Chapter 2

A continuation to chapter 1 with Hariyama finding out more about his situation.

The next morning I found myself being awoken a familiar sound. not an alarm clock like most people but instead a banging on the door followed by a “Feed me!”. With a loud groan I tumble out of bed. I pull myself up off the floor and slowly make my way to the kitchen. There I am met with the absolutely charming face of my younger sister Sayuki. For almost as long as I could remember it was me and Sayuki in that apartment. Our parents had decided to invest in early retirement and dumped her on me before disappearing into the wonderful world of travel. I was only 17 then, had a part time job and a few months left in high school. I was only able to take care of Sayuki due to my former work at the YMWCA, which I guess earned me a freebie or something. Anyways, now after 6 years, she's grown up from a innocent little girl..into a satanic seamstress. She had gotten very deep in the goth culture, which I guess was alright..kinda? Its not the best thing but It doesn’t hurt me in anyway. Her entire look was drenched in a washed out and torn black, except for a bright pink hair pin I had given her for her 6th birthday. She held onto it for some reason, regardless of the reason it still gave me a faint happiness about being her brother.

“Come on, I’m hungry and I have a lycanthrope meeting to attend in like, an hour.” My sister yet again barked orders as if she ran the apartment and again I did as I was told. I grabbed a frying pan and some eggs. I began to cook her an omelette, one we had come up with a while ago. When she first had jumped on this Goth band wagon, I was a big supporter and so we created “The Blood Omelette of Dooom!”. Which was really just an omelette with anything red I could find to put in it at the time. As I flipped the eggs into a beautifully  layered omelette, I felt a pain pulse through my arm. I gripped my arm and looked down to examine it. My veins were pulsating with a shining gold light that seemed to be shimmering through my skin like a pool of water. Thats when my mind reawoke and recalled all that had happened the night before. In a panic I tossed the frying pan hurriedly onto  Sayuki’s plate, dashed to my room, grabbed that piece of paper from Jerry and ran out the door. The door slammed behind me dulling my sister’s crys of outrage. I would apologize later, for now I had bigger worries than a ruined omelette. Something was wrong with me and I was sure whatever was at the address Jerry had given me, would know what. I made my way down to the address as casually as I could. Luckily the winter sun was still bright enough to outshine the blistering lantern light that came from my arm. I went through busy intersection after busy intersection until I came to the address. There was nothing. a foreclosure sign and a pile of rubble, that was it. A small homeless man was leaning against the board. I sighed in disappointment and turned to walk away, when I heard the homeless man whisper something.

“What?” I asked in a polite tone. He did not speak up or change his pace. He just kept muttering so I turned back around with a shrug. thats when his oddly warm and boney hands clamped to either side of my head. I felt his breaths nearing my neck, then past towards my ear. Three hushed words seemed to echo from his lips like a church bell.

“Nohs Fa Toh”.

As if the words had more meaning behind them I felt myself unable to control my curiosity of what they meant.That notion then became an idea which manifested itself into a thought. Now it was more it was the only thought “Nohs Fa Toh” “Nohs Fa Toh” “Nohs Fa Toh”, thats all there was anymore. It was overwhelming even my mind, now my body succumbed to it, my entire existence was given to the word’s meaning now.“Nohs Fa Toh” “Nohs Fa Toh” “Nohs Fa Toh”  “Nohs Fa..Nohs F...Nohs……

Then as if being born again I became aware of more than the words, I didn’t even remember what they were anymore. I looked down at my hands and saw nothing but gold..all over me just, gold. In confusion I looked up to see where I was, what I saw was every single Myth, Tale and Legend all under the same roof. Not only that but they seemed to get along. It was like a party..a party for gods. I was in disbelief, nothing made sense anymore..the world was bigger than I ever could've thought of it being. I looked around as if searching for an answer scrawled on a wall somewhere. Instead I just found more and more questions. As I stared at my surroundings in confusion however I felt an odd sense of belonging..almost like I was in my parents old house.

I surveyed the crowd that was in front of me searching for someone I might know, which made no sense but I didn’t have any better plans. As I surveyed however someone came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, with an instinctively defensive stance. Looking at me was a dark skinned, towering figure it wasn’t his size that caught my eye, it was his eyes. He had one bright blue and the other a bright red eye.
“Jerry?” I asked in silent fear, not knowing how badly some mythical being would take being confused as someone else. Much to my relief a smile spread across the being’s rough skinned face as he nodded his head.

