Kareem opened his eyes to white dunes extending into the sky, combining into the horizon in a cyan blur.
The white sand under him was so fine it ran over his hands like warm water, scintillating in the soft light as the grains floated from a breeze gentle and warm as a mother's embrace.
Kareem walked, his pace between sinking and floating, he walked as driven by something, his mind as empty as the world around him.
The sky was of a light cyan that almost turned into white, blending the endless dunes around him into a limbo where Kareem walked a thousand lives or a couple of seconds, he walked until he felt his throat parched, until his body felt heavy, until he fell on his knees his hands holding him up from the sand, or maybe holding the sky up from him.
Time held no meaning before the endless desert. Kareem rested, he only existed, his mind if conscious might've revolted the centuries in each breath but at that moment he just was.
Then he heard a song, a chorus that reverberated in a wet staccato, and he raised his head, seeing in front of him a figure emerging from the horizon haze.
Its wings beat softly, eight pairs in a golden formation as if the sun stood behind it, its head that of a dragon with a vulture beak, the body that of a lion, the paws each the size of himself leaving no markings on the bleached ivory sands.
It stood before him, inclining its head and spoke, the sound that of rain striking metal.
Kareem, beckoned, followed, and as he walked more of the chimeric sphinx joined them on their procession, circling overhead lazily or walking with him, and as they went, they filled the white desert with their harrowing sound, a fake monsoon.
And then subtly he arrived. There was no more sound, and the silence that hang in its place was the void of a world that doesn't breathe. Kareem stood before a shallow pool of water, so still it was a perfect mirror to the sky. A circle of firmament embedded into the ground bones of a trillion souls.
And in the middle of this pool stood a god.
Kareem knew the moment his eyes fell upon the figure, as serene as the white desert and silvery water around it. It was a god, a god in deep slumber.
His world had forgotten what gods were, and Kareem now was the bridge that would reconnect this world of meaning dreams and power to the world of entropy and humans.
Kareem extended his hand, feeling something call to him, and without taking a step he was before the God, his feet touching the pool like solid glass, his fingers touching between the closed eyes of the divinity.
"I stand as the judge over Thahedj's gates
Weighing the sins etched on your bones
Suffer under the unforgiving Sun or bask
in the waters of the Oasis.
I am the voice of Or-Athis God-King of the Ivory desert."