The Time-Shifted Shadow

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I did it. I now proclaim that I have successfully tested the first time-shift. I call it time-shifting and not time travel because of one very important reason; there is no traveling involved. One’s body cannot physically be taken out of this universe and placed back into it at different point in time. That would break the law of conservation of mass.

No, I call it time shifting because; to the mind, time is shifting around it. The consciousness is what travels through time, and consciousness, by definition, has no mass and therefore does not break the law of conservation of mass.

Chapter 1

I was silent. Nervous, actually.

It had to be another test. I thought. But all of my tests were inside the safety of my house.

“Come Terem” my father whispered, but there was a harshness behind it. “Hurry!” He was standing at the edge of the hallway corner. His head tilted just slightly to see down the hallway.

I scrambled on my hands and knees to stay below the window to the right. The tiled floor was much colder than I anticipated.

Everything was white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, the doors. Everything. It made it difficult to gauge depth or width of the hall. I almost crawled right into the open hallway where my father was standing guard. He caught me, thankfully, by the sleeve of my shirt and lifted me to my feet.

“Everything depends on this.” His tone was of disappointment. No. It was fear. He was afraid. Then maybe this wasn’t a test after all.

Nonsense. I thought. If today was the Day, then we wouldn’t have to sneak into the lab. We would walk right in, invited - no, begged to test the device.

We waited. A man in a white lab coat was down the hallway, looking at his notes. The light from his pad accentuated his slim-bony face. His chin was outlined by a thin brown beard. There was no design shaved into it, like the beards of fashion today.

We waited.

I could hear my father’s heartbeat slow down. But my breathing quickened. I was anxious. This had to be another test.

The man in the white coat finally removed his gaze from his notes and walked further down the hallway. His back was turned to us. My father raised his hand counting down with his fingers. When he got to zero, we silently moved together down the hall.

We got halfway to the door on the left when the man stopped. We paused, hoping to not make a sound. My father took my hand in his. The man turned his head toward us. Before he realized it my father and I were running to the door on the left.

We slipped inside the dark room. Father quickly shut the door and bolted it shut. There was no lock and key hole, like there was in our old house. It was all electronic. My father punched in a code on the touchpad next to the door to secure the lock.

“Terem! The desk!” He was pointing behind me. I quickly grabbed the edge of the white desk behind me and pulled. It slid across the floor with little effort. Father and I picked it up and turned it upside down, propping it up against the door.

Today can’t be the Day!

“Hurry, Terem.” He let out a sigh of relief. A quick one. “There’s no time to waste.”

We turned around. The walls slowly lit up with bright designs and graphs. To the right was a small table that had a holographic display. The display showed a round circle connected to several wires. It was a headpiece of some kind. The floating design rotated slowly.

There were four supercomputer monitors stationed around the center of the room. Each one faced outwards, with cameras and wires directed towards the small circular pedestal in the middle of the room.

On the pedestal rested the real version of the holographic display. The headpiece was larger than the display. It also had hundreds of wires connected to it. LED lights surrounded the perimeter of the top and bottom of the headpiece. There seemed to be a small sheet of dark glass on one side of the apparatus. The glass, I could tell, was a small computer monitor with lighted lines and words on the inside.

Behind the pedestal was a tall glass cylinder surrounded by even more wires than the headpiece. Behind the glass stood a a metal tube with a small circular opening about eye-level. The wires seemed to spiral up and down the metal tube.

Father quickly walked past the headpiece towards the glass cylinder. He pulled out of his pocket a small plastic test-tube. It was the same test-tube my father retrieved from his last midnight expedition. It contained a tiny flake of skin from the mummified King Tutankhamen.

We heard a muffled voice outside the door. It must have been the man in the white lab-coat.

“Quickly!” Father hissed.

This can’t be it. It can’t be.

I moved to the center of the room, careful not to step on the countless wires. Father opened the glass cylinder door and began unstopping the test-tube.

The door beeped. The man must know the passcode for the door. We didn’t have much time at all.

“Put it on, Terem!” He was screaming now. He managed to empty the contents of his test-tube into the metal opening.

I grabbed the headpiece.

The door beeped again.

I placed the the circular band around my forehead, positioning the glass monitor in front of my eyes.

Another beep.

My father had closed the glass cylinder and was now running in between the four supercomputers. He was entering numbers on each of the screens. Dates.

The beeping stopped. The door moved, but remained shut. Another muffled voice sounded, and then a thud reverberated throughout the room.

