How it Ends ▸ House of Anubis [4]

chapter twelve. house of limbo

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( note: we now return to our regularly scheduled first-person narrative. )

One moment, the only thing I saw was Eddie glowing gold as he sacrificed himself to save the world. The next moment, I'm waking up on the ground somewhere completely white. Pushing myself off the ground, or whatever I'm lying on, I look around. There's no end in sight, no chairs, no people. It's just nothing. I'm standing in the middle of nothing.

This isn't good.

"Hello?" I call out, my voice echoing. What exactly is my voice echoing off of? There's no walls, and I don't think I'm in some really strange cave. "Look, wherever I am, I really don't wanna be here, so I could just go back—"

"You don't have to yell," a voice behind me remarks exasperatedly. I yelp and spin around. A lot of weird things have happened to me, but I admit: the weirdest is probably the fact that I'm staring at a guy who looks just like that actor Rami Malek in those museum movies, the ones where everything comes to life at night. I mean, right down to the voice and the costume. "I'm right here."

"Holy Ahkemenrah," I mumble.

"What?" whoever it is questions with a shake of their head. I eye them, taking a step back—like there's anywhere for me to actually go! "Ashley, it's me. Anubis."

Uh... "What?"

"You said once I sound like this pharaoh character from the museum films," he says, gesturing to himself, "so I thought this would be the best form to take. I thought my true form," this being a man with the head of a jackal, "might've scared you and I supposed you would be scared enough when you saw where you were."

I nod slowly, about 99.9% sure I'm hallucinating. "Where am I? Am I in the Egyptian underworld?"

Ahkmenrah-Imposter—no, I'm sorry, this is apparently Anubis—answers with a chuckle, "Duat? No, certainly not. No, you're in the world between the living and the dead. Limbo. Well, that's the closest translation to English. But I think it fits." He motions to the white world around us. "It's unique to you."

I scoff, glancing at the nothingness. "Unique? Wasn't aware I was into completely white walls, no furniture. This is boring."

Anubis rolls his eyes. "Gods, I forgot what you were like," he mumbles. I glare. "This is just a corridor, Ashley." He throws his hand toward a simple wooden door behind it, which definitely just appeared out of nowhere. You're kidding me. Definitely hallucinating now. "Your limbo is this way."

"What, next are you gonna ask me how low can I go? 'Cause I've come to learn I have no qualms about punching."

"I know. I saw you with Robert Frobisher-Smythe, then with the Sophia girl."