Thread: An Artifact, A Girl, and a God. |Lagerthas x BlackTalon|

Everything had always boiled down to the singular moment of deciding on one thing or another. It was life or death, or it had always been such a thing. Moments like this, under water, stuck in a car, Naari wondered how she had gotten to this point. Stuck in a car, belt digging into her side as she tried desperately to hold to her breath. It was like everything leading up to this flashed before her eyes as she scrambled. It had been a dusty August day. The sky had been colored with greys, pinks, blues, oranges even though it had been the middle of the day. Naari had been five at that moment in time, holding a red ball in her little pale hands in her pink frilly dress. Half her hair had been up, the other portion of her hair had been burned off from a nasty fire a few days prior. She still had the burns on her arms, her legs, but she stood there holding the ball tightly between her hands. She watched people scurry back and forth on the dirt road, screaming and hollering. Some were happy, some agitated, some sad, some in love, some lonely, but there she stood watching it all. Especially her mother, the last time she had seen her. She had been carrying a bad, nothing but skin and bones, her grandparents behind her mother. She remembered the woman bending down, hugging her limply as she cried. It was only after years later did her grandparents tell her why her mother had left. Cancer. September came around, Naari was now twelve. It was dark outside, and she was dancing in the rain laughing, alone. She knew how her grandparents hated when she did this, but to her it felt like a re-birthing process, washing away all her sadness. It never mattered if she cried or not, the way her hair turned so dark it looked back from the wet rain. She remembered being dressed in baggy boys clothing, where she had bandaged down her chest and butt to look more like a boy. Her hair had even been cropped off military style. Naari had wanted to be at twelve. She had thought, perhaps her mother would return from death had she been a boy. Perhaps her father wouldn't be shooting heroin into his arm if she had been a boy. Perhaps life would have been simpler if she had been a boy, and she had hoped the water would re-birth her into the boy she had so wanted to be. January struck into her mind, a cool summer day in Australia. An elder man to her right, an elder woman to her right laughing and joking with drinks in their hands. Her grandparents. She remembered the cruise ship, looking over the ocean for the first time in her life at seventeen. She had let her hair grow out then, her clothes still bagged slightly, but she was no longer wearing boys clothing. This had been after a conversation with her grandparents about her parents, about why her mother had really left, about why her father would never come home, about how the world worked. Naari had remembered every emotion from the time she was twelve, when she had wanted to be a boy and she remembered the screaming match she had conversed with her grandparents over the whole thing. Everything had ended at this point. Naari wearing some bland girl clothes her grandmother had used to wear and tailored to her to make her more comfortable. Her brown hair only stopped at her shoulders, but her grandparents had wanted her to see the world after the conversation. Not hate herself for her father's addiction, not hate herself for not being able to be with her mother during her last moments. Naari, isn't the ocean beautiful? She remembered her grandmother's sweet voice chirping in her ear making her smile as she had looked at the ocean. She had nodded her head, green eyes gazing at the waves behind her long lashes. Someday, you'll see more beautiful things than you can ever imagine. Someday you feel as perfect as you really are. Her grandmother had smiled, toothy and lovingly. Naari had stared at her, unsure why she had been so unphased to stare at her at that moment, but now it all made sense. It was still January, and Naari was still seventeen, but she remembered the seen all too clearly. End of the month before it flashed to February, before they were out of the dreaded month. They had banked in Australia, but not for the reason they had hoped. She remembered the cold hospital room, the tubes, the blinking, the sounds, the bleach scent. She remembered herself leaning over the bed grasping the hand on the bed as she cried, wailing. She remembered her grandfather behind her, leaning against the door as he watched her, crying himself. Her real mother had died in a hospital from cancer, and her grandmother had suffered a terrible stroke on the cruise. She couldn't remember the days before the series of strokes, but she had remembered the scene of them looking at the ocean, and now this one. Her grandmother slipping into a coma, unresponsive. Nothing she could do, nothing anyone could do but wait. March came around in the flashes of memories. Naari had turned eighteen that month, and they were still there in Australia. Naari had refused to go back home, to Scotland, and her grandfather had agreed. So they had stayed there, waiting for her grandmother to get better. It never came. Naari could remember herself swaying, black heels, black clothing. The whole thing felt unrealistic. Months before her grandmother had seemed to be fine, perfectly fine. Happy they had known why Naari had felt the way she did, and now? Now her grandmother was lifeless in a casket in front of her. The doctors had found the tumor too late, even though they thought they had fixed the cause of her strokes in her coma, they had only agitated the problem. They had missed the true cause and this was the aftermath. Death. Naari remembered the way her grandfather fell to his knees, screaming, crying in agony. She remembered the whole blurry scene, and she remembered the phrase she couldn't help repeating the whole time. This isn't real. This isn't happening. November was in her mind now. Naari remembered this, she was nineteen. She was relaxing with friends, silent, drinking. She didn't know what else to do with her life. She had passed school, and college wasn't what it seemed anymore. Her grandfather was no longer the same, and Naari herself had changed. Still, she remembered sitting outside on her deck looking at the stars in the sky. One of her friends was laughing, barfing, before her grandfather came out with a friend. He had always had good friends, but they were over more so then they had been growing up. They were trying to help the two of them with the cooping, so Naari never found it weird anymore. Not even when her grandfather