“Yes, it is good to see you your highness” He stated warmly before turning and gesturing to the rest of the room “Pretty great isn’t it?”.  I just..nodded I had nothing to say. There was such an overload of information; where am I, what are these people and why was he calling me your highness. I took another moment to take in all these questions whirling around in my head. Jerry smiled at me, very dog like in his loyalty and enthusiasm. Finally I got ahold of myself and locked eyes with jerry once more

“W-where are we..?” I stammered in an attempt to learn something about my current situation. I had been trying to stay level headed, a task I discovered was nearly impossible with the hectic state of the room in front of me. My look of confusion was shared by no one, yet, at the same time, no one seemed surprised of my reaction. He chuckled and took a quick bow to show his still present respect.

“Of Course, it only makes sense that you wouldn’t understand”. He turned and as if showing of a prize winning pumpkin or something, he opened his arms to the room. He then shouted something, forgetting to take into account my ability to hear anything other than a muffled shout. Noticing that I couldn’t hear him, he turned around unphased to face me once again. “This is the carnival of the gods!” he announced confidently as if that explained every question I could possibly ask. I decided to pursue my line of questioning further so I could at least figure something out.

“We are where?” I asked again, knowing I must be looking stupider and stupider. He looks at me as if I had 3 heads. Then a look of understanding washed over his face, it seemed he finally understood just how little I knew.

“I'm sorry your highness, I forgot that you are new to all of this”. This all too obvious fact was as surprising to me as a surprise party thrown my laugh happy mother. He looked up for a moment in obvious contemplation. He soon turned his attention back to me stating in a very matter-of-fact sort of way. “We are strangers”. I stared at him blankly, getting progressively more and more annoyed with his inability to not say things that no normal person would understand. Seeing my bubbling frustration, Jerry raises a hand to hush my impending rant. “We are called strangers because we are not really human, we are a new thing, we are strangers to the modern world of man”. He then gestured to my currently shining, beacon like body. “You have taken the form of the Egyptian god, Ra”. Just when I was beginning to get some semblance of what in the hell was going on, I was lost again.

“Ra?” I said in a perplexed tone “Ra as in the god of light and the sun and that stuff..that Ra”? Jerry nodded with a very proud look upon his face. “How am I Ra? Ra doesn’t exist, nor do gods are any of this sort of thing. They are called Egyptian Myths for a reason”.

Jerry shook his head at this statement, appearing to be amused by my struggle to grasp the situation. “That is how history has painted it, those myths didn’t come from nowhere. Hundred upon hundreds of years ago stranger’s existed in their first form. They were so strange and powerful that they were dubbed to be above man, or gods.” He scratched his head in recollection of this different telling of history. “The cycle of a stranger  re emergence is somewhere around once every 500 years. This worked in the early stages of man when humanity didn’t need to explain everything with history and science.” He took a breath to make sure he could finish this long info dump he was giving me. “However, when mankind learned about things like science, history and religion things got more complicated. They stopped believing that strangers were possible, they started labeling us as witches and freaks. This of course lead to mass murder of strangerkind which meant that strangers had to become more discrete. So..as a process of evolution strangers were born human first and developed their stranger like traits once they became a real adult in their society.” I was just too confused so I had to cut in.

“But I’m 21, I was a man 3 years ago, if what you’re saying is true then why didn’t this happen then”? Jerry looked at me with slight irritation at being interrupted.

“Well, do you have every right that comes from age in this society”? He acts with a the slightest twinge of frustration.

“I suppose you’re right..” I look down at my feet in shame, but then feeling piercing gaze of Jerry’s eyes on me I return my eyes to him. “Oh, umm.. continue”. Jerry gives a slight nod of recognition before returning to the bombardment of information that he had been pelting me with before I had interrupted.  

“Okay, so lastly, we are in the carnival of the gods. This is the safe haven for stranger that can come here and be without their human shell. It’s a place to just relax as common stranger. so that's basically it.” That all together amounted to..a load of bullshit, I wasn’t sure which was more unbelievable, the alt history or the idea that he himself was some sort of mythical god.

