The Imagination Latibule: Moon Knight - The Rise of the Moon

Chapter 17

You felt strange. A sensation you'd never felt before, like you weren't all there. Not mentally, but physically, although as you opened your eyes and realised where you were, you worried you weren't all there mentally either. 

Someone had dressed you in white trousers and a t-shirt, and you were in a padded room that contained a single bed and mirror that you had some intuitive fear was a two way mirror. As you sat up, your memories flooded back to you, and you cried out involuntarily. Steven... Marc... They were dead. Tears flooded down your cheeks as you tried to compose yourself, gripping tightly to the sheets on the bed to try and ground yourself, wherever you were. Yeah, hang on. Where the hell were you? Harrow... 

Holy shit, Harrow shot you too. But you were alive. You pressed you hand to your chest, feeling for a bullet hole, but there was none. You gulped. There was also something else missing. Your heartbeat. 

"What the f..." you trailed off as you heard a noise outside, and the room suddenly felt like it was tilting slightly. Stumbling to your feet, you twisted the door handle, and were pleasantly surprised when it opened. But what you found when you left it terrified you. 

A Hippo, towering over you in Ancient Egyptian clothing, and as it saw you, you screamed and so did it. But then you realised that the hippo was screaming and acting like a human, which stopped you from screaming as your fear was replaced with utter confusion. This in turn stopped it from screaming too, and the two of you stared at each other, waiting for the other to say something. 

"Well, that was somewhat cathartic," she said sweetly. "You're y/n y/l/n." 

"I am," you answered, still in a state of disbelief. "Where am I?" you asked the hippo. "In a lunatic asylum for talking to a hippo," you then answered yourself and she chuckled.

"I'm Taweret," she introduced. "Welcome gentle traveller, to the realm of the Duat."

"Duat?" you repeated. "Egyptian underworld?" Taweret nodded. 

"So I'm dead?" 

"I believe the term underworld implies that," she said and you nodded slowly. You had so many questions. 

"Why a lunatic asylum?"

"Because the Duat's true nature is impossible for the human mind to comprehend, you may perceive this realm as something more easily recognisable to you. A psych ward's a first for me, but, hey, we can roll with it, right?

"Easily recognisable?" you repeated, glancing at the white corridors filled with gurneys and cabinets. "I've never been to a psych ward."

"Oh," Taweret said, and proceeded to flick through a stack of papers she was holding, discarding the ones that didn't matter over her shoulder. "Interesting," she hummed as they fluttered to the floor. "I'm not quite sure how you got here. This isn't your afterlife."

"What?"

"You'd be surprised how many intersectional planes of untethered consciousness exist," she said. "Maybe you just... slipped, from one to the other."

"That ever happened before?" you asked.

"...There's a first time for everything."

"Wonderful," you said. "What am I meant to do?"

"I'm not quite sure," she said. "Normally I'd be here to weigh your heart, sail you across the sands of the Duat and drop you off in the field of Reeds, but considering this isn't your afterlife, I don't know what would happen."

"Just, give me time," you said. "I'll look around, see if I can find who's afterlife this is, and then -- " you gasped as Taweret reached for your chest, and you felt a weirdly cold sensation travel through you.