Chapter 2

Bone weary, I woke up in near complete darkness with a pounding hangover. I wasn’t sure what had woken me, but I knew I did not want to remain conscious in my current state. Several deep breaths helped me quash down the sensation of needing to puke, and I turned over to a more comfortable resting position. A faint ghost blue light seeped in from my living room, helping me relax, but only for a second. A thought broke my peace.

I don’t have a blue nightlight.

Believing I must have a burglar, I jerked up to survey my apartment, and it only increased my worry. The room spun and lurched. But even that uncomfortable sensation couldn’t overshadow what I discovered. I wasn’t in my bed. Somehow, I was on the floor of a dirty dark room, surrounded by a circle of glow in the dark graffiti. It looked like whoever had taken me had left me in an abandoned building. Debris and dust littered the ground, and the air was stale. A rotting fart smell lingered in the air.

I was still wearing the dress pants and shirt I’d been wearing the night before. Chilly air passed through my thin dress socks, making my exposed feet vulnerable on the cold hard floor, setting my teeth to chattering.

“What the actual fuck.” I said, glancing around the room.

On shaky feet, I tried to steady myself and stand up, but froze when my hand landed on an odd piece of paper lying next to my foot. The paper held an old yellowish color wrapped scroll tied with an intricate black ribbon. I plucked it up, giving it my full concentration as I tried to ignore the pounding in my head. The scroll had a surprising amount of heft to it, weighing more like a rolled-up towel than a piece of paper.

Before I unwrapped it, I looked around the dark room a second time. If this were someone’s idea of a prank, they would be very sorry after I tried to murder them. Something inside me was getting close to breaking; my fiery anger transitioned to freezing hate.

I ripped open the ribbon, then fell back on my ass when the scroll unrolled itself, lit up in a bright blue light, and vanished.

A second later, the scroll reappeared in the air, floating like a translucent ghost. It read:

[Spark of Maat Accepted]

[Please choose a Legacy:]

[1. Legacy of Hell]

[2. Legacy of Pain]

[3. Legacy of Death]

“What the hell is going on?” I yelled. I searched for a camera or projector but found nothing. In mounting frustration, I attempted to back away from the floating scroll, but when I touched the edge of the graffiti circle it vibrated with an almost electric energy and sent me reeling back to the center.

“This isn’t fucking funny!” I raged in the darkroom. A movement in the corner of my eye made me whip my head around, but it was just a weird scroll.

The language on it had changed:

[Please choose your Legacy before leaving the summoning circle.]

“I don’t understand! Where am I? What is this shit!?” I stammered, sending cold clouds of breath from my mouth. The sound of my voice echoing in the empty darkness made my panic rise. Without consideration, I ran at the circle’s edge in full force, only to get bounced back toward the center on my ass.

Again, the scroll flashed with the message:

[Please choose your Legacy before leaving the summoning circle.]

Physical activity took a toll on my hungover body, causing me to lose what little control I had of my guts. At least, I hoped it was because I had been hungover. After a few uncomfortable seconds of puking, I moved toward the opposite side of my strange prison on my hands and knees.

“Is anyone here?” I asked in vain.

Nothing about this situation made sense. The last thing I remembered was grabbing a baseball bat, setting it next to the bed, and going to sleep. I’d planned on fucking Chase up when he arrived to get Heather’s stuff.

Am I dead? I might have choked on vomit or had a heart attack. Or maybe I was in hell? That would explain why that scroll was talking about Death and Hell.

“Am I dead?” I asked the glowing scroll.

[Please choose your Legacy before leaving the summoning circle.]

It hadn’t changed.

I glanced down at the graffiti that made the circle. With care, I inched my hand toward it. Some invisible force rebuffed my fingers before they contacted the strange-looking art. The texture of the barrier felt like warm semi-liquid glass. After experimenting with it for a few minutes, I returned my focus to the markings on the ground.

No, it wasn’t graffiti; I realized. It was nonsense writing that looked like a strange mix of Arabic and hieroglyphs.

“Okay, okay, if I’m dead, why am I still breathing? That wouldn’t make sense. But what I’m seeing is magic or… Special effects?” I started thinking out loud.

