Chapter Text
“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” - African Proverb
Twenty years of struggle erased in a single night.
At first, the boy could see only darkness.
Suddenly, an echo of flames flickered in the boy’s face, a cackle of spark and ash replaying through the incineration of Sardinia. His memories were the howls of burning neighbors hauling children through the slag of a safe place. He had watched as people fled, as everything they ever struggled for was taken away from them by the Lord’s despotic hands. The struggle that the boy felt to understand himself, who he really was in this world, was destroyed.
He had none to blame but himself.
The wind had picked up rapidly then, blowing leaves around him and arcing the fire further, almost beautifully, to raze the ground around him. Facing the darkness behind him, the boy turned and dashed away from the town, never casting his gaze on the smoldering ruins again.
That boy died in the ruins, but someone, something new propagated behind his eyes.
Suddenly, his consciousness was thrown back to the present, and this same feeling of sorrow burned onto Solido Naso’s face as the hot Egypt sun pummeled his skin. The desert wind began to stir, bringing nothing but hot sand into his eyes. The young man jerked back in pain and discomfort, swiping at sand embedded in his pores, his hair, the curvature of his ears, everywhere—
“Naso! Hurry up and dig, will ya? I can’t stand this sweltering heat!” He heard a gruff voice call from behind him.
Solido turned around, his fragmented pupils cleaving against the mirror glare of the head Archaeologists’s sunglasses. It was easy for him to say, reclining on a terry cloth chaise lounge under a pavilion. Desk fans spurned the heat from his little oasis and women wearing scant mockeries of desert attire attended to his every other need.
The man wore an ivory reefer, the lapels of which were polished avian skulls, and dark, tight fitting pants.
“As if he’s ever worked a day in his miserable life…” Solido muttered to himself.
The head archaeologist was indeed a stranger to toiling labor, but he had a master’s innate perception of insubordination. Almost instantly, his visage changed from an expression of pleasure to one of faux bemusement. Heaving himself from his chair, the archaeologist stepped out into the feverish heat. His female attendants continued about their tasks, though glanced off with a quizzical look as he did so. Solido watched warily as the man approached the excavation area he had been assigned. He crouched on his haunches, hands scraped raw from digging, sweat dripping from his jawline and beaded on the red, fissured scabs of his exposed skin. Flames had shorn his fuschia hair close to the scalp.
The Archaeologist stood above him, clean and untouched, sporting brand new boots that’d probably received less than a hundred steps; merely the occasional treks the man made to ogle the progress of his workers, each toiling for pennies and destined for unmarked graves.
“It’s okay, kid,” the archaeologist crowed, “We’re all given different circumstances in life, so let’s just make the most of it!”
He gave a big grin that bared 32 white, shapely teeth, but his eyes were cold and merciless, never once diverting from their target. “Now then, I’d like my ladies to clear the area. I’m going to cheer our friend Naso up a bit!” He flicked his hand and the women, as if marionettes responding to his cue, made their way to a trailer not too far away.
As Solido turned to watch them leave, a hand gripped his collar intensely.
“Alright, listen here you piece of crap. You work for ME. Got it? I could take a shit in your mouth if I wanted to and there isn’t a single Goddamned thing you can do about it. If you don’t dig this hole now, I swear to God, I will shoot you and leave your body in the desert to rot. Do I make myself clear?”
Solido said nothing. His eyes widened and his mouth contorted into a frown. His teeth audibly gritted. Then, all of a sudden, his face adopted a more relaxed tone, and he finally spoke.
“Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”
“Good, now shut up and dig the hole like I asked you to. Give anything you find to me, and I’ll pay you when you’re done… if there’s anything left, that is.” Solido heard a slight snicker as the archaeologist stepped away.
Solido grabbed a shovel and thrust it into the ground. It had been several months since he had clambered onto a boat with smoke searing his tongue and a manic paranoia for flame. His mind was constantly on the girl he’d fallen in love with - Donatella Una, but any happiness he had with her was always overshadowed by the voices in his mind, which pulled his consciousness every which way.
He thrust his shovel harder into the arid desert sand, going deeper into the hole he created. All that was in his head was Donatella, and that one day they had spent walking along the Sardinian beaches. It was at that moment that Solido experienced true happiness after years of suffering at the hands of the other children just for being a little bit different.
The shovel gouged into the sands, forcing an entrance where there was none before.
He remembered his foster father, the local priest of the village, who’d taken him in at a young age and raised him to be a priest. Somehow, Solido Naso, despite having a childhood, felt as if he had none, as if it was ripped away from him by forces he couldn’t understand or comprehend.
That only turned to anger, as he pushed his shovel even more into the dirt. The voice of rage, fury, and malice in his head wanted to take over and lash at everything around him. That voice wanted something more - something powerful, and after what happened in Sardinia, Solido so desperately wanted to give in.
Solido tasted blood and his vision seared. His sweat sizzled on the sand and his shovel was a drill as hateful as the sun. He could feel his mind slipping from him as that personality took over, the one that pushed Solido to do actions he’d never even consider, as if it was a devil on his back whispering into his ear.
“He’s possessed…” The other diggers around him murmured. “This man… it’s like he’s a demon.”
“Good…” The head Archaeologist commented, sipping gin and watching his workers dig to oblivion.
Solido was near shaking with rage and anguish at this point, his mind having long given into his feelings of hate. Donatella didn’t deserve what happened to her, and he cursed himself for not being able to defend her. Frustrated at his small stature and weak muscles, he plunged his shovel into the unforgiving sand again and again. He could carve out the heart of earth itself and he would not be satisfied, not until he–
DINK!
The noise startled Solido, returning him to his present world as his feelings of rage instantaneously dissipated. Looking below, he noticed a wooden box with some strange symbols on them. The box itself didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary, being only about the size of his two hands combined.
“Naso! Have you found anything in that massive hole yet?” The archaeologist bellowed with a hint of annoyance.
“Uh…no sir!” Solido yelled, poorly hiding the box under the sand momentarily.
No response was given back. Solido jumped out of the hole with the box in hand, hastily checking his surroundings. The Archaeologist was in his pavilion, preoccupied by one of his women spinning a parasol. It was safe, then, to uncover the box… as safe as it could be, anyway.
Other workers around him clamored, but none paid any attention to Solido. As he opened the box, he was greeted with the sight of six mysterious arrows. They all had similar shapes and designs, with the exception of one, which had a strange beetle on it. A terrifying aura emanated from these arrows, one that made the young man break into cold sweat, even in the heat. Solido knew just by beholding them that they held a strange power unbeknownst to the modern man.
As he picked an arrow with two fingers up, however, it began to dig into his skin, drawing blood. Solido yelped in pain and threw his hand back, which gave him a few looks, none of which bothered him in the slightest. He was too focused on the arrows before him.
Inside, a feeling similar to the one in Sardinia that night began to grow inside of him. As if something was dragging him, prompting him to turn away from his past and write his fate anew.
“Naso! You better have found something by now!” The archaeologist roared.
Following that powerful, primordial instinct, Solido took that as his cue to flee with the arrows. Kicking up sand behind him, he fled the digging site, instantly making his way towards an offroad vehicle that was still running after finishing its hourly patrol.
