Tarhetto: 

     Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a boy living in Egypt who traveled the world and its dimensions. He was beyond his age of nine in knowledge, but instead of people congratulating him, they ostracized him and banished him from the village to live in the Sahara desert(for the boy lived near it at the time). The boy’s name was Tarhetto III, and his mother and sisters had been taken captive when he was only five years old. His father hated him and threw him out of the house when he first realized Tarhetto’s smarts. One of the first people who spread the villages fear about Tarhetto was the local healer who raised the idea that he was a warlock and would curse their village if allowed to live within it any longer. Tarhetto was always a little chubby so it’s a wonder he survived through all his hardships and living on the streets throughout the winter after being thrown out of his house. He did have one friend, a friend that was like him, only everyone was in awe around this friend. The friend was a girl and his only surviving sister. Her name was Karen. She loved anything and everything about science.

     “Karen?” Tarhetto calls, “Where are you?”

     ‘Tarhetto…’ ‘Where are you?’ a for off voice calls. Tarhetto isn’t sure if the voice is close or not for echoes bounce off the sand dunes around him and confuse him. Resentful of his choices, he strikes off in a random direction and hopes for the best.

     Tarhetto feels like he’s wandering in circles. He hears voices coming from all directions. Finally, he gives up trying to make sense of it all and lies down on the sand. Once he’s still, he finds the answers to the voices. There seem to be tiny crystals covering the ground, and as the wind blows through them, they make the illusion of the sound of voices. Tarhetto is busy investigating them when a shadow falls over him. Frantically he sends a quick scan around him in search of something that will defend him. If the crystals make noise, perhaps they’re sharp…? Thinking this, he grabs a handful and flips over, ready to them at whoever or whatever is behind him. The crystals are sharp, too sharp. They dig into his hand and…

*****

Karen:

     In his hometown, his father is having a party to celebrate his son being finally gone. Karen is weeping in a corner and wishing she was dead. The party is full of people singing, drinking, and being rowdy. After a while, Karen decides to sneak away and go after her brother. She is not missed, but she’d be punished if her father found out.

     After escaping the party, Karen makes her way to the food storage to pack up and prepare herself for a trip into the desert. As she leaves the storage building, she sees a shadow disappear around a corner in front of her, but puts it up to her being stressed out instead of an actual threat. The shadow resembled a man who was carrying something cylinder shaped in one hand, resembling an oblong mug.

     Karen is passing through the outskirts of town when she hears a raised, strongly accented voice filtering out of the old healer's hut. It’s in a strange language that she has only heard being spoken by a few traders that pass through the village. It seemed to be mostly made up of ‘sh’ sounds and a strange nasal sound that she had never heard before. It reminded her of a snake. The voice suddenly stopped, as if sensing her presence outside. A figure steps up to the window and Karen hastily leaps back. It stands there for a few tense seconds, then returns from farther inside the hut.  She hurriedly returns to the window, determined to miss nothing. The conversation continues, but hushed. she can’t understand what is being said but can tell from the tone that it is very important.

     Out of the blue, steel-strong arms wrap themselves around her, cutting off her ability to speak or move. She is dragged into the hut and released in front of the figures. She frantically sends a glance around the room, catching a glimpse of her captor as she does, as he stands directly where the glow of the fire lands.

     It is an old man wearing a navy blue trench coat and a Black shirt hiding most of his skin, while a black fedora with a light gold band rests on his head. His face is mostly clean shaven, but with a hint of stubble here and there. He has a simple, replaceable face. He bows to the two figures and leaves the room.

     The two figures stand in shadow outside the glow of the fire. Karen recognizes one as the healer, but the other, clad in an even darker shadow somehow, is foreign to her. Perhaps it is just her imagination, but there seems to be a third figure floating about the second figures -- who is incredibly tall -- head? Just as Karen opens her mouth to utter a word of outrage, the tall figure steps into the light.

*****

Tarhetto:

     In the desert, Tarhetto stares upward, struck speechless. Standing above him was the last thing...what was it doing? It had to be ‘it’, Tarhetto had never seen a young man with so white a skin, so fair a hair, and so blue of eyes. It stared down at him in equal wonder.

     Tarhetto wondered if he was seeing things; how else could this happen? The young man had white wings as fine as satin which moved rhythmically as he stood there. The whole image reminded Tarhetto of an angel. The angel, or whatever it was, seemed just as startled with Tarhetto’s chubby, sweating body. Tarhetto felt ashamed of the pureness of the being compared to himself. Suddenly the angel started speaking.

          “What are you doing here?”

          “Um, being lost?”

          “Do not say something as a question if you are not asking one.”

          “Oh, well then, I got thrown out of my village, wandered about following what I thought were voices until I gave up and laid down, and then found myself here, with your pure self.”

          “Why did you get thrown out of your village?”

          “Because I’m not wanted there.”

          “Well then, come along.”

     With that, the angel strode off towards the horizon.

          “Um, where are we going?”

          “Now is not the time to be asking questions, come along.”

          “But, but…”

          “Are you coming or not? I don’t have all day.”

          “Ye-Yes, Sir!”

*****

Karen: 

     Back in the hut, Karen was meeting her worst nightmare, the man who had stepped into the light. His head was so mutilated that his face was beyond any recognition. A patch covered the spot his left eye should have been. Scars ran criss-cross over his face as if someone had tried to write ‘X’s on him, with a butcher knife. Half his nose was gone, leaving a flap of skin that moved as he breathed. His mouth, or what was left of it, looked like a jack-o-lantern's face that was smashed in. His ears were alike to pieces of confetti that moths had had a hay-day with. He looked like something that had crawled out of the depths of Hell. As the figures gaze focused on Karen, it’s remaining eye widened and the pupil(which was shaped like a snake's), grew until it filled the entire eye. He erupted into a string of what could only be assumed as cuss words in his strange snake-like language, his missing nose adding the strange nasal sound Karen had heard earlier.

*****

Tarhetto:

     After what seemed like years of wandering in circles to Tarhetto -- for he was sure that they had passed that same sand depression at least twice -- the angel crested the hill above them and said

          “We’re here.”

     Tarhetto hurriedly scrambled up the hill and nearly fell back down it again.

     Before him stretched a gigantic city that filled the entire valley. The city was filled with enormous towered buildings stretching to the skies and glittering so brightly it was hard to look at. The roads were paved with gold, and they shone with a rich, golden light. A few people walked along the streets their pace leisurely as if they had all the time in the world. At each corner there sat a majestic fountain, its clear, blue water glittering in the sun as if each drop was a diamond. The most majestic thing by far rested above the city and weaved between the towers. There above it all stretched a golden road, upon which an all manner of things walked, galloped or flew.