Seeing no obvious answers, I returned my focus back to the floating scroll.

“What is a Legacy?” I asked.

[The listed Legacies are available to the Bloodlines of Hades]

That was a good sign. I needed more information. “What is the Bloodline of Hades!?”

I got no response.

“Am I still alive, then? What is a legacy?”

Nothing.

“What is the Legacy of Hell?”

Again, nothing.

“How am I supposed to choose when you won’t give me answers?”

It still didn’t respond, and I slumped down on my ass in defeat.

Let’s figure this out. I’m stuck here until I make a choice, and all three choices sound awful. So, it is just a matter of choosing the least awful. If I pick Hell, it might send me there to suffer; assuming this is some magic bullshit and not a joke. I’ve had enough suffering for one lifetime. Pain sounds bad for the same reason. I… I would rather just die. I want the pain to end. My only regret will be that I didn’t get to hurt Chase before going.

“Universe, if you are listening, please, please, fuck over my wife and her boss. I beg you to make them suffer as much as they have made me. No, make them suffer seven times worse than me, all biblical-like. This is my last request. I choose Death.” I said.

The scroll rolled up in the air at my proclamation, then wrapped itself back up. It was anticlimactic for deliberation I’d spent choosing.

“Well, at least you didn’t kill me.”

A few seconds later it opened again:

[Legacy of the Dead accepted: For your loyalty, you receive the greater blessing of the Barghest]

[(Greater) Barghest:] (+3 Sahu) Summon Barghest: You know the necromantic heka ritual to summon a Barghest.

As if sensing I had read the words on the ghostly scroll, it changed again.

The scroll changed again and presented:

[You have (1) Soul Point. Please choose an Aspect to improve. You will receive a random blessing in accordance with your choice:]

[1. Khet - Physical. Steps in this Aspect increase physical capabilities.]

[2. Sahu - Spiritual Body. Steps in this Aspect increase Necromancy and Underworld senses.]

[3. Ib - Heart. Steps in this Aspect increase Sense and Auramancy.]

[4. Ka - Vitality. Steps in this Aspect increase Resistances and Blood Control.]

[5. Ba - Personality. Steps in this Aspect increase Subjugation and Influence.]

[6. Khaibit- Shadow. Steps in this Aspect increase control of Shadow and Masking.]

[7. Sekhem- Form. Steps in this Aspect increase control of Animals, and Shape Changing.]

[8. Akh - Mind. Steps in this Aspect increase Intellect, and Illusions.]

“What is happening!?” I yelled in frustration. I just wanted to hit someone. My life had imploded. The woman I loved betrayed me. There was no friend or shoulder for me to cry on, and I was being screwed with. I just wanted it to end, so I answered quickly, and in anger.

“Fine! I’ll take the first one!” I said.

The scroll changed once more:

[(Lesser) Iron Strength]: (+1 Khet) Enhanced Strength: Your strength is significantly enhanced, and your body is renewed.

-Soul Record-

[Rn - Name:] Julian Nelson Ortega Marco the IV

[Bloodline:] Hades

[Legacy:] Rank 1 of the Dead (0%)

[Ichor:] 3/9

-Aspects-

[Khet - Physical:] 1 Step

[Sahu - Spiritual Body:] 3 Steps

[Ib - Heart:] 0

[Ka - Vitality:] 0

[Ba - Personality:] 0

[Khaibit – Shadow:] 0

[Sekhem- Form:] 0

[Akh- Mind:] 0

-Blessings-

[(Greater) Barghest:] (+3 Sahu) Summon Barghest: You know the necromantic heka ritual to summon a Barghest.

[(Lesser) Iron Strength]: (+1 Khet) Enhanced Strength: Your strength is significantly enhanced, and your body is renewed.

-Heka-

Summon Barghest: Use of this ritual costs 1 Ichor permanently. If the Barghest is slain, it will return in nine hours.

“What does any of this mean!? Please, tell me where I am!?” I said, still not tired of asking either question. As I continued to read the absurd document, I focused on the word “Ichor” and the following appeared: [Ichor is the Maat measure of vital essence.]