I strapped the headpiece onto my head. I sat down on the pedestal, it was more like a stool than a chair.

Another thud. The man must be pounding on the door from outside.

My father ran to another supercomputer and ran his finger along the screen. He was making more calculations.

Thud.

“Turn it on!” My father’s voice was scratchy.

It can’t be. This has to be another...

Thud.

I reached up to the small dial on the left side of the headpiece and flipped the switch. Lights began to flicker on the headpiece. The small glass monitor in front of my eyes began to show more and more numbers and lines.

Thud.

“Good.” Father said to himself, as he ran over to me. He pulled down a thick bundle of cords and wires from the ceiling. I hadn’t noticed before, but there were thousands of wires above me, pulling away from me in a slight spiral. They fanned out to the supercomputers and then ultimately to the glass cylinder behind me.

We heard more muffled voices behind the door.

“What does your monitor say?” He was lightly pulling on a couple of wires attached to the headpiece.

“4-2-53-J-16-44” I read. It must be an activation code of some sort.

It can’t be today.

The door beeped again. Loudly.

Father then took my left arm and slid a needle into the muscle right below my shoulder. A slight prick of pain. But I was used to needles. That was test number four.

“Anesthesia” He said softly.

Another beep.

I felt another needle in my neck. There was no pain. Only movement of my skin. A small prick on my right shoulder. A pinch on my left. Each needle had a wire attached to it that led to the thick bundle my father pulled from the celing.

Another beep. The door moved slightly again. It was open, only an inch. I could see several hands and fingers attempting to pry the door open further.

My father had placed several other wires all along my spine. He had ripped my shirt down the back.

The desk propped up against the door made a loud screech as it moved slightly.

“Stop!” They yelled through the two-inch crack. Their voices no longer muffled by the door.

My father quickly ran to the front supercomputer and punched in some numbers on the screen. He was shaking.

I glanced down. I too was shaking. My hands, my arms, my legs.

“Stop!” They continued to yell.

The door budged open another inch with a loud screech.

No. It can’t be...

I was afraid. Terrified. My heart beat faster and faster. My mind began to swim.

“Stop right now!” The door burst open. Two men tripped into the room.

A single word lit up on my monitor;

“-Ready-”

My god!

“Make me proud, son!” My father screamed as he punched in the final code.

“No!” someone yelled.

“Father,” I coughed and spit bile off to the side, “I can’t father!”

The lights in the room flickered. The computers began a low hum as thousands of lights and numbers shot across each of their screens.

“Aten is your father now!” My father said with tears in his eyes. “Make him proud.” He turned and dashed toward the oncoming men.

“Cut the power!” One of the men screamed.

The humming grew louder.

Father tackled the first man to the ground.

Never had I felt so sick in the head before. If felt like the room was now spinning around me, while I was spinning around the room. My head pulsed with a headache. The humming went up and down. My headache pulsed with it.

They were wrestling on the ground as another man jumped over the fight. He was racing towards a switch on the wall. My father reached out and caught his foot, tripping the second man with a thud.

The humming intensified suddenly becoming the only audible noise. I closed my eyes, hoping it would all stop. But it didn’t.

I was scared.

The men didn’t matter anymore. I was terrified of the device. Of the humming. Of the...

Pain erupted first at my heart. My body jolted with the energy that was surged through my body from the wires connected to the machine. I screamed in pain, but my mouth didn’t move. My body jolted again, followed by another wave a shearing pain coming from my spine.

I felt the cold floor on my face for a moment. If felt as though a sharp pain stabbed my heart and ripped it out of my chest. Another stabbed my shoulders and yanked my whole being My spine buckled under another explosive fire of pain. I screamed again, but no audible noise was heard.

A large bright light flooded my vision, instantly blinding me. The buzzing noise left me with an echo of fear in my mind. The pain subsided from my body.

It was today...

Fear gripped me.

Little does the world know about the consciousness of man. It was required that I dedicate years on the study, and yet I am nowhere near a full understanding of how the mind works. Yes, there are mental synapses and thousands of nerves sending chemical pulses to each other. The patterns of these pulses and hormones specifies memories, thoughts, and ideas. But we have yet to begin to understand, let alone hypothesize, the consciousness of the human mind.

In simpler terms science has shown us how the mind functions, though there are hundreds of things we still have yet to learn about how it works. We will soon learn more on how the mind sends messages to all parts of the body. But what science doesn’t tell us is the why. Or the where did our consciousness come from?

