SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

The foreman stepped up and called out to all the men working that day. “Okay, you grunts. Orders from the top—everyone must double their block totals until further notice.”

This was one of those moments. I didn’t realize it, but I was about to be tested with forces beyond my control.

Osiris wasn’t there to save me. He was there to kill me. Well…my body.

We doubled production. Food, water, and breaks were not doubled. I am proud to admit I lasted longer than many on my work gang, but within a week, most of us had collapsed along the route to the new monument. The heat, combined with lack of vital resources such as water, doomed us from the start. Egypt wasn’t the most forgiving of places.

It was about midday of the sixth day after the production order. I thought I could make it. I thought my body was stronger. I thought it was just a test.

It was, but I was wrong about my body. I collapsed from severe dehydration and malnutrition. I wasn’t dead when I fell, but an hour in the sun, unattended to by a doctor, ensured a painful end.

Except…it wasn’t.

The moment…that one brief instant between this life, and the next…happened on Osiris’ ship. I stopped breathing on Earth, under the naked sun, before the Old Kingdom of Egypt even came to be. But I didn’t die. Not really.

My body stopped working, but my consciousness was immediately transferred to another one. It was a strange feeling, but not unpleasant. In fact, there was a bit of euphoria as I moved from one body to another.

How did I know I had gained a new body? I didn’t at first, but when I opened my eyes I found myself lying on the floor of Osiris’ chamber. I looked down and found myself naked. I reached down and touched my arms and my legs. My skin and muscles bounced back with the elasticity that hydration and health provided. My body was different, but my mind was the same. It was clouded, though. It cleared instantly when a voice rang out in the room.

“Welcome back, my son!”

I looked up, momentarily concerned about my lack of dress, but then realized I was in front of a god, and if he wasn’t concerned, I should not be, either. I was too stunned to speak, though.

Osiris gestured to my right and I saw a small pile of neatly folded clothes. I understood he wanted me to put them on, and he addressed me as I did so.

“How was it? The process of dying, and being resurrected—how was it?” Osiris asked.

So that was what had happened. It made sense. Osiris was the god of resurrection, but I hadn’t put it all together quite yet.

I finished dressing while I gathered my thoughts. I spoke my mind, unaware at the time that I didn’t have to be honest with Osiris.

“It was glorious, my lord. In one moment, I found my body too weak to continue. The effects of the sun had been wearing on me and the overseers were not providing us enough water. Thankfully, you have chosen to resurrect my spirit into a new body, much like your wife resurrected you,” I said. “I do regret I failed you in your appointed task for the pharaoh. But I am grateful you chose to give me another chance.”

Osiris smiled, his white teeth a stark contrast to his greenish skin. He was happy, and that made me happy.

“No, my son. You have not failed me. No matter what you do, you will never fail me,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Bek. I had the foremen push you and your friends to test the limits of what you were capable of. I knew that no matter what happened, you and I would meet again here, safe from the ravages of death. That is the gift I gave you. You possess a life eternal, now,” Osiris said.

“Eternal life, my lord?”

“Yes,” Osiris said, and waved a hand. To his left, a dais rose out of the ground. On it was a bronze medallion. It had a very Egyptian look to it, but was mysterious in other ways. It was attached to a flexible leather lanyard. “Take this. I will always be able to find you, but this will give you added protection. As long as you wear it, I will be there. You will surely live again, as long as you carry this with you.”

I reached for it, making sure not to actually touch Osiris. It was one thing to accept a gift; it was another altogether to dare to make physical contact with a god.

“Thank you. This gift…it is more than I could ask for,” I said.

Osiris held up his hand. “Do not thank me, Bek. Your death and resurrection today were easy. Painless. Maybe even pleasurable. I think you will have to die again and again, and I cannot say each death will be as seamless as the one you just experienced. Are you prepared for that? Will you live an eternal life for me? Are you willing to accept the consequences of that choice?”

Who would turn down everlasting life? I didn’t that day. I wouldn’t for a long time, but he was right. Death stopped being easy. Thousands of years later, I wish with everything I am that I had refused his offer.

“I will serve you in whatever way I can,” I said.

Osiris touched a bracelet on his wrist, and he vanished. My eyes saw a smiling god in one moment, and a rocky terrain the next. I swiveled around, trying to find the familiar sights of the monuments to the pharaohs in the distance. No monuments. Just mountains. A cool breeze blew through my clothes. I shivered, and saw for the first time something I could never have imagined, something I did not know the name of until later.

Snow.

I barely lasted five days. I didn’t know it then, but Osiris had dropped my newly regenerated body right in the middle of the modern-day Canadian territory of Nunavut. Even now, several thousand years later, only a handful of people live there. The Inuit, though, never found me during that short stretch. I managed to find a cave, but the clothes Osiris had given me were the same small loincloth and tunic I had worn in Egypt—not quite the proper attire for the near-Arctic.

That was probably exactly what Osiris had in mind.

“Back so soon?” Osiris asked after I had died and returned to his care.

Nowadays, I might have had a few choice words for the guy. Back then, he was still very much a god in my eyes. I was silent, praying he would look favorably upon me in my next life.

Osiris offered a wry smile as he advanced towards me in his vast chamber. Once again, I was lying in the middle of the large room, naked as the day I was brought into the world. I sat up and immediately found the pile of clothes nearby. I dressed and secretly wished for more. Even with a new body, I still felt a chill from the past few days.

“It might surprise you to know that less than a half-day’s journey to the north of your cave, there was a dead carnivore. Alive, it would have been five times your mass. Had you found it, skinned it, and appropriated the meat and bone from the creature, you would have had an outer covering, a source of food, and tools. You could’ve lived in that environment for decades.”

I was astonished. “How was I to know that?”

“There was no way for you to have known, Bek. But I didn’t put you down there to sit in a cave and hope for salvation.”

I considered that for a moment. “I am guaranteed to live again, correct?” Osiris nodded. “So, I am tasked with living as much as I can. Sitting and waiting for the end is not in your master plan.”

“That is correct, Bek,” Osiris answered. He opened his hand. In his palm was the bronze medallion he’d given me before. “I saved this for you. It will be in your clothing for you to put on again each time in the future, but I knew you would want to talk to me after your experience.”

“Yes, Osiris, I do. Why was I sent there? I had never before seen…”

“Snow,” he completed for me. The way Osiris said it gave it an air of magnitude. I had heard the word before—Egyptians did have a name for it, we just rarely used it. With Osiris, however, it seemed like a divine word that I would be grateful to even utter again.