“Okay, zeus, it's been nice talkin’ to ya, But my sister needs to get picked up. So, nice story but I’m just gonna go.” I turn to leave but feel the tight, powerful grip of a jackal's hand on my shoulder. It was not the normal dark skinned, hand that I had formerly known. Instead it was a midnight black claw, covered in thick mounds of dog-like fur.

“You can’t run away from this, this is no joke, this is truly happening, Whether you want it to or not.” The clawed hand slowly changes before my eyes. The hair receding into dark skin and the long claws bending and rounding off into fingers. “You’re glowing for God’s sake, is that not proof enough that all of this is real”? No matter how much I didn’t want to admit it, he had a point. Even if he had been lying, I can’t deny that I am infact glowing like a goddamn firework. With no other real option, I had no choice but to simply accept what had been told to me. I turned around and faced Jerry once again, twisting my face into a forced apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry man..” I said whilst trying not show my still present reluctance to believe. In an effort to play along I decided I needed to ask something, that granted I was kind of curious about. “So..who are you then”? He smiled as his body began to shift again. Both of his became a shining, crimson red. His shoulders began to swell as his arms elongated down into a familiar looking claw. His face contorted,his ears pointing and pushing to the top of his head. His mouth and nose pushed forward from his face, forming a snout. His legs snapped forward curving into a canine-esc bend. Finally his chest broadened just as his body became covered in a midnight black fur. This ofcourse terrified me, I would have screamed if I had the air left in my body to do so. The looming creature then turned his attention to me and then in that weird way that dogs do, he opened his mouth into a strange smile.

“I’ll give you one guess..” He said with a chuckle. This was the moment where any normal person would have pulled from their knowledge, pull from the obvious signs that were being given. Of Course I didn’t do that.

“A dog”? That is what I said, no use of past knowledge, just an excretion of obvious physical traits. He for good reason, did not take kindly to this. His snout flared as he half bared his teeth in a restrained growl.

“I’m Anubis, I am no dog, I am a jackal. Okay?!” He tried his best, but his irritation still managed to leak through his demeanor.

“Oh, yea right..sorry.” I wanted to explain myself, to point out that I had just been intimidated by his towering form. But, as I had learned from previous encounters, doing so would just lead to a long conversation ending in me apologizing more than I should to save my hide. Knowing that was to come I decided to simply take the punishment now rather than later. I braced myself for the beratement, but much to my surprise it never came. Instead Jerry smiled and his body compacted back down to the normal human form that I had grown used to.

“It’s fine, I know this is a lot to take in right now. I just wanted you to see all this, to know what you are and what is to come”. His smile intensified at this statement “I suppose 2 out of 3 isn’t bad”. He extended his arm and put it on my shoulder, his expression felt me with an overflowing comfort. It felt as if his gaze was taking all the confusion and worry, and just melted it away. I was warm and calm, a nice change of pace. I was lost in this wonderful warmth, I didn’t even notice Jerry shaking me. It was only when he shouted “Shut your mouth before people get the wrong idea”. That was when I jolted back to reality, I was back on the sidewalk in front of the homeless man. Jerry had his hand on my shoulder still and my skin and clothing had returned to normal. unbeknownst to me I had been standing there for a few minutes just staring at him as if he had just confessed his love to me. With this prospect in my mind I freaked out, I could feel my face growing hot. This would happen often when I got embarrassed, I would blush, which here was not good. I panicked, in an attempt to save what manly pride I had I laughed loudly and punched him in the chest. He staggered back glaring at me a moment before he sighed. Apparently understanding why I did this, his smile returned. “ Sorry for startling you your highness. I just had to go and didn’t want to leave you stranded in there”. With that he turned and began to jog away, which left me yet again confounded as to what to do. In desperation I shouted out after him.

“Where are you going?!” He turned to me with a smile on his face and replied.

“Sorry, got a hot date tonight. I think you can get home from here. Watch out, it’ll be dark soon”.  Dark soon..? That didn’t make any sense, it hadn’t been that long. Sure enough though the red and pinkish glow of the city sunset poked out from the skyline. That’s when I realized, I had left Sayuki alone all day, this was not a good things. So after faking a smile for Jerry’s sake, I then turned and sprinted towards home.