Chapter 2

All I could sense was this blinding light that enveloped my entire being. It seemed to keep me warm at the same time keeping me cold. I could hear the light. It made a noise; one that I cannot explain. But at the same time I heard absolutely nothing.

I must be dead. There’s no other explanation. I thought. And, yet, I’m thinking. Can I be dead and still think? Or am I still alive?

I was afraid. I could not believe that it was here. The day that all my tests had prepared me for, or rather the day my tests were supposed to prepare me for.

Yet I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t move. I was trapped in this nothingness of white. I had to be dead.

And yet, I could feel warmth amidst the cold. I heard nothing, but it felt like my ears were listening to something. If felt like my body was completely numb, but I could imagine it moving.

This must be what death feels like. I thought. I paused for a moment. Or at least I thought it was a moment. It could have been a second or a year. I couldn’t tell if there was even a sense of time. My entire being seemed out of sync with the world.

Perhaps I am alive, otherwise I would not be able to think of such possibilities.

I seemed to be in this state of existing non-existence for hours, or years, or decades, or seconds. I remained engulfed by this bright whiteness in neither warmth nor cold. At some points I felt as though I was spinning, or swirling in circles. Other instances I was sure that I have never before been so still in my life. It was an interesting moment in my existence. One that I will never forget, but wish I could.

After what felt like an eternity, the light began to subside and allow darkness to seep in. Swirling mists of darkness began to make patterns across my vision. Something moved. Maybe I was alive after all.

Darkness continued to flood my vision from the outside world. Shapes began to take form in front of me. I saw a wall. A table next to the wall. There were some pillars off to the right. There was a man who stood up from a seat next to the table on the wall.

He was wearing a white loin cloth, like a towel about his waist. His chest was bare. He had wide wristbands of a shiny gold color. He wore sandals with laces that wrapped around his entire leg up to the knee. He had dark hair and dark eyes that seemed to be outlined in black. His skin was a bit darker than that of my own and of my parents.

This couldn’t be real. I was sure that he was just pretending or wearing a costume. Just another test, or trick designed by my father to prepare me for my destiny.

His mouth moved. He was talking, but I couldn’t hear. panicked and tried to move but couldn’t. I felt trapped. Fear gripped me even tighter.

A high pitched buzz seemed to come out of nowhere. I wanted to clasp my hands over my ears to stop the humming, but nothing happened. The man seemed unaffected by the loudness of this humming. It was the same humming that I heard before the light enveloped me. The hum started high, then slowly faded out of the room, like a wave of the sea receding back to the ocean.

The man continued to walk towards me. I heard him mumble something. It wasn’t English, it was Egyptian. But his accent was thicker than that of my father’s. I heard another voice, much more distinct and clear, possibly because I felt it more than I heard it;

“Thank you, my servant Funsani. I am well.” It was also in a much more authentic Egyptian.

“Good, my lord, my pharaoh, my god. I feared that I had failed to protect your leg, my lord.” he was bowing towards me.

Was he talking to me? I thought. I’m not pharaoh.

I managed to glance down to see my legs. One was bandaged in a clean white cloth embroidered with a gold pattern. I too had a white cloth wrapped around my waist.

“My leg feels better.” Once again it was the voice that I felt more than heard. My bandaged leg moved upwards as if it were lifted by some invisible string. I did nothing, but it moved. I felt it move. The muscles pulling it upwards, the slight breeze of the air around it. It was my leg, but I didn’t move it.

I noticed how my bare feet seemed different. My right foot never bent outwards that much. My toes, even, were smaller than I had remembered. This was strange.

The man bowed low to the ground, so low that his nose almost touched the stone floor. He then quickly scurried out of the room through the low doorway to the right. My eyes were finally focused to see the two torches along the wall to the left. There were several hieroglyphs lining the walls here and there. Some looked unfinished, but all were dark and colorful. There was no faded symbol anywhere to be seen.

I couldn’t believe it. This really felt different than before.

My father did it. I’m here in Egypt, during the reign of King Tutankhamen.

I felt a shiver run up my leg followed by sharp pain above the knee. I looked down to see that I was standing now. How did this happen? I thought. I didn’t do anything. I was sitting just a moment before.

“Agh!” It was that voice again. My hands were now holding my leg. I could feel the bone under the skin. It didn’t feel right. It had swollen to an eerie purple color.

Cursed leg. Why must the gods punish me so for what my father did.