would come out with her friends and smoke some weed. Still, he came out, a few of his friends with him. They pulled up chairs, and they all had drinks. They laughed, they joked, and then the conversations began. She wasn't really sure how it had began, but she remembered it ending with her grandfather's friend offering her a place to live and an internship under him. Archeology. Naari had refused at first, it wasn't the first time he had asked since her grandmother's passing, but the man was persistant. It would be good for you Naari. She remembered her grandfather speaking, a little drunk, but honestly. That small phrase had made Naari contemplate going along, before her grandfather had finally sighed and said, It'll be good for us both. I don't want you to waste your life watching out for me. Your mother wouldn't want it, and your grandmother would turn over in her grave if I kept you. That was all Naari had needed to hear. October came into Naari's view. She remembered this, the day of the accident. She had moved here to Egypt, after a year of traveling with the professor to other places on minimal tasks it had brought her here. She had been so excited, until she had seem the boxes piling up in her new one bedroom apartment. Naari had found herself tying up her long hair, wearing a white tank top over a black Victoria secrete bra, rose colored high waist pants. Naari had grunted, thankful when everyone had left before she had grabbed her car keys, a car her grandfather's friend Luckus had given her. The man had been nothing but generous to her, since he had known her mother, and her grandmother before they had both passed. Naari had gone outside, getting into her turquoise jeep as she shuffled through the things in her back seat. She still had things piled up in her car from the excavations earlier in the week before she had gotten her apartment and things. She remembered the box half open that one of Luckus colleague had given her, a tall tanned man named Rox, long dreads, and a killer smile. Naari had noted he was only thirty, never married, and the two had hit it off flirting. Still she went through the box, scrolls were hanging out, some tools, and a weird shaped rock at the bottom. Naari had looked at it, pulling it out to examine it. A hieroglyph on it, the paint looked beautifully in tact and she jumped. Realizing that the hieroglyph had been placed in the box on accident. She had thought it had just been that, and she remembered closing the back and hoping in her car to drive down the dirt streets leaving her new apartment behind. Traffic had always been atrocious no matter where she went, but going to the site near the Nile was more so horrible. Naari continued to drive, getting closer to the bridge over the Nile. She needed to cross to go the excavation site to return the box with the hieroglyph, and she needed to be there anyways to get her mind off the whole moving fact. She was thankful when the traffic started moving, only to find herself in something she hadn't expected. The cars in front of her crashed, colliding into the opposite lane, and Naari found herself on the edge of the bridge near the river. A car from her right came towards her, ready to crash into her in full speed. Fuck! Naari remembered shrieking as the car next to her flipped over before shoving into her car. She jerked the wheel to the left, to try to avoid the collision, only to find her foot on the gas. Her car shoved forward, going through the railing as the turned over car, and the head on collision shoved into her side. The forced pushed Naari's car over the edge, through the railing. She grabbed onto her wheel, her belt, as he car tilted forward. She shrieked in fear as the jeep rolled off the bridge. Naari closed her eyes as she screamed, the water coming closer as she banged her head and passed out. That had been this moment, her eyes open now, air still barely in the car. Her wind shield was busted, water had been pouring in for quite some time. Naari had pulled up her head, blood was on the steering wheel, and dripped down her face into the blood. Her hands shook as she looked around, the front of her car totaled, fish flying around and...nothing but water. Fuck..F-fuck! Naari screamed, water was at her waist, climbing quickly up to her breasts. It wouldn't have taken more than a few minutes for the water to fill the entire car. She scrambled, trying to undo her seat belt, that held her firmly in place. She tried to pull it out of the jack, but no use. To make matters worse, her windshield in the back busted through, and Naari tried to squirm around only to find her right leg was unresponsive. Naari looked down, her side of the car had folded in, trapping her right leg between metal. She hadn't even noticed the impact of the other car had caused damage to hers when she was falling, just that she was falling into the Nile. The water picked up, as Naari tried scrambling to find a way out. Lights blinked, noises buzzing through her ear were drowned out by the flow of water coming into the car as Naari panicked. The water was under her chin now. Naari tilted her head back, big breathe as she inhaled, eyes open as she went under the water. She shoved her side into the door, hands on the latch twisting it to get it open. No use. Naari shoved her head back up for air as she hyperventilated. She had only been under water for a few seconds, but it was almost to the ceiling of the car. Soon, Naari would be out of air, trapped in her jeep, and drown. I'm going to die..I'm going to die..this isn't real.. Naari cried as she took another deep breath, submerging her in her watery tomb as the car filed up. Still she fought, trying to figure out how to get out of the car. Naari eyes caught glimpse of the object. A simple one, a small one out of place in her car, floating to her left. Naari turned her hair, long brown hair that looked black floating in front of her face. She reached out grasping the object in her hand. Naari pulled it forward looking at the object. Jewels. She rubbed the jewels in her fingers, watching more dirt brush away from them. She realized most of the jewels had broken off the necklace from time, but the few small jewels that remained were perfectly in tact. It looked like something a peasant would wear. Naari clucked onto it, holding onto her breath as long as she could, looking at it, looking up and wondering how long it would take for someone to help her..or if anyone could help her. Naari held her breathes for several minutes, before finally releasing it. She scrambled, breathing in the water as she panicked, before her life flashed before her eyes and..Naari passed out.