It was time for him to leave this nonsense behind. He could feel his mind crave to carve a new path as a king, not just a mere peasant. The other workers began to look up from their repetitive digging as Solido made a beeline for the car, shoving bystanders out of his way.
A guard wearing cheap militia gear stepped into his path, sneering beneath the low brim of a sun hat.
“The hell do you think you’re go–” He sneered, before Solido slammed the flat of the box against the man’s nose with a sickening crush. He kept running as several women screamed behind him before being pushed aside by the archaeologist, who was desperate to punish Solido.
“YOU FUCKING THIEF!”
Solido peered back every few bounds. The Archaeologist’s pristine boots were now covered in sand as he pursued Solido, accompanied by several guards armed with batons.
He panted in the heat, the soles of bare feet burning from crystal fire, but every step meant the vehicle would be closer. Five meters, one meter, the door handle in his grasp–
He jumped into the car, slammed on the gas pedal, and blasted away from the scene with his doors still open as the Archaeologist let out a scream of pure animosity. The security guards drew pistols and shot at the tires, but quickly gave up their chase as the desert sand in the car’s hasty wake consumed them.
Solido adjusted his rearview mirror and saw only a plume of sand in the dusty glass. It seemed that chapter of his life was now behind him, for better or for worse. He let out a heavy sigh of relief.
The young man was a foreigner to these roads. His transportation to the site had been a hot, stifling truck with a hundred men crammed into the steel cage of the trailer. He had pulled his white shirt over his face and forced himself to swallow the nausea growing each time the truck swayed and the scent of unwashed bodies and urine permeated his nose.
But, the destination of any road had to be people– civilization.
Solido maintained a constant speed on the road, desperate not to draw attention to himself. The wooden box with the arrows inside lay to the left in the passenger seat. Solido thought to himself about what he had done with his life until now as the sun set on the Egyptian desert.
He was completely alone, with nothing to his name except these arrows.
No one ever made him feel special, and he was thankful for it. He had never enjoyed the press of people against him or jabbing fingers snaring him from peace. Only Donatella had ever brought him serenity with her company and her love for beautiful things. However, she was long gone, and as memories of her faded away, tears in his eyes began to flow.
He blamed those damned children for taking her away from him - only their abuses soaring through his mind. Then, everything went dark, and the town was engulfed in flames and Donatella was nowhere to be found.
He drove in silence for a time. The only sounds were the soft, muffled clink of arrows, the sand and stones churned under the truck’s wheels, and the stifled sobs of a boy who feared the future as much as he yearned for it.
When the world was naught but darkness and stars, Solido began to see what appeared to be the jagged skyline of buildings on the horizon illuminated by a hazy, electric glare. His posture immediately straightened and his eyes widened, eager to see what it truly was.
They were buildings, no doubt about it. He had finally reached civilization after hours of driving. A sign ambled up to his right, which read, “CAIRO, 1 KM” much to his relief. Here, perhaps, he could find safety and solace living amongst these men. As he drew closer to the city, he pulled up right outside at what appeared to be a flea market of sorts. If anyone were to know the true worth of the arrow, it would be here. Solido stopped the car near the flea market, and opened the door. Stepping out, he knew instantly that he was out of place.
It was not merely a matter of physical appearance; Solido wore the desert garb of countless other workers, all thinly woven cloth held together with dirt and perspiration, and his pink hair was far from the most ostentatious style. However, each of these people seemed comfortable in the feverish cacophony of sellers hawking their wares and visitors clambering to buy.
Solido found his breath shortened, trapped in his throat as his heart shuddered out a petrified rhythm. There were less people in all of Sardinia than in this one market. He couldn’t discern the foreign languages that were being spoken. Hell, he could barely differentiate the brays of cattle from the deafening din of human traffic.
However, there was no mistaking that conditions were much more preferable than anything the archaeologist would ever offer to him. Solido acknowledged that in his head, and hurried his way through the crowd, knocking into people who gave him nasty looks and swore at him. He apologized in Italian, the only way he knew how, and continued to ricochet through the hot swelter of human bodies until a certain booth caught his attention.
The woman inside the booth gazed back with curiosity. The first thing he immediately noticed were her two right hands. She was clearly old, with wrinkles creasing her face. Her long white hair flowed well past her shoulders, almost touching the ground. It was only then that Solido realized how short this woman was. She appeared to be not much taller than the table of the booth she operated. Solido looked up at the name: TAROT CARD READINGS. 100 EGP.
“What’s in that box you have there?” She asked with an amiable tone, as if she was one’s grandmother. Solido peered at the woman, who returned his stare with surprisingly lucid and cunning eyes, despite her advanced age. To her side, she held a wooden cane, which she promptly used to smack Solido on the head.
“I said, tell me what’s in the box!”
Solido covered the bruise on his palm with his other hand, visibly frustrated. However, he didn’t fight back.
“Why should you care what’s in the box? What’s it matter to someone like you?” Solido scowled, clearly agitated that someone would even try to question him about the box. It irked him that people wouldn’t mind their own business.
“You’re in a flea market. Expect people to question everything you have on you. In the end, I suppose we’re all just looking for money…” The old woman replied, as if she was reading Solido’s mind.
Her hawkish gaze continued to pervade Solido’s soul, further disturbing the young man. However, he knew she was right. Solido opened the box and laid it on the table in front of the woman, revealing the arrows to her.
The woman’s gaze widened. Her toothless maw slipped open and something akin to sheer, miraculous wonder smoothed the time from her corrugated face. Then she sobered to a businesswoman’s professional indifference and withdrew a deck of tarot cards from her sleeve.
“You would be very surprised if you were to see what fate has in store for us all. Sometimes the most simple objects can carry us on long journeys. Take this Tarot Card here, for example.” She pulled out the tarot card of The Star. “This card here may be nothing but a simple card to most. However, it represents hope for the future, inspiration, and contentment.”
Next, she pulled out the tarot card of The World.
“This card represents fulfillment, achievement, and completion. These two cards, the Star and the World, have almost completely different meanings, yet they can be the judge of a person’s overall fate. Does this make sense to you, boy?”
Solido stared at the old woman, but she continued on.
“Consider the arrows here. These arrows, although simple in appearance to the ordinary eye, may be nothing more than arrows. If you had sold them to anyone else, I’m sure they would just be placed on a dusty shelf like a bit of china or a Fabergé egg. It was fate that these arrows arrived at my table tonight. They alone can control the fate of a human being!”
Solido paid no heed to harebrained superstition. He bent down and set his arms on the table, staring closer into the woman’s face.
“Listen, Strega, I just want to know-”
“Strega? My name is Enyaba -”
“I couldn’t care less about your name, old hag. How much money can I get for these?” Solido’s tone was cold but urgent, his only intention being to put more dirt between himself and the archaeologist. “They’re useless to me, even cut up my finger a bit. All I really want is cash, and I’m short on time right now, so what do you have for m– ”
“120 million lire.” Enyaba spoke sharply.
“W-What?” Solido blinked.
All that money? And just for these arrows?!