I was confused. I heard those words, but I didn’t. I mean my ears didn’t hear them. They echoed around in my mind. But they weren’t my thoughts. What is this? What’s going on? I thought.

“Who is there?” the voice was once again audible, but vibrated from my mouth. My body tensed and rose to a full standing height. My hands were brought up to my hips. Once again, I had done nothing.

Then it dawned on me. My father did explain that the machine was incapable of sending a human body back in time. Or rather that the body could not be sent back in time. The machine was designed for sending one’s memory, one’s mind, or some might call it one’s soul. The machine sent my essence into the past, but left my body. What I had not predicted, nor had my father, was that my essence was sent into a body that already had a consciousness inside.

Two minds in one body. That’s what this was. I was now sharing someone else’s life, someone else’s body. This body isn’t mine. These thoughts aren’t mine.

“I, your pharaoh, demand that you answer me! Who is there?” my voice, no, it was his voice. I must be inside the pharaoh’s body. King Tut’s body.

You will never see me, young Pharaoh. I formed the words, in Egyptian, as plainly as I could so that he could hear my thoughts. I acted on instinct more than anything else, My father’s tests had proven their worth. It was time to see if they were enough.

“What!? How dare you …”

Silence. You are in the presence of Aten, your lord, your god, the sun from the sky. I knew that the Egyptians were very polytheistic and therefore impersonating any of their gods would be important enough for Egyptians to listen. Being around my father and his deep belief in Aten caused me to impersonate the sun disc god.

“God! Ha!” he laughed. Somehow he found this very amusing. My hand, or his hand, reached behind his back and unsheathed a scimitar. “I am pharaoh. I will not be mocked.”

Fool. You truly think that you can harm a god? I myself laughed in my mind. I let go of the scimitar. But nothing happened, my grip or his grip was too strong. Perhaps I have minimal control if any over his body.

“You are the fool. Guards!” His yell echoed through the hallway.

I mustered my thoughts and attempted to control my hand. I could feel a tension coming from somewhere else holding on to the scimitar. My thoughts overpowered the tension and I dropped the scimitar. It clattered as it hit the ground.

Surprise erupted into my, no his being. He was astonished.

Like I said, young pharaoh. I am Aten, your lord, your god, the sun from the sky! I formed these words with a mixture of anger. Perhaps I can scare the young lad. I thought.

“Demon!” He yelled. “You are no god!”

Silence! I mustered my thoughts again and sought to control his mouth. I felt the tension again. I cut the tension as though it were a strand of thread.

“Silence?” I laughed through his mouth. “You are nothing compared to me.”

Fear enveloped me, but it was his fear. Our feelings must be intertwined inseparably. His body was shaking now. He knelt down on the ground.

Footsteps were echoing loudly now from the hallway. The guards would be here momentarily. I had to take control of the situation.

You are a demon! my thoughts echoed. It was his thoughts. Let go of me!

“I am no demon. I had to show you my power, young pharaoh. And yet, you still don’t believe me.” I whispered.

No god would ever possess a pharaoh. He was angry, but felt helpless. Despite his helplessness, I was surprised at how he had been able to quickly formulate words in his mind knowing that I would hear. Maybe King Tutankhamen was smarter than we had thought.

His left arm clenched in a fist and brought itself up to my chin. I did not have control over his whole body and he knew that. He punched himself and in consequence, me. It hurt. I felt the pain as if it were my own. It was my own. But his as well.

Angry, I forced my thoughts to his arm and severed the tension behind it. I thought about hitting back, but then realized that was not a good idea. I could not yet separate my connection to his pain.

Another wave of fear crashed over me, from him. He had never felt so helpless in his life. He was pharaoh. He had everything that he ever wanted. Now he couldn’t even control his own body.

Four guards came running into the room, each had a scimitar in hand. Their faces were battle-hardened. One ran to examine the window and balcony. The others bowed their heads before me.

“My lord, my god, my pharaoh.” One of them said, but the others mouthed the same solemn words. “What would you have us do?”

I felt the young pharaoh struggle to yell something, but I forced my thoughts to block his. Nothing escaped my mouth. This may be much more difficult than I had imagined.

I forced my head to look up. I concentrated and brought my legs under my control to stand. I could feel the pain from his injured leg. But if I could feel it, then so could he.

“Nothing.” I urged my mouth to utter. “It was a bad a dream.”