Am I in a virtual game?

It didn’t seem like I was in a video game. In fact, I was more alive and real than I’d ever been before! My hangover had dissipated after I’d received the greater “blessing”. I had enough energy to run a marathon! Stranger still, the shuddering cold no longer affected me. Cold enveloped the room, but I only noticed it by thinking about it. My breath came out in puffs of air, but my teeth had stopped chattering, and so did the uncontrollable shivering. It wasn’t even uncomfortable anymore.

I tried focusing on each of the entries in the document to get a better understanding of what was happening.

“Rn” was listed as my true name, whatever that meant. I knew I had some Hispanic and Italian heritage, on account of my amazing dark hair, but I’d never heard the name Ortega before. Nor did I know I was the fourth. Was an ancestor somehow related to this madness? I’ve just been Julian Marco my entire life.

Bloodline offered no answers at all. Each of the weird “Aspect” words, that I think were Egyptian, just repeated what they’d told me before. The numerical value listed as “Steps” were only marginally more interesting. Steps were described as: [Steps are the measure of the potency of Aspect Blessings.] Which, I took to mean that the higher the value, the more the blessings listed in that category improved.

When I got to the part that said Heka, I realized something had implanted a bunch of esoteric knowledge into my brain. If I said the right words and concentrated on my center, I knew I could summon a Barghest. Even if I didn’t know what that was. It was a terrifying thought: something could just download information into my memory. The very thought wracked me with shudders.

“Do you want me to summon the Barghest?” I asked the bastard scroll.

It didn’t respond.

“Well, fuck you, if that’s what you want. I’m not summoning shit! Now let me out of this circle!” I said, lunging forward at the ghostly scroll. Much to my dismay, I flew right through the space it occupied, then tripped over my own feet to slide across the ground. I scrambled back up and looked behind me to discover that neither the writing on the ground was there, nor was the scroll.

Not wanting to risk being captured again, I rushed out of the room and into a hallway, putting my “feel like I could run a marathon” theory to the test. My sock covered feet kicked up dust as I scrambled at a speed faster than I’d ever moved before. Shadowy side rooms passed by in a blur, but I didn’t stop to look inside them. I stepped on something that hurt like hell, sending a sharp pain up my foot, and forcing me to reach out to the wall to steady myself. Upon contact with the filth coated wall, I spotted the source of blue light, sporadic patches of glowing moss. I ignored the implications of that minor fact and focused on what was in front of me. Soon, the hallway ended in a set of stairs going up.

I must be in the basement of a large building. I thought, as I leapt up the dusty stairs four at a time with uncanny speed.

In no time I made it to the next floor and confirmed my suspicion, bursting out of the stairwell and into an open indoor plaza. I barely had time to skid to a halt on the filthy marbled floor before I crashed into an old, ruined couch. My momentum carried me over the couch, and I landed on a decrepit coffee table, sending a plume of nasty soot in the air. Both the couch and table came apart as my full weight broke through the furniture.

I stood up from the wreckage and gave my body a one-over for wounds. Somehow, I’d avoided an injury, for which I was thankful because the place was disgusting. My clothes couldn’t make the same claim, covered in filth and scratches as they were.

Once I finished checking over myself, I prepared to continue running from pursuit, but caught sight of a glowing mirror across the plaza. Light spilled out of its depths, illuminating 1950s decor and furniture in all directions. Time and elements had ruined the furnishings, but the volume of it showed that its original purpose had been to accommodate many people.

The old musty dump I’d found myself in was a hotel, I realized. I strode across the lobby toward the giant mirror, ignoring the untouched check-in counter it sat behind.

To my surprise, I had no reflection. As I got closer, I realized the mirror acted more like a one-way window. The longer I stared, the greater ruined the lobby faded away, revealing a contemporary day scene. People were in the present version of the hotel I stood in, having a regular day, replete with smartphones, computers at the check-in counter, and modern adornment. Two spry smiling clerks stood on the other side of the window-mirror, taking care of customers, oblivious to my circumstances.

At that moment, I knew I was no longer on Earth.