His breathing quickened and it was as if he had returned to the desert. A miasma of sand descended upon him and Solido found himself trembling.
“I’ll give you 120 million lire for these 5 arrows. You can keep whichever arrow previously drew blood. Consider it a gift from fate. I’ll even tell you their secrets.”
Enyaba suddenly backed away from the table, fetching a metal lockbox from behind her. Soldered on the lid was a “Justice” emblem depicting skulls and smoke.
Justice, indeed. If the “fate” this witch spoke of was true, perhaps there truly was some divine intervention guiding the boy’s steps.
“120 million lire…” he muttered to himself. It was more than Solido was expecting. In truth, he had only dared to hope for about 1 million, despite his grave efforts in seizing the arrows. This money would be enough for him to buy a plane ticket out of Egypt, to start a new life and prosper in the possession of his new fortune.
Solido Naso inhaled, his body at peace with itself but his mind everywhere all at once. He could feel his demon inside of him write, craving more than what he’d been offered and climbing further in its ambitions.
“Do we have a dea–”
“150 million.” Solido stared her down as he felt his body being overtaken by a supernatural force. The table creaked beneath his palms as he thrust his full weight forward, his voice becoming deeper and more aggressive. No more did a youth’s hopeful naivete shine through his eyes. Cosmic horror in those fractured pupils, in the rigid lines of his pale face, somehow both undeveloped and ancient.
Enyaba felt chills. Her watery blue eyes, ridged by moth-eaten furrows, shone with a ferocity that more than matched this self-important usurper.
“135,” she retorted.
“160.”
“Have you no sense for bartering, boy?” Enyaba threw her head back and cackled.
“The same fate that drew me here also demands a price.” Solido Naso vocalized with a booming voice. Enyaba could feel the boy’s voice warble and shift down an octave, as if a king or an emperor were speaking.
“160.” Enyaba said finally. Her voice was soft, barely permeating the noisome squalor and heat around them.
“Deal.” Solido’s booming voice disappeared after that, and he raised his hands from the table and looked Enyaba in the eye, who gave a toothless, leering grin and opened the lockbox with one thump of her staff. The sight of Italian notes so lovingly bundled together sent a thrill through Solido’s entire body. With this money, he could overcome his past trauma and move on - living a life of peace and prosperity. He could very well guide others into not falling into the same hole as he.
Solido palmed the notes and counted them, counted again and again. He was scarcely cognizant of setting the box of arrowheads on Strega’s table, save the one that had proven particularly bloodlusty. That arrowhead was secured away in his pocket as if a key to a fortune had been safely tucked away.
Enyaba spoke again, running her wrinkled fingers over the arrows like a dragon to its lucre.
“I can tell you’re trying to run from something, boy. Perhaps it’s fate altogether. You think you can change your destiny, no matter what, but at the end of the day, it truly is set in stone. We are all slaves to fate, even if you run to the ends of earth. Even if you were to try to ‘leap’ over it, fate will eventually drag you down.”
“What?” Solido Naso said, though he particularly couldn’t care less about what had just come from her mouth.
“Let me make it simple: The arrow chooses people, and is drawn like a magnet to its chosen. Fate set this event in stone. You were chosen by the arrow…and you can never escape that.”
The young boy gave a wicked grin. Bank notes danced in his mind and he exhaled smoke and a want for more blood. Enyaba watched him disappear into the cloud of strangers. A strange sabiun, to be sure, but one could not evolve by staying protected in one’s own little oasis.
She decided to tell the boy’s fortune. An homage to the conversation that had snared her current thoughts. As she’d done a million times, the old woman cracked her arthritic joints and shuffled the deck. Cards tumbled over themselves like stone fortresses being erected and destroyed over and over; each sweep, each shuffle summoning the ribbon-chain ties of fate to creep over the cards.
Enyaba drew from her Major Arcana deck…
Time paused and the desert air drew a breath…
Death.
An eyebrow crooked up the crow’s feet on the old woman’s face. Interesting.
She shuffled again.
Death.
Again.
Death.
Again.
Death.
Death.
Death.
∗ ∗ ∗
Solido crept through the darkened shadows of the flea market. He was no longer so downtrodden and scared, though he recognized the dire need to be cautious. The young boy’s old boots sloshed through sewer water and animal dung in back alleyways, tipping around jutting doorwars and cobbled steps. Above him, the sky was dark and webbed with hazy outlines of stars.
He stumbled over a sleeping vagrant curled beneath a quilt and realized then how bone-achingly tired he was. The tendons of his legs seemed to be unraveling. He stepped left and his body swayed right. He jumped a low cart laden with rotting detritus and his body nearly collapsed. Somehow, Solido still maintained a sense of direction.
That old woman, Enyaba, must have infected him with her superstition, the boy mused. Whenever he wandered off the path, a long blink surged a psychedelic slew of directions to the forefront of his brain. Thus, guided by alleys and a primordial intuition, Solido managed to reenter the area that he had parked.
He wiped weariness from his blurry eyes and scratched at his short hair. His fingernails came away with dirt and sand, and Solido stared at the blisters on his palms. His insides seemed as frail as kindling in a bonfire. Soon enough, he would leave this swarm of foreigners behind and check into a 5-star hotel. A nice, hot shower and a bed tended to by the hotel staff were all he could think about. Comforts like those seemed like gems in this desert.
“Shit. This is the vehicle, right?” Solido heard, his hair standing on its end.
“Yeah. Same license plate, same seat covers… That bastard didn’t even try, huh?”
Solido froze.
“Those artifacts are gone too. Must’ve come here to sell ‘em.”
“Right. Call Cepo and Dakarai. We’ll search every fucking inch of the market if we have to.”
The boy turned tail then, racing back down the maze of hot, smoky alleys, dank with human odor and spiced foods. He passed beneath a clothesline wrenched around two banisters like barbed wire and snatched a pair of dark linen pants and a woman’s shirt. Rounding a bend, Solido found a leaky spigot spewing copper down an abandoned passageway.
The young man ducked to strip his filthy clothes in between sucking in handfuls of river water. He cupped the water in his scarred palms and let it splash over him, let the water run down the blisters and scars and burns and carry all of the detritus of his body down into the sewers. Shaking the wet sand out of his hair, he redressed quickly and mechanically.
Donatella had called him beautiful, laughing when he swam with a shirt and prying blankets from his bared silhouette so she could curl up beside him. Her words seemed like a lie now. Liar, liar, city on fire.
He could feel his body wanting to throw away the past and the humiliation that was stuck to it. It seemed that those memories were just an age of starlight, where hope was a fool’s gold, rigid and bone-breaking instead of the malleable future he had once hoped to glimpse. He’d become cocky for a moment. That arrogance made him vulnerable, made him weak.
Solido stood. Rusty water leached into his worker’s boots. The pants fit well, despite being a few inches too long. He leaned against the brick wall behind him and rolled up the excess hem. His shirt barely covered his ribs, was loose and had some faded Arabic splattered across the front and sleeves. The boy wet his fingertips once more with copper and slicked his hair out of his blistered face.