I felt the hatred and anger seep through his feelings. He was battling me. I could feel him trying to find a way to gain control again of his body. I twitched under the strain. He gained control of my right leg. He caused me to buckle down to my knee.

The guards were surprised. They stepped forward to offer me help. I waved them off. I had to get rid of them.

“Go. I am fine.” I managed to say. I was breathing heavily. They would not believe me, but if their devotion to the pharaoh was as strong as the books said they were, the guards would leave me.

They backed away from me hesitantly. One turned and began to walk out the room. The others quickly followed. I sighed.

Maybe now I could convince the young pharaoh to see my way. I thought quietly to myself.

Suddenly a wave of thoughts crashed through mine.

“Halt! I’m being possessed by a demon!” I tried to clamp my mouth shut, but was too late. Tutankhamen was strong indeed. Changing the world was not going to be as easy as my father had predicted.

I don’t worry about the Repercussions of time-shifting. I’ve spent decades on this device not for altering the past, nor for viewing the future. It is not part of my job to understand the theories or the physics behind altering time continuum. Whether or not the universe will cease to exist is well beyond my desire to even attempt to know. The altering of the past might create an altogether new and alternate timeline. Honestly, I don’t care.

I took this project for the challenge. For the thrill of doing the impossible.

I finished the time-shifter for the 6.78 trillion dollars.

Chapter 3

I released my control of his body. I knew that anything I said would only add to the idea that I was possessing his body. Perhaps if I silently backed away King Tut might forget about the ordeal and allow me to persuade him. I was wrong.

A group of the most powerful priests of Egypt gathered around me, or us. They stood in a semicircle with their hands folded in front of them.

You know this will not work. I thought in Egyptian. I doubted my own assurance. If the priests could succeed, then I don’t know what would happen to me. Maybe I would shift back to my real body back in the white-walled laboratory. Maybe I would cease to exist.

I shuddered in fear. This feeling must have seeped over. There was no hiding it now.

Ha! Even you fear. I thought you said you were a god. He was laughing in his mind, and out loud actually. The priests around me stared at me strangely. He was adding to the image of his insanity due to a demon.

I could feel him smirking. He thought he was in complete control. But he didn’t know from whence I came. This was the only thing that I had on him now.

“My lord, my pharaoh.” One of the priests took a step forward. He held himself with much more pride than the others. He must be the head priest, Ay.

He was an older man. He had a couple wrinkles on his dark forehead. His thick eyebrows dwarfed the pupils under them. He was adorned with several gold necklaces and arm bracelets. Overall he seemed to fit the picture of a bureaucratic priest.

“Do we have your permission to expel this demon?” he asked.

This was not a good idea. I quickly remembered all of the lectures and stories that my father told me about King Tut. Every single story included or alluded to the fact that the young pharaoh’s advisor, Ay, was the cause of his death. Ay did in fact take Tutankhamen’s throne after the young pharaoh’s death; at least in the history according to my century.

Suspicious. He might have been waiting for a moment like this to end Tut’s life and blame it on something outside of his control. A demon, in this case. There wouldn’t be a better time to act than now.

I forced my thoughts once again on the young pharaoh. I had to take control now, or possibly let the young boy and myself die. I found the tension tied to his mouth and I forced all my thoughts to cut it.

“No. Not until you tell me how you murdered Akhenaten, my father.” I smirked inside. This would get their attention, especially king Tut’s.

Ay flinched. I caught him off his guard. I could see his mind was desperately trying to find an answer. He was preparing to lie. Humans must have always had the same feelings towards lying, even thousands of years later or earlier.

I could feel Tutankhamen’s astonishment seep through. Even the priests were surprised at such a bold accusation, but if I was going to change the world I had to at least make Tutankhamen trust me.

“Nonsense. Your father died of natural causes.” Ay’s voice was firm and undeterred. He was good at lying, but not as good as my father. “I was by his side, helping him through his sickness.”

“Which sickness?” I knew, from test number four, that the best way to catch someone lying was through interrogation, the same way my mother always caught me lying.

“He too was possessed by a demon.” A dark shadow swept over his face. He was frowning. Silence ensued for several minutes. Even Tutankhamen was silent and didn’t attempt to regain control.

“And he died under your care.” I wondered if sarcasm was also common in these Egyptian times as it was in the 21st century. “Am I to die under your hand too?”

I could sense how this conversation must have Ay wriggling inside himself with anger. Anger that he could not openly show, nor admit because I was the pharaoh, or I was inside the pharaoh’s body. Either way, I was in control here.

