the railing.

"Is this another trick of Akifa?" he asked Set besides him. His cousin also stared in wide-mouthed confusion.

"I don't know." he said. "I've...I've never seen anything like this."

Across the city there came an explosion and fire spittled across the nearby thatched roofs. Instantly they took flame. Atem and Seth looked on in horror as the flames spread like locus from house to house, spitting out black plumes of smoke.

Footsteps pounded behind them and Shimon appeared, red-faced and wheezing. Set and Atem turned to meet him.

"Shimon, you shouldn't push yourself so at your age." said Atem, holding out his hands in case he had to catch the old man.

"I'll be all right, your majesty, but the city is falling apart!"

"I can see that."

"But that's not all," he straightened and wiped sweat off his leathery like face. "Shadi is missing!"

"What?"

"He was there, and suddenly he wasn't! He just vanished! And right after this all started."

Set and Atem exchanged glances. What had any of this to do with Shadi?

But before they could open discussion on it, rain started falling from the tears in the sky and in the distance a whole line of the rectangular like buildings appeared. The people below began screaming as strange metal poles and glass started falling from nowhere. More strange objects appeared around the city, taking the place of everyday objects such as stands, barrels, and house decorations.

"We'll have to discuss this later," said Atem, "Set, get some soldiers down there to calm the people and get them out of the city. I'll need a team to put out these fires as well, gather volunteers, if you must. Shimon," he turned to the elderly priest, "get the priests together and, for the sake of all that's holy, figure out what is happening here."

The two bowed low then ran down the stairs with Set in the lead. Atem watched them go before turning back to the city, his hand on his millenium puzzle.

As he ran through his mind of options he could do himself, a flicker of a white figured appeared beneath him, running behind a slender young man with similar hair to his own-it could only be himself. Before he could decide if what he was seeing was a trick of the mind or not, they vanished with the shadows of the clouds. He stood frozen to the spot. That could have only been one person.

Aleah.