A cornered mouse is no match for a snake, but he still had claws and fangs. ∗ ∗ ∗
Solido followed the crescendo of laughter and shouting until the alleyways regurgitated him onto some other market boulevard. Shops offered supernatural relics and bowls of noodles with equal fervor. He’d startle with every movement around him, his bloodshot eyes and twitching, wary, demeanor drew stares. To an outsider, such a boy wouldn’t seem as if he was kind and innocent, yet that was all he perceived himself to be.
He pretended to admire a ngoni and smiled good-naturedly at a shopkeeper attempting to swindle him. In some other universe, perhaps he was merely some university student on holiday. Indeed, this area was flush with tourists, as evidenced by the unfathomable prices and garish displays, as opposed to that other market’s rawer, more honest wares.
Tourists signaled fortune. There must be an airport nearby, or at least some major hub of transportation. Solido walked further, an eternal eye cast for predation, until he saw taxis idling by a larger boulevard.
Signaling a black and white cab, he asked that the driver take him to the airport. Solido knew he had no passport. After all, any information regarding him should have been burned in Sardinia, so he fled it by boat rather than by plane. However, he was going to the airport for the simple reason that it was much faster. It would be impossible for him to stake his newfound aspirations on the merciless sea and the even crueler bureaucracy that defiled it.
On the way to Egypt, he’d chatted with shipsmen, always engineering the conversations for his own informational benefit. If he managed access to the right people, he could pay off a private pilot to take him to Italy or France. There were always such unscrupulous types at all crosssections of human traffic– they would whet their teeth on his proffered money and be more than willing to provide a few one-sided favors. The plan was simple when calculated theoretically, but Solido was almost nauseous from the uncontrolled, uncountable variables.
Solido thought sitting in the backseat of an air conditioned cab would be a balm after sand and craggy, trash-strewn alleyways but he panicked in the metal confines of a racing death trap. Every jolt of the car thrust his heart from his chest and soon he was gasping shallow inhales like a minnow squeezed in a child’s inexorable fist.
“You’ll never reach home.” The driver grinned. His dark eyes flared crimson in the rear-view mirror.
“What?!” Solido yelped and he was scrabbling desperately for the door handle, the unlock button; he slammed his fist into the dusty panes of the window–
“Sir, calm down, sir,” The driver yelled in a rough, warm accent. “Sir, I asked if you going home? Allah! Do you want us to crash, man?!”
“Oh…” The young man felt like giggling. He was light-headed. Perhaps it was the Egyptian sun, but Solido quickly glanced outside and was met with a night sky. The driver swore under his breath, something about psychotic tourists.
He lay his head against the dusty glass for a while, and let the sounds of the city take him in. Hours seemed to pass by in a matter of seconds, and he found himself thinking about his situation.
It had been almost 20 years since he was born in a female prison in the summer of 1967.
A repulsive freak from the moment he emerged from the wound…
The guards had called him Diavolo. They had swaddled him in prison rags, their faces twisted in disgust, as his mother wailed in the other room. So much blood… there was violence in new life, in the carnal callousness of birth. Perhaps Solido should have cried, but there was something in him that became twisted, like a scabrous oak growing horizontally from the perilous crags in which it was sown.
He inhaled quickly, thinking of his childhood.
His saintly adopted father made it a personal crusade to drive God into his unholy ward. The rest of the local populace treated Solido as if he were scum; it was only the influence of the priest that prevented them from persecuting this unnatural newcomer as if he was conducting black magic.
Solido recognized his inherent difference from society each time he watched mothers hold their babies and young children run seaside while he wiped brimstone from the pulpits. He felt different, alone, from everyone else in the world. He simply had none to turn to but the voices in his head.
His priest father told him that Joan of Arc heard the voices of angels. Of all the scriptures he was forced to memorize– each mistake another scar– this Biblical trivia resonated with him the most. Every time he was beaten, Solido would black out, and the pain would disappear, although the scars remained.
Perhaps he was hearing angels, Solido had thought, when things inside him pulsated and whispered. There were more than one - sometimes they would want to play with him and other times they’d mock him. Each of these voices had their own distinct personality, as if it was a children’s classroom. His vision would fracture sometimes, like a radio overcome by static, and he would awake somewhere else as the voices in his head all fought for control of him.
Animals, then, became a solace. There was nothing contradictory about a frog that was born from an egg like a bird, spent its childhood as a gelatinous fish, and then grew arms and legs through sheer force of will and joined the terrestrial creatures of the wild.
He enjoyed sitting in the middle of roads and talking to the animals, mainly frogs, much to the displeasure of the drivers. While all the other kids were focused on their schoolwork, he’d pay attention to simple things such as animals or plants. The boy would avoid his reflection in the mirror, stumbling over basic questions.
“Describe yourself.” A teacher had asked casually.
Solido stared at blank paper and sat passively while other kids jeered at him. He was an idiota, for sure. The voices inside him gnashed their teeth, and he’d gone home empty…as usual.
He remembered his mother’s return from prison in 1975, how she’d looked at him with disgust rather than any compassion as he’d hoped. That was the day he felt more alone than ever, breaking down and crying in a corner while children played their favorite game of calcio nearby.
That didn’t last long, however, A few days after returning, Solido’s mother could begin to hallucinate and see things that weren’t there. She’d complain that her son was possessed by the Devil himself, and that his presence would consume the village with fire. Solido would look at her with innocent eyes, in complete confusion, as his foster father attempted to defend him from her.
Exorcisms didn’t work, for the demon wasn’t possessing Solido Naso. Rather, it was him. He remembered his body flying through the air as his foster father repeated phrases in Latin, only making the demon angrier and more violent.
Then, he woke up one night with a shovel in his hand, his mother nowhere to be found. It was as if he’d regained consciousness, and some creature inside him snarled in warning. He’d glanced over at drops of blood on the floor and went back to sleep, but that was the last he’d ever heard of his mother. In the morning, all he recalled were the birds making a nest outside the little cottage he shared with his father. Solido watched the birds fly out to sea– disappearing over the horizon to somewhere better.
It was then that he wanted to be a sailor. There were no growls of disapproval, no hisses nor snarls from his inner menagerie of beastly angels. After all, Solido was a clumsy, clueless boy.
It was then that he could see his father’s eyes, narrowing at the odd choice of profession. After what felt like an hour of staring, he relaxed his posture, telling Solido Naso that he was proud of him.
A neighbor spoke of a sailboat that he with his old bones and gout could no longer maintain but could, perhaps, sell to a young lad who promised a decent sum and an adventure at sea.
So many promises… so much potential…
But he’d awoken one night, standing up and staring at the roaring fire that pooled around the village, encompassing it whole. All he remembered before was an overwhelming sense of fury at the village, at everything it did to him, but he retained no memory of the incriminating and infamous event that caused the village to burn down. He hoped that night, that if there really was a hand of fate, it would guide Donatella to safety.
There was no choice. He cupped the flames but it could have been someone else. It could have been a stranger who had stolen his eyes.
The sinister voice in his head guided him towards this path, and the stronger the fire, the stronger the voices in his head grew. They grew louder with each insult the kids threw at him. They grew louder when he saw Donatella’s face in his dreams. They grew louder, and louder, until…
“We’re here, sir.”
He felt the taxi slow to a crawl.
