Gyeom :)

Blood bubbles in your throat. Each breath is shallower than the last. The pain starts to fade and is replaced with something different, something cold creeping up your limbs. Sand pours in through the ceiling now through widening fissures, cascading like waterfalls, and for a moment you think of your dream with the lioness and the sand falling upward.

You stare at the ceiling as the world crumbles. Somewhere far above, there are stars you'll never see again.

Please, you think, unable to speak. Anyone.

Nothing answers but the sound of cracking basalt.

You think of Vernon - his rough hands steady in the med tent, the way he looked at you in the corridor like he wanted to say something more. You wish you'd listened. Wish you said something kinder to him when he was just trying to help.

You think of your mother. Her smile over that pottery shard. The way she said your name like a promise. Like hope. You pray that wherever she is now, she isn't watching this, that she isn't seeing your violent, bloody end.

Sand peppers your face. It's almost gentle, and your eyes flutter as darkness clouds your vision.

Child of blood, a voice calls, low and furious. You are in need of vengeance.

You can't move your head, but you feel something, heat in the cold, pressure against the collapsing dark. A presence that is vast and beyond your understanding, scented with the desert sun and spilled blood.

They woke war, the voices continues. And left you to pay the price. I know war too, child of blood. Let me pave the way.

Yes, you think. Yes.

Yes, the voice agrees. But not gently. Not without cost.

The sand stops falling. Fire ignites at the edge of your vision, gold and crimson, licking along the cracks in the stone. It doesn't burn the temple - it burns you.

Pain flares anew, different now. Your blood steams, your wounds sear shut. You smell charred linen as the cords binding you turn to ash. Sand near you crystalizes to glass, crunching as you scream and thrash, the gag in your mouth burning until you're choking on ash, your screams loud in the chamber. Your body arches against the altar as power pours into you, vast and ancient and furious. Every nerve sings and your lungs fill with heated air that tastes of life instead of death.

Call me the Eye Unbound, the voice tells you, growing in volume, her laughter hot. I drink what spills. I burn away the unworthy. I am Sekhmet and you are my vessel.