“I did what I could, my lord, my pharaoh. Your father rejected most of my help, believing that his one true god, Aten, would cure him.”

I gathered my thoughts again and took control of my legs. I stood up and limped two steps towards Ay until our faces were two feet apart. I stared blankly into his eyes. He gazed back into mine.

“Did you murder my father?” I said under my breath. I knew that this would be the moment of truth. Tutankhamen needs to know, and what better way than to have the one responsible confess?

He gazed back into my eyes. I could see his pupils dilate. He was scared, but confident. I was sure that he would not confess in front of so many colleagues.

No! What are you doing? The young pharaoh’s thoughts exploded into my mind. He was struggling to regain control. I couldn’t let that happen, not now.

He tried to control my mouth, but I blocked him with a barrier of my own thoughts. Thoughts about physics, mathematics, and history. I had to keep my concentration in order to make it difficult or impossible for the pharaoh to sever through my control.

It felt as though I could sense his essence flowing through my body and the only thing keeping him from controlling it was my essence.

He shifted towards the legs and the arms. I quickly guarded those with my thoughts as well. We struggled back and forth. The only reason why I kept control of my body was that I had more schooling than he did and therefore I knew how my mind worked. I knew how my thoughts were processed, evaluated, and recorded. I had a wider expanse of available ideas and I used them to block his.

“No.” Ay’s countenance had changed. He took a step back and placed his right hand upon my head. “He is possessed by a demon!” My face must have become slightly distorted due to our mental battle. “That was not our pharaoh speaking but the demon inside him!”

Some of the priests were terrified. One even ran out of the room.

“Hurry, let us cure the Pharaoh!”

“By the power of the gods!”

“Rid him of this evil!”

The room broke out into a strange array of chaos. Priests began chanting to their respective gods. Raw, Amun, Hotep, Anubis, and many others that I do not recall. Several different sticks of incense were lit, filling the air with a musky, dry, and dead scent.

“No! Stop at once!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. The priests ignored me. I panicked. I had complete control of the situation, and it all slipped away in the blink of an eye.

The whole scene was disorienting. The motion, the smells, the chanting. My body was is shock. I could feel my nostrils begin to burn on the inside. My ears stung with a sharp pain. My mouth quickly became dry.

I could see now why exorcism could work. All of their methods combined were causing me to shake. Not my body, though it probably was. My essence felt weak. My thoughts began to wonder.

I was home. Father was setting up another test in the back room. One that would prepare me for my destiny. For the day that I would fulfil my destiny. I could smell the fresh paint on the walls. I felt the slight breeze from the air conditioning. I was ready.

No. I thought, pulling my mind back. The day of my destiny is here and now!

I was kneeling on the ground, with my head cradled in my hands. I was breathing quickly. Or perhaps it was King Tut.

The chanting grew faster. I heard them mention things such as birds and light versus bats and darkness. The light in the room swiftly dissipated. The shadows of the priests grew until they surrounded me in darkness. I felt cold.

The cold tile on the ground was pressing against my face. Something was pulling at my head. It was the headpiece I had seen earlier on the floating holographic display. Somehow I had managed to put it on.

I heard voices. They were speaking in english, I could tell. But I didn’t understand a word they said. It was as if they were mumbling, or perhaps my ears were muffled. I couldn’t feel my arms. I was afraid.

Just then I felt the tension I had on my mouth dissipate. I was back.

“In the name of Amun, I pharaoh Tutankhamen command thee to stop.” King Tut had severed the control of my mouth. “Priests of the gods of Egypt, be still!”

To my surprise they stopped. All of them. Their incessant chanting echoed in my mind.

My thoughts slowly crept back to me. I was not at home. I was not at the lab. I was in Egypt.

The priests turned around to look at me. Their faces were dreary and yet skeptical. I couldn’t tell if they believed King Tut or not.

I was fearful now. The young priest was in control. Anything I said or did would be ignored or be a cause to further their rampage against the demon inside pharaoh’s body. Somehow, I knew that there would be nowhere for my mind to go had the priests continued.

“I am myself.” The young pharaoh said. He, or I, was shaking.

I had no idea what he was going to say. Though we were connected, we did not think as one. The only time he understood my thoughts was when I formed them as words in my mind. Then he understood the meaning behind my ideas.

I felt helpless. I felt my demise was imminent. My existence now laid in the hands of this young pharaoh.