Solido awoke to reality once again. He was far away from Sardinia, and he wasn’t planning to return.
The young man mumbled something groggily and peered outside with a strange sense of joy as planes made straight, gray streaks across the sky as if they were lines of cocaine.
“Ahem.” Was the taxi driver’s pointed reminder that he still needed to pay.
Solido grunted in acquiescence and reached into his pocket.
“How much?”
“600 EGP.”
The young man’s hand stilled. That couldn’t be possible. That was almost 70,000 Lire.
“Um…sir… That’s not fair at all.” Solido said with a light sweat, putting his hands up to indicate he wasn’t a threat. “How about…115 EGP? Does that work with you?”
“I hope you joking, sir.” The driver said in bad English, pinning him with a wrathful stare. “Awful to joke at someone who just drove you ‘cross city.”
“I have 115 EGP.” Solido repeated, his voice beginning to drop. “That’s all. I need to catch a plane– ”
“Broke my fucking window, man. Beating on it. This my job, sir. By Allah, you think I drive for fun?”
“I don’t hand out money for fun either.”
The driver growled an insult in Arabic and leaned into the backseat. His arm protruded to jab at the young man, each snarled assault punctuated with another swipe of his hand. The driver’s nails were rimmed with dark grime.
Solido stared blankly. Something in him was coiling tighter and tighter, wound to an excruciating, writhing tension.
He wasn’t breathing. Hazy, kaleidoscopic abuse. An old song of distant pain.
The driver screamed louder. His entire girth, barely contained in a cheap polo shirt, obtruded into Solido’s space. Spittle flew from his mouth.
“You try ‘an swindle me, huh? Cheap foreign asshole! You think you fuck people around? You think you do what you please, huh? Thats n’how it works! You hear me, you piece of– you– y– ahhk- gkk– ”
“What?” Solido asked. “You didn’t finish.”
The driver choked. His eyes bulged from his sallow, waxy face like a trout’s, and it was too late, for the demon inside had emerged to wreak havoc. A low huff came from the taxi’s engine as it idled, idled, then died.
“What?” Solido smiled. It was a wicked smile. There was nothing human in the crook of his pale lips and the slant of his fangs. His eyes lost their pupils as yellow triangular highlights began to make themselves visible, staring up at their prey.
This was so nice.
Solido squeezed harder, digging his fingers into the driver’s arteries until he felt the weakened patter of a heartbeat– so small and fragile– a rabbit’s aorta bleeding rose petals in his fist.
The driver gasped and then ceased gasping as his throat was forcefully constricted. Drops of blood trickled from his nose onto the cheap leather below.
“It’s better to be quiet, isn’t it?” Solido said with a booming, devilish voice. “I never go looking for trouble, so I’ll give you 120 EGP and make my exit. I feel that’s more than enough. After all, I’m a man who likes his solitude, isn’t that right?”
He opened his hand and gave the driver a chance to answer. No word - the man’s eyelids had slipped shut. Blood trickled from his lips and ran down his immobile chest.
This was the being they called Diavolo, no longer the country boy named Solido Naso. It was enjoyable this way, to be at the top of a peak, of a climax, and all others could lay gentle at his feet. It was what he wanted, and he would stop at nothing to achieve this.
He maneuvered the driver to lay across the middle console and put about 10,000 Lire on the man’s seat. To some innocent bystander, that man could have been sleeping. Diavolo flashed an evil grin, content that none could meddle in his business any longer. He disappeared back into Solido Naso’s body, and he awoke once more to see his hands covered in the blood of others. Yelping, Solido unlocked the backseat door with a few probing button clicks and stepped out into the darkened terminal of the airport, letting some blood pour onto the floor.
Solido thought of his frogs and of Donatella, so quiet and sweet, unlike the situation he’d found himself in. He crept around the periphery, past where sleepy tourists stumbled towards taxis and rental cars and wide-eyed expatriates inhaled the sight of their homeland once again. A long, abandoned walkway wound the circumference of the airport building and ducked beneath an older, decrepit parking garage.
Solido followed the increasingly frequent deposits of cigarette butts and splashes of graffiti. A door slammed open somewhere and he whirled towards the obtrusion in his periphery.
Soft, shuddering cries reached Solido’s ears next and he witnessed a man slink out of the gloom grasping a young girl by the hand and carrying a dingy, padlocked suitcase. The girl tried in vain to pull away but the man shook his suitcase threateningly, hissing curses in a foreign language.
When their eyes met, the man’s scleras were bloodshot, his pupils blue-black and hazy.
Solido turned and crept in another direction, unwilling to intervene.
He came up against a fence that separated the grimy terrestrial from the weightless world of huge, boxy carrier planes and sleek private jets lining up on the runway to escape gravity. The young man’s stomach chose then to lurch painfully, and he fell partly onto the fence, gripping the chain-link coils to hold himself up.
Almost there. Almost away.
His fate was not to remain in Egypt. He knew it. The arrows and his escape had proved it. There would be more for him than a hurt, troubled boy bleeding out on desert sand.
Solido resolved himself to continue, to continue surveying the airport for his departure, when he heard–
Chk chk chk chk chk chk chk chk chk chk chk…
The boy jumped back from the fence and saw a woman approaching. Her teeth were crooked and yellowed, a long cigarette jutting between botox-stiffened lips. She wore a ragged coat and the staccato clicking came from her long nails clacking against the fence. Solido stared her down, shifting subconsciously into a fighting stance, one born of the abuse he had taken his entire life. He would progress. He would succeed, and the arrow in his pocket seemed to warm with his conviction.
Finally, the woman stood parallel to him across the fence. She exhaled herbal smoke that curled and constricted in the night air.
A plane touched down behind her, temporarily washing them in glaring light and thunderous sound. The woman wore hieroglyph earrings, which jangled against her skull.
“Who are you?!” Solido yelled over the noise. Wind whipped his words to shreds. Then the plane slowed and taxied away, and all remained silent once more.
Another metal vulture circled above them.
“Who are you?” Solido asked again.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re looking for a ride, yeah?” Her voice was a lilting rasp. “I hope you can pay.”
Solido looked past her at the planes. He hated having to rely on strangers. Even close friends could betray him at any time, prying into the intimate secrets he held dear, and Solido was no stranger to that. What’s a boy supposed to do? There were killers everywhere and he had not the weapons to extricate himself completely.
The woman seemed a professional at this unsanctioned business, for any matter. Or perhaps she was a professional at swindling people, putting them on planes destined for more servitude.
The voices in his head called him weak for relying on others…needing others.
Yet Solido knew it wouldn’t be this way forever. He could fight through this and if it ended in ruin, he could continue fighting. Solid took in another breath, nodding as the woman named her price.
“2 million.” She spoke monotonously.
The boy swallowed grimly. He could pay that…it’d only be a small piece of his newfound fortune, much to his relief, but the money was his nonetheless. He didn’t want to cough it up to strangers. Perhaps he could argue, just like how he did with–
“That price isn’t negotiable,” The woman said, as if reading his mind. “You can bitch all you want, the only thing I care about is ‘yes, I’ll pay’ or ‘no, I’ll leave.’”
