Ascension [A Yu-Gi-Oh! FanFiction]

41: Joy

When air finally tore into Satiah's lungs, she felt as if she'd been born again.

She surged to a sitting position, her head craning wildly as she tried to familiarize herself with her alien surroundings. No matter which way she looked, strange shadows crept and crawled, framed by dull, angular shapes. She finally forced herself to settle her breathing — and her gaze — and slowly, the structures around her came into clearer focus.

Stairs.

Hundreds and hundreds of stairs — some leading up, some down, some sideways or completely inverted — forming a grotesque, crisscrossing labyrinth of limestone. Each twisting path eventually led to a cold iron door, but like the stairs, they decorated the walls and floors and ceilings without any regard for the laws of nature.

With another shuddering breath, Satiah pushed herself to her feet, turning in a tight circle as though she might somehow recognize one of the paths that lay before her. She worked her jaw up and down, trying to will herself to call out for help. But she feared what force might respond if she did. Would it be the warm voice of her husband, leading her to safety? Or would his dark reflection try to deceive her, beckoning her deeper into this jagged maze to be lost and alone forever?

In the end, Satiah found no words — nor did they find her. Instead, a warmth pierced like an arrow through the empty chill — so present and palpable and she could almost see it: a string of fate, meandering between the slopes and rises, showing her the way to some unknown but indisputable truth.

Against her better judgment, Satiah followed the warmth — trekked slowly up winding stairs and through narrow hallways, past unwelcoming doors and precarious ledges. There was something eerily familiar about this glow which led her onward — like the scent of dawn on the first day of harvest, or the feel of crease in a well-worn letter. It reminded her faintly of her husband, but there was something older and deeper about it, as if it were woven with the wisdom of millennia.

Finally, after turning a sharp corner, Satiah arrived at a closed door. On it, a great, wide eye stared back at her, carved deep into the black iron and left to rust in shades of green and orange. She lowered her hand to the metal ring, then braced herself and pulled. The heavy iron groaned as it swung open, and after her eyes had adjusted to a flare of harsh light, Satiah was met with strikingly familiar sight: the royal gardens, stretching out before her as clear and true as the day she'd left them two months prior.

She knew just by the tinge of the sky that it was midmorning — the golden hour for enjoying leisure time in the gardens, when the sun warmed the air but had yet to breach the palace walls with its unforgiving heat. Just looking into the bending palms and blooming flowers threatened to stir up nostalgic tears behind her eyes. She remembered with a wanting ache the many mornings she'd walked between the flora and fauna with her husband, their voices quiet but hearts singing in a full, resonant harmony.

Perhaps it was this melody which pulled her into step again — sweet, silent notes braiding into the string of fate that was already wrapped around her middle, tugging her deeper into rows of pristine hedges. She felt herself called toward the Sacred Lake — the place where she and Atem had first begun their lifelong bond. When she emerged from a thick line of trees and set her eyes upon the Lake, her heart leapt to see a shaded form reclining on the far edge. The form's aura and posture struck Satiah as instantly familiar, but if she had seen this person before, it had not been in the land of the living.

As if sensing her presence, the form turned, bringing a mature, feminine face into the soft glow of morning. Satiah studied it intently: refined cheekbones, sophisticated brow, narrow eyes — all framed by an unmistakable pattern of crimped blonde fringe and sweeping black curls. Upon her regal head sat a simple but dignified circlet, molded with the Eye of Wadjet.