I could feel my father’s disappointed glare envelope me once again. Guilt swept over me. I had let my father down. His vision. His goal in life. The only reason why he did what he did was now failing. I had the chance to change Egypt forever. I had the chance to make his vision a reality.

I was failing him.

“I, pharaoh Tutankhamen, oppose with all my might against this demon as I have opposed the beliefs and values laid by my father.” He paused, “I too believe that my father was possessed.”

Is he talking to me? I thought, because I knew that these priests probably knew this already.

“But.” He paused. The priests were now eagerly awaiting to hear the finished statement. I too could not bear the wait. The suspense. He seemed to wait for a minute.

“But,” He continued, “I do desire to know how my father died. We all know that you, Ay, have been most adamant against Akhenaten’s beliefs. Your worship was abolished under his rule. You must have felt grief, fear, and anger. Your worship was and still is your life.”

Tutankhamen struggled to stand, on my shaking limbs and broken leg. Yet he began to llimp towards Ay. I could feel the tension on the young pharaoh’s face. He was frowning. “You out of all of the priests have the biggest reason to hate my father. To loath his vision. To deter him away from his god, Aten.

“You even became the vizier of Egypt after my father’s death and before I was mature enough to take the throne by myself.” He paused. I could feel a sense of accomplishment crash into my feelings. “The demon may be right.”

“Nonsense, my pharaoh. Demons never tell the truth, they are children of lies.” Ay was defensive. I could sense a hint of fear in the tone of his voice.

“Does being a demon automatically make all his words lies?” He questioned. “Even some of our gods have told us lies, but do we condemn them for it? No. Solely because he is a demon does not infer that only spoken lies have escaped out of his mouth.”

“The demon has poisoned your mind, my pharaoh.” He took a step backwards. Fear was obviously upon his face now. At least to me. “He has pitted you against me, your advisor, your servant, your priest.”

“Save your excuses, Ay.” The young pharaoh paused. He blinked and then twitched his neck. “If you tell us how you killed my father I will let you live.”

I was astonished. Somehow I convinced Tutankhamen that Ay really did kill his father. Or maybe he knew all along and never had an opportunity to expose Ay.

The look on Ay’s face grew dark as death. “And what is to become of me if I tell you I did not kill your father?”

“We have all witnessed your lies, Ay. You cannot deceive us any longer.”

He stood there motionless. I saw what I had felt years ago when my mother caught me in lying for the first time. Guilt. Ay was trapped. He had nowhere to go except the truth.

“Poison.” He said after a minute. “His drink, I poisoned it in order to stop his maniacal control of the Egyptian worship. The people cannot handle worshiping a single god.” he dropped his gaze to the ground. “I did it for the better of Egypt.”

The pharaoh smiled. So did I. Somehow I had gained at least a little bit of the pharaoh’s trust. The pharaoh turned around slowly and began to limp towards the bench.

“Take him away, to the Nile, and kill him.”

“What?! My lord, my pharaoh. You promised me my life. You cannot …”

He turned quickly to face the priest again. “I was possessed by the demon while saying that promise. As you yourself have said, demons lie.”

Astonished. I was astonished. Never had I thought that this young man was so brilliant. I admired him as a boy. Now I admired him as a man. I knew then why my father had chosen him to be the vessel for change in Egypt. He can. He has the power to do so, the background to force change if needed, and the brilliance to keep the change active here in Egypt.

I might still be able to fulfil my father’s vision. I thought, smiling.

After the guards, dragging Ay, had left down the hall, King Tut turned to his priests. He smiled. I smiled.

“Continue.”

No! I screamed with my thoughts.

The chanting resumed. They started to move their arms and bodies in wavy contortions. Fluid and sharp motions attracted my gaze. The separate chanting began to mix and blend together forming a single fluid wave of sound. Up and down. Up and down.

Stop them! I yelled again. I could feel my thoughts being pulled away from me. Again.

What was a consciousness anyway? The mind did what it was meant to. It creates, reads, sends, and interprets chemical signals from one nerve to another. But the consciousness is what drives the brain. It’s what make use of the mind and its vast stores of memory. It’s what makes the mind important. Without it, the mind would have nowhere to think and no reason to send thoughts. The mind would be useless. Unimportant. Expendable. Yet without the mind the consciousness would be unable to control the body. Unable to formulate its feelings and emotions. Unable to do anything productive.

Ha! God, indeed. I heard it. Somewhere spoke it to me. No, it was a thought. A memory. You have no true power. You are not even a spirit. I recognized that thought. I knew, it once. I am god. I am pharaoh.