“I’ll pay.” Solido replied sternly.
He forked over the requested funds through a gap in the fence and the woman smiled, exhaling smoke like a sated dragon. Before she could turn away, Solido lunged forward and grabbed her wrist. He felt the brittle bones bent like twigs in her ashen skin. He wouldn’t physically fracture her, but he let his intent to do so glimmer in his eyes.
“I’ll kill you if I’m led astray.” His voice reverberated as a growl. The woman was, indeed, a professional but there was a tightening of her eyes and the fear of something cornered. “Even if you lay a single finger on me…”
Another plane descended to the tarmac. It hit and then bounced, all 500 tons careening wildly and wheels spinning for purchase. It fishtailed when it came down again, then resumed a straight deacceleration.
Solido imagined the people inside screaming.
“This is dishonest work, sure,” The woman said. “But I– ”
“Sh.”
She blanched. Solido gripped her wrist until the plane was taxied off the runway. It was quiet then, save for distant roars of plane engines and the incessant bustle of travelers.
“You were saying?” Solido asked again.
“I’m honest.” The woman finished, ripping her arm back through the fence, “‘...much as anyone can be in this fucking world.”
“Alright. When will the plane come?”
“It’ll be a, uh, a cargo plane. XN459 is the number I believe. It’s out in Lot 9 right now, being loaded up. It leaves in an hour thirty.”
“Alright.” Solido nodded his head.
“You know, there’s something… different… about you.” The woman held his gaze for a minute.
“What?” Solido surreptitiously glanced around. Was this where the trap came in? The metal bars would lower around him? No, the woman was already shaking her head.
“Most folks just blur together…” She seemed like she was yearning to say more, yet her next utterances were another smokey exhale and a bitter laugh. “If anyone gives you trouble, tell ‘em Ammut sent you.”
Solido nodded. His stomach knotted from the knowledge that he could still be betrayed, yet, again, this was his best opportunity to succeed. He waited a moment to see if the woman had any parting words or advice, but she was mute, content to smoke her herb and stare. A plane set the runway behind them in its sights and prepared to take off.
“Thanks.” Solido said in a monotonous voice before the world was once more consumed by hot metal and air. The woman took a drag and stalked away, and Solido watched her ragged coat flap in the artificial wind as the plane accelerated, faster and faster, thrusting into the air as its talons coiled into its stomach and its wings unfurled.
It was but a hazy speck in the clouds, that plane, by the time the woman had disappeared and Solido continued on his way towards a narrow, pockmarked road winding through some arid shrubbery. A control tower stood erect in the distance and at its base bustled trucks and giant cargo planes idling on the tarmac while workers transported freight into their cavernous holds.
“Lot 9” A sign stated. Solido nearly coughed on his sigh of relief. He lifted the hem of his cropped shirt and wiped his brow with the Arabic print. A canvas tote he’d stolen earlier swung from his bony shoulders. When he dropped his shirt, looked up, he saw a truck driving down the road.
Merda.
He quickly dodged off the road and hoped the driver hadn’t seen his face. The last time he’d been pursued… No. No. How could he be found now? Now, when he was so, so close to liberation. It would be an abomination of fate for such a thing to happen.
Solido held his breath and half-crouched in the bushes, pretending to tie his boots as if he was merely a worker taking a walk off from base, yet a pebble in his sock or some other trivial matter had given him pause. Sweat dripped from the boy’s nose, splattering against his trembling fingers and the dirty, frayed shoelace wound between them as the truck rumbled closer and closer before coming to an abrupt stop - right in front of him.
Solido rammed every fragment of his attention into tying his shoes. He forced his breaths to come evenly, naturally. His short, sweaty hair hung over his face, providing a small amount of security.
He heard the window roll down and tensed for a fight.
“You know where this road goes?” A gruff, elderly, and non-threatening voice asked.
Solido looked up to see a huge, unfolded paper map spanned across the window. The driver and occupants were completely obscured by the map and tinted windows.
“Uh… yes, it leads to Lot 9, a cargo loading area.” Solido tried to crack a small smile.
“Oh!” The voice chuckled. “Guess I’ve gotten a bit turned around. You work there?”
“Er, yes, sir. It’s easy to get lost around here.” Solido choked out a dry laugh. He held his hand up to his face, shielding his eyes from the sun. All the exhaust from the truck was making him nauseous and the swelter added insult to injury.
“Oh, haha. I suppose so. And you work there, as you say. So you would know, wouldn’t you?”
Solido took a step away from the truck. His heart was in his throat. Merda. This driver wouldn’t leave him alone. And his voice, there was something about it that gave him chills…
“Hm? Wouldn’t you?” No longer amiably gruff, the voice had a nasty edge to it, like something grating and egotistical.
“Uh. Y- ye-”
“But that’s not true….because you work for me. Isn’t that right, Solido Naso?”
Every drop of blood froze in the boy’s body.
The map was flung away from the window and sitting in the driver’s seat was the archaeologist.
Mirrored shades reflected Solido’s terror and his perfect teeth were wrenched into a grin like a wolf having its feast of lamb. He opened the truck door and stepped down, dressed in his characteristic ivory reefer, and the avian skulls on his lapel seemed to stare with the same vicious intent as their wearer.
The archaeologist's boots thundered on the road towards Solido with the power of a bull in an arena, horns lowered, clenched fists irate and ready to impale him. Behind him, three other men exited the truck - mercenaries. Their faces were stoic; they let the leather grips of their knives buckled into tactical gear and the hefty barrels of their assault rifles talk for them.
Another truck ambled up the road behind Solido. Its driver seemed unconcerned as he slowly rolled to a stop. The people inside bristled with the metallic quills of pistols and rifles. Solido glanced around wildly, his gaze careening from horror to horror. Guns and men surrounded him, eager to tear him apart– the Archaeologist stopped in front of him and had to call Solido’s name three times for the boy to finally tear his wide-eyed, twitchy look from the constricting circle of predators.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment all day.” The Archaeologist said conversationally, his jubilant tone belying the way he signaled his men to press into Solido on every side. “I really have to commend you for getting past those guards and stealing the car from earlier. You got far. Unfortunately, your little game of ‘take the money and run’ ends here and a new story called ‘dirty, ungrateful wop gets beaten to death’ is just about to commence. Let’s show these gents what happens when a real man is disrespected.” Solido darted towards the shrubbery and shots rang out around him. A bullet grazed his arm and he saw, rather than felt, the blood splatter his cropped shirt. The young man managed to throw himself down a short embankment, rocks driving into his ribs and scathing, thorned foliage scratching him as he tumbled, falling to a heap at the bottom and looking up as muzzles snapped to target between his eyes.
A few men stood around him. The rest easily crept down the steep slope with the Archaeologist sheltered in between them. Solido shook, his breaths heaving double-time, and all the while the guns tipped closer. Sweat drenched the boy’s stolen shirt and pants, trickled into his sunken, bloodshot eyes. His movements were wild, almost feral as he clambered to his feet. The tote he’d been carrying had fallen, partially obscured beneath a crop of prickly pear cactus.
He couldn’t even see Lot 9 from here, his eyes filled with only despair.
