I have seen the scales of judgment and something is terribly wrong.

I always imagined them golden. Polished smooth with a gleam of refined beauty, possibly even decorated with a few precious gemstones but not this repulsive abomination. This scale were tarnished with time and showed no love over the years. The one side even busted to where two once golden chains hung down. One remaining in place to keep the circular plate attached. The other side still functional though it seemed as if it might fall apart at any moment as well.

Beyond that sat a miserable man. His skin green like oxidized copper and expression just as corrosive. This was no man, I instantly realized, but rather the god, Osiris.

Osiris raised one hand from his throne’s armrest and turned it over slowly. A long feather appeared over his palm and stretched out past his fingertips. The feather emanating a pale glow of warmth and kindness that was strikingly different from the aura of the god holding it who rose from his throne.

“Even now as I stand before you, Marik, you doubt my existence?” Osiris moved closer and from the darkness behind him immerged a terrible beast. “You are no different from the rest who have forgotten us. Who allowed us to fade and lose our power.”

A long green snout taking shape from the dark, bumping against the god’s legs before the rest waddled in.The front lion half melting away into a fatty purple lower half of a hippopotamus. This was Ammit, the devourer, eater of souls. But she was not as fit as I once imagined either. If anything, she appeared swollen but none of that shook away the horror building in my chest.

“You, whose family was meant to serve, protect, and always be faithful to the gods. To lead one of us back into the land of the living with renewed purpose and rule again-”

“A task I never wanted!” I screamed.

“-And restore our ways that have been forgotten,” Osiris spoke louder as he stopped before me. His form much taller than I recalled it being moments ago. The god looming before me with his own crook and flail tucked at his side while he instead focused on holding the feather of Ma’at.

“He was going to kill him!” I hissed, trying to get my own side of the story in but the god kept talking. “I had to break tradition! We were dying in wait for a man who did not know we were waiting. A man who didn’t even care when we did try to tell him after our escape!”

“Silence!” Osiris’ voice boomed all around us as if we were in a tomb. The darkness not allowing me to see if it were so but that thought didn’t matter when he reached with his free hand into my chest.

An excruciating burn bloomed in my chest as he pulled out to reveal a heart. My heart. Red and still beating though as he turned to the scale he gave it a light squeeze and I fell to my knees. Arms over my chest where it had been removed.

“You will be judged.” He sat my heart onto the higher scale plate before placing the feather onto the busted side. My heart not moving as the plate rested on the table still and the feather floated in the air. “Just as I thought. Filthy.”

“WHAT!?” How could he judge my soul with a broken scale? This was not fair! “You curse us to a life we never wanted and then give me a rigged trial? I don’t care who you are! I-”

Pain raced through my being as my heart was picked up and squeezed again. A cry caught in my throat as this time it was much harder than before.

“You don’t get a say in what is right or unfair. Your soul has been judged and you have been found unworthy.” His words further fueling my hate towards the gods and their corrupt behavior. “Ammit.”

The heart tossed to the beast but missed it’s mouth and struck the floor. Another surge of agony while the soul eater waddled to turn around and go claim it’s ill gotten treat.

“You disgust me! All this power and how great everyone had made you out to be. I once believed in you but the more I saw and witnessed the easier it was to disbelieve!” I now glared at the god of judgment. His pet no longer in my sights but I could tell my time was soon up. “Now that I know you are real I still can’t help but be disgusted in myself for ever thinking you were great. You sicken me! I hope you all waste away into nothing!”

Osiris’ face looked just as disgusted as I felt.

“I hope you all die and become nothing! I hope this world becomes nothing and no one will ever remember you!”

A low hiss followed by a sharp whine erupted from the darkness. “Ammit?”
Osiris finally seemed to have another emotion apart from disgust. The devourer flew across the room and crashed heavily into the scales in a thunderous clatter. The beast moving but unable to roll itself over.

“Fiiinally,” hissed a chilling voice from within the dark. “Sssomeone who undersstandssss!” Two glowing red dots revealed and easily growing in size to be greater in height than Osiris himself.

“Ap- How?” The green god stumbled backward in shock as an enormous snake head moved into view. A long purple tongue flickering as it tasted the air then slithered further in. The rest of it still emerged in black shadows.

“Ssiiilencce, old bonesss!” Sickle-like fangs were bared making Osiris reach for his weapons, drawing out his crook and flail though he did not attack. “I wisshhhh to sspeak with the mortal,” the serpent mused. It’s purple tongue flickering again but before he could speak again the god of judgment made his move. Battle quickly breaking out though it seemed that the snake was to win as everything Osiris did seemed to bounce of its scaly hide.

Ammit finally up and trying to assist her master only to be flung over my head and crash into something unseen.

“Yourr heeaart, boy! Go get iit!”

I stood to my feet shakily unsure what all this pandemonium meant but headed for the heart all the same. Running into the dark, parts of it moved away and I could see stone pillars where a thick coil of a serpent’s belly weaved between. My heart resting on the floor and still red though now a part of it seemed to have blackened. Probably from filth on the floor, I realized.

“Reememmberrr my name,” the serpent called back as the whole area shook with force. “Apophhhissss!!”

Panic filling me now as debris started to fall from above as pillar shook and crumbled. The only thing I could think to do was shove the heart back where it once was. My hands pressing it hard against my clothed chest till it began to ache and burn. At last it was in fully and the world itself became to grow light. The darkness ebbing away but the cackling remained like a steady hum in the base of my skull.

–

Water splashed around me and I gasped, now grasping the side of the tub. The water tainted red with blood from my arms but when I checked to see the damages, the cuts were scabbed over. The razor though at the bottom of the porcelain tub even after I shakily climbed out to dry off. None of this made sense. Nothing I saw made sense either but that name… That name was ringing some bells and yet I just could not place it for the life of me.

Apophis?

The ruddy water mocking me as I tried to steady my breathing and pulled the cord on the drain.

Suicidal thoughts, crazy dreams about forgotten gods and their pet abominations, no wounds, what was this? I must be tired… I had to be… I was always tired but this was something more. Something- I don’t know. I can’t place it but it was important. Maybe I needed to do some research. There had to be something on any of this. At least on Apophis…