I was on the ground. Sitting. My legs were crossed. My hands were clasped together neatly. There was chanting and stomping circling around me, no, spiraling around me. The incense mixture was strong, bringing water to my eyes, no, his eyes.

Tell me why I shouldn’t banish you this instant? Demon. It was the young pharaoh’s thoughts.

I felt fear. I wasn’t sure if it was his or mine.

“I saved you.” It was his voice. No my voice. He let me control his mouth. But why?

You did nothing of the sort. Hate permeated from the thoughts. Like heat. Then cold. It was cold. There was a slight breeze with few snow flakes floating in the wind. It was white. Everything was white.

“No.” I mumbled. I was still using his voice. “Ay killed you.”

My thoughts were swimming. They followed the spiral of chanting and incense. I was swaying to and fro. But my body stayed motionless. No, his body.

I am still alive, you fool. It is you who will not be. I felt him smile. He was in control. He was pharaoh, he had to be in control.

My father was in control. He always had to be. But he knew what was right. He knew what was good for me. That’s why he went to such great lengths to make sure my tests were perfect. Educational even. He had to. It was his way to remind himself he was in control. He had to be in control, ever since Mom died.

There she was. In the hover car. Blood was everywhere. Some people had told me that when people die, they were happy. Not Mom. She was frowning. She was crying. I had only a bruise on my left elbow. Mom was broken. The seat belt mangled her body. It dangled in the air, towards the ground in the upside car. I can’t believe that she’s dead.

She told me just two minutes ago to buckle my seat belt. Two minutes ago. Two decades ago. Two eons ahead.

“No, you’re the fool,” I coughed. “to believe me to be no more than a demon!”

Ha! His laugh echoed in my mind. The deep echoes of the mountain ranges in …

“I am not from this era,” I blinked, trying to muster my thoughts. “I come from a time that will come to pass.” I paused. “A time that even your great descendants will never see.”

Silence. There was silence. Somehow I could no longer hear the chanting, though I knew it continued.

“I have seen much that you cannot comprehend.” I said. “Machines, vehicles that fly, light without a flame, messages that fly through the air instantly...”

Mother was dead. She took care of me. I took care of her. But I am too young to save her. Father was gone. He was on a break. A break from testing me. A break from being the prophet of Egypt. A break from his vision. And she died. She died because of it.

Father was not happy. Mother was not happy.

...speak of? The pharaoh’s thoughts silently came.

“Your leg...” I had to concentrate. I had to think. Think. “...has a disease called Malaria...”

“Concentrate, Terem. You can do this, you can pass this test” It was my Father. Another test. This was just another test.

And? King Tut’s thoughts were soothing. Silent.

“... I can cure your leg.” Test number nine. Memorize all known cures for malaria. That was one of the easier tests. “... I will bring you glory, knowledge, wisdom, …”

Again silence. Thought I could feel the young pharaoh thinking. Strange. It was strange to think that one could feel thoughts. Feelings sometimes are more powerful than ideas. Ideas are more powerful than words. But words and ideas without action is naught but theory.

The stars were down. The moon was down. Life was upside down. Perhaps when I grow up, I’ll understand. I’ll understand why my father became the prophet of Egypt. Why Mom died. Why I lived. Why I live.

My mouth moved. I didn’t move it. I didn’t say anything. But my voice echoed. The silence erupted into chaotic noise. Sharp pitched screeches shot all around me. Hot smells broke off of the scentless air and surrounded me. The spiraling motions, suddenly stopped.

The sharp screeches were silence. The priests around me had stopped, once again. Their bodies bowed towards me. The smell was of incense. The several sticks of incense were now separate, each hitting me with a new wave of emotions.

I can’t believe it. It really was today.

“Priests of Egypt.” I said. No, it was the pharaoh. “The day of our destiny has come.” I stood up on shaking feet. My hands were shaking. My shoulders were shaking. My body was shaking. But I felt a strength. I felt the muscles underneath pulling and pushing. It was power. The body, under control of the mind, is power. “The demon is banished.”

The demon was not banished. I was still there. I could still feel him.

You will cure my leg, demon. There was a forcefulness behind the thought. A strength that I could not muster. A strength that solely ideas could not imitate. Then we shall talk.

This was no test. It was real. There were no more tests. I had never thought there was a life without tests. But I guess that is life.

You are under my command, demon.

Or maybe life is the test.