“No, no, no. Why do you keep disobeying, Solido Naso?” The Archaeologist paused to take a swig out of a silver tumbler. Already, dark splotches of sweat discolored his reefer. “There’s really no point in running, boy. Well, I mean, you could run. If you wanted. It would just mean you’d die in a sprinting position like a rabid dog. And, truly, would you really… ”
The Archeologist’s words faded away as Solido gathered his wits, the remaining vestiges of his sanity and perseverance.
Fate would not abandon him.
“It was fate that these arrows arrived at my table tonight. They alone can control the fate of a human being.”
“Hey, psycho,” the archaeologist sneered, “Get down on your fucking knees. You think you can stare me in the eye? You?! An uneducated piece of shit.”
Solido dropped to his knees as if his legs had been kicked out from under him, but he kept a level glare on the Archaeologist. No longer was he shaking in terror. His heart was still shuddering in his chest, but the blood surged in preparation of fighting, not some feeble attempt at resuscitating a fallen corpse.
And it was because he was on his knees that he felt the rumble. Pebbles pitched on the arid ground and Solido felt a vibration creep up his body. Meanwhile, the Archaeologist kept barking his grievances. His mercenaries were as still as toy soldiers, though some of them looked around out of sheer boredom.
“What makes the world go ‘round, Naso, is the age-old principle of ‘don’t take my fucking shit.’ It’s elementary, but effective. And you broke that, you thankless bastard–”
Solido brushed aside a fine coating of sand and felt his hand skid over asphalt. The road was warm and he felt the quaver in the crushed slag and petroleum. He didn’t dare move his head, but he swept his eyes along the dusty outline of road to where it disappeared around the bend of the embankment and felt what could only be–
“I took you in, took all you illiterate sons of bitches in, and for what– ”
An oil truck careened around the corner. Its cab was a dusky brown, streaked raw from unrelenting sand and sun; the tanker behind it gleaming and silver like the barrel of a pistol. With each passing second of drivel that spilled from the Archaeologist’s mouth, the truck hurled forward.
Pure happiness split the boy’s face into a grin, his atrophied aspirations blooming once more. In an instant, he threw himself up and ran at the truck, shoving several guards out of his way as he ran straight into the direction of the truck. A few hands made their way to his ankles, but none were able to hold on for long.
One of the guards raised a 9mm pistol at him, but Solido kicked sand into his face, causing him to lurch away, swiping at his eyes and maintaining a blurry pupil at the fast-approaching tanker instead of a defiant captive. The other guards began to run after Solido, but the boy knew his own speed, and he knew very well that speed didn’t matter anymore. If what that witch, Strega, said was correct, fate could carry him faster than any guard could pursue him.
The oil tanker shimmered like a mirage, its driver a mere sketch, but Solido held fast to this new opportunity. He broke into a full sprint and thrashed sand and shreds of prickly pear in his wake. All those cuts and contusions, the lack of sleep and sustenance… everything faded away. Pure adrenaline flowed through his body. It was no longer desperation, like when he fled the excavation site in that car. Instead…
Fate had delivered him after all. He heard the archaeologist roar from behind him.
“Don’t just fucking stand there, you useless buffoons! Shoot that scheming asshole!!”
“Er, sir? We can’t– ”
“Did I pay you to question me? Did I?!”
“Oil is, uh, flammable, sir. It– ”
Solido laughed into the dry air, forcing him to cough, and his pupils and grin were blasted unnaturally wide, yet he was jubilant as he skidded to a stop about a hundred meters from the oil tanker and waved his hand. He peered behind him momentarily. Surprisingly, no one had followed him.
The truck slowed. One of the windows was cranked down in a shudder of dust and creaking glass.
“What is this?” A gravelly voice demanded, proceeding the emergence of a lined, evidently displeased face that was wrapped in a cobalt scarf.
“I’ve been attacked by men who want to illegally board a plane!” Solido cried; it was easy for him to shift into the persona of a young, timid boy who was surprised at the world and horrified when caught in the grasp of crude intentions. “Please, sir. Help me! They’ll come for us both!”
One of the shapeless, amorphous things inside of his head took over. It re-made itself in someone else’s body. Solido’s eyes widened like a doe’s, their color turning from green to brown. His face began to seem more childlike, and his starved, slender silhouette was now indicative of a growing adolescent instead of one scoured by hardship.
The driver ducked back inside his cab to squint at the Archaeologist and his mercenaries in the distance. They formed a wary clump, with one figure wildly gesturing and the others stiff, hesitant, surely insubordinate. Those that had tried to pursue him were instead called back.
When the driver reappeared, Solido held a worker’s badge. Ah, what luck in stealing that tote! He only prayed that the driver would not look too closely–
“Get in.” The driver grunted.
“Get-? Ah! Thank you, sir!!” Solido wasted no time in scrambling into the cab.
He felt safe sitting atop the crackled, lump seats. The truck smelled of stale, scorching air, and soured curry. Perhaps not to his tastes, but it was a throne in comparison to what he’d been living.
As they drove on, Solido stared down at the Archaeologist when he and his motley crew materialized by the side of the road. The man had torn his reefer off in rage, was red-faced and shouting about what a duplicitous thief Solido Naso was. A few of the mercenaries were huddled together for what seemed to be a covert discussion. There was nothing but disgust as they looked at their employer and this knowledge of vengeance sated Solido greatly.
Though the mercenaries’ loyalty had flagged under the Archaeologist’s feverish persistence, the young man had no doubt that though this battle had ended, the war would continue. Hopefully once he was in another country, across the Mediterranean, he could find a way to be safe.
“So…they attacked you to get on a plane?” The driver asked, keeping his dark eyes on the road, his scarf fluttering softly in the gusts of the dashboard vents.
“Yes, sir. They thought I had access to something like that.”
“Ha! Alhamqaa. Foolish, greedy men. Can’t be bothered to learn our names but think we’re at fault for their mistakes.”
Solido nodded in an affirmative. Something in him hissed and seethed. Yes, those arrogant, disgusting men will perish. When he ruled, he would not be expendable nor would he be some blunt tool expected to acquiesce to its owner’s demands.
When he ruled? The young man shivered. The thoughts of such raw, immense power frightened him. His mind only wanted safety, away from his trauma and away from anything that could hurt him, yet thinking those thoughts were like setting sail before finding a sturdy boat. There needed to be order. He repeated his version of events pertaining to the Archaeologist once more when the driver phoned the police. For the first time in a long while, Solido could fully exhale. A bit of tightness left his body and he glanced in the rear view mirror to watch as the Archaeologist was swallowed up by desert sands.
“If you don’t dig this hole now, I swear to God, I will shoot you and leave your body in the desert to rot.”
The memory of that excavation surged in Solido’s memory. How long had it been since he struck gold in a moment of despair and then ran for his life. Time wasn’t holding up, though it wasn’t after him either, per se. It was as though they had an allegiance for the moment, he and time, and the thoughts of that allegiance let Solido relax.
“So, where you working?” The driver asked amiably. He seemed more friendly now.
Perhaps a chance to rage against the machine had buoyed his spirits.
“I’m supposed to be packing a cargo plane. XN459, I think.”
“Oh. One of the European ones?” The driver asked as Solido shivered in relief. The woman hadn’t misled him after all. After a few minutes of silence, the truck pulled near a plane that was parked on the tarmac. Men were moving boxes inside as fast as they could while smaller trucks rumbled by.
“Well, here we are.” The driver clapped Solido on the back and the young man attempted to hide his wince. “Glad I could help. You show those alhamqaa that you are better than any of them.”
Solido nodded, and as the oil tanker departed, he was surprised to feel a sort of mourning for the innocence inside him. He’d felt reborn, refreshed, and rejuvenated, as if he knew his purpose in life.
“A peasant’s dream…when we are so much more…” A deep voice rang inside his head, blocking out every other thought.
Solido’s legs buckled; he clutched his head in agony as his pupils splintered into disparate, kaleidoscopic parts. Something inside of him had tried to take control of his body, forcing him in a different direction. Solido breathed in and out, closing his eyes and focusing his mind as the influence slowly disappeared. When he opened his eyes, nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary.
“Hey! You there! We need two guys at XN459 handling the storage inside the cargo bay!”
Solido began to smile, and walked towards the plane. He pretended to move boxes around the way they were supposed to as the men outside shoved boxes into the interior. No one seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary with him, so he concluded that he was doing a good enough job. This continued for about 20 minutes, until Solido heard something that he had been waiting to hear.
“Alright, this plane’s done! The rest of you, break time!”
Before they could check for anyone missing, Solido ducked between two boxes, and the big metal door on the end of the airline began to close, sealing away Egypt and the archeologist from his vision and causing him to lightly laugh in relief. Around him, he heard the vibrational movement of wheels and the extension of the plane’s wings as it approached the runway. It might have been distant thunder - intangible, impassive - and Solido was lulled to sleep by this mechanical monotony.
A few hours later, he woke up again, this time in a chill. The young man had gone to sleep atop a crate over which a blue, quilted moving blanket was draped and secured with coils of rope. Solido shivered uncontrollably as goosebumps invaded his bare skin.
It was freezing inside this aircraft.
Solido had slipped off his worker’s boots to sleep and an exploratory toe-touch to the floor made him jerk back in shock. Even the slightest brush on metal floors felt as if he was striding into a meat locker. He could hear the roar of the engines, though it sounded like they were slowing down. Wherever they were, they were getting ready to land.
A crate next to him began to whimper. He peered through one of the holes to find a small, white terrier sniveling in the corner.
“So, you’re cold too, aren’t you?” Solido talked to the dog.
The dog’s only response was a sneeze.
“Silly creature…” He murmured, sticking his pinky finger through the holes and scratched the dog behind the ears. It seemed warm to him, nibbling and licking at his finger.
Despite all of his hardships, animals were still his favorite things in the world. They were straightforward, earnest. A nightingale will spend its life singing and flying, no matter its age or territory.
He turned away from the dog’s cage for a moment, intent on looking at his surroundings to pass the time before they landed. When that quickly became boring, Solido rubbed his eyes and tried to get some sleep, curling up next to the crates beside him.
Several minutes later, the plane began to land, throwing Solido around as it skidded to a stop. That rude awakening had caused his mind to race again, and it felt as if he was back in the desert, back in the alleyways of Cairo, holding in his serrated guts with one hand and hoping the pain, the screaming tragedy of it all wouldn’t kill him before the archeologist would have his head on a stick.
Now, things were different. He could escape his trauma, so long as no one saw him, or, dal diavolo, they called the police.
The plane slowed, then stopped, followed by the muffled voices of tarmac workers ringing out to the tempo of cargo trucks. Solido pressed his body into the corner, ensuring he wouldn’t immediately be seen.
The terrier next to him began to bark and shriek. Merda. He decided then that he no longer liked dogs. Frogs were much better. If only the box next to him had been filled with fucking frogs instead -
“Hey! We should probably get the animals out first!” He heard a voice from outside.
“I’ll go in and get them!” A younger voice cried out.
That was Italian. He really hoped he wasn’t back in Italy. Shit. That guy would see him for sure. Still, he wouldn’t let a minor inconvenience bring him down. Fate would carry him to victory. The man began to walk to the area closest to the cockpit, where Solido was hiding. Any second now…
“Dio mio! Are you a stowaway?!”
Perfect timing. He grabbed the worker by the shoulders, spun him around, and pressed his elbow against his neck, waiting for him to lose consciousness. The dog began to bark as the worker struggled to breathe, but in a few seconds, it would be over.
The young worker collapsed, unconscious, and Solido rushed to put on his clothes and hat, leaving the old ones stashed behind some boxes. As he walked towards the exit, his muscles seemed to throb, writhing under his skin.
“Solido…”
He ignored the voices in his head and continued to walk forward.
“You got the dog yet?” A worker appeared in the cargo hatch, framed by the bright, blue sky behind him.
Solido squinted into the daylight. Advertisements were tacked around the airport runway and plants that Solido recognized from Sardinia grew around the crisscrossing lanes of tarmac.
That sky, the fauna, the scent of the breeze… it was as familiar as Solido’s own hands. He was home, a realization both terrifying and incredible.
“Hey, if you’re not going to get it, then I’ll go.”
“Wh- what?” Solido broke from his reveries to see a worker brush past him.
Looks like he had no choice but to run. He ran out of the plane and past the other workers, who were taken aback in shock. Shoving a driver off his airport caddy, he stepped on the pedal to no avail as guards around him shouted to get off. The caddy remained motionless, and in that one moment, Solido had realized he hadn’t put the key in, but the adrenaline rush in his body caused the stew of voices in his head to stir even louder. The guards began to surround him as the demon in his head began to creep its way into his consciousness.
“My sweet boy…my dear…” It called to him affectionately. “You’re not fated to lose here.”
Solido couldn’t perceive what exactly it was talking about, as he lost all perception of time as if the world was buffering around him. One moment, the world was bright and oversaturated, and the next, it was gray and bleak. Then, as if time skipped, he found himself outside the airport, laying next to a nearby fountain. His hands were tinted red, and a cool liquid dropped from his face onto the water below, red and blue mixing together.
A family of American tourists expressed concern in stilted Italian, their eyes bugged out slightly and cameras at the ready as if expatriates seeing double and suffering from staggering migraines was part of the natural Italian charm.
The young man sat on the rim of the fountain and pressed a hand to his head. What was wrong with him…voices made a cacophony of vocal percussion in his head, one louder than the rest speaking in a deep, melodious cadence that was as comforting as it was callous and demanding.
Then it would garble like radio static and Solido would grit his teeth at the onslaught of a new pulsating wave of pain.
“You will live.” A demonic voice came from his head.
“I- I will live.” Solido choked out, surrendering to this feeling of helplessness within his own body. Panic set into his chest as his heartbeat accelerated.
“You will thrive.”
“I wi- will th- thrive- I- ”
“YOU WILL RULE THEM ALL!”
Solido grabbed his forehead, crying out as he threw himself into the fountain.
“Wow,” the American family said. “They have crazy hobos here too!”
They grinned and took pictures for their scrapbook.