Alexandria, Egypt, April 17, 1974, 12:00 am.

   A breezy spring night. The city was quiet, with silver diffuse moonlight covering a hundred-year-old mansion on the Mediterranean Sea coast owned by the Abaza family generation after generation. That night the entire house was a block of darkness except for one room with dim lights and heavy cigar smoke. The room was enormous with walls covered in books line after line and many certificates and prizes, all with the same name and title.

   The novelist Ramzi Abaza.

   Tons of pictures all over the walls of the room with one person in common. One man throughout the years from his late twenties till his mid-sixties; had light blue hooded eyes with an intense yet warm look. Ramzi was sitting on a brown leather carver chair next to an opened balcony door, a cigar half-smoked, and a glass of water on the table next to him.

   Shaking his legs roughly as he stared at the door intensely. His eyes shifted from the door to the clock next to it. Before it hit midnight, he stood up and opened a safe embedded behind the massive row of books next to the balcony from the right.

   Ramzi opened the heavy door of the safe and it revealed an ancient book with unique symbols on its dark-brown leather cover. He grabbed the book slowly and went back to his chair. He left the book on the table next to him and inhaled the thick smoke of the cigar.

   Ramzi looked intimidated, yet his body was moving rather fast, racing the clock before it struck midnight. He flipped the pages until he reached page number six hundred sixty-six. Ramzi took another deep breath and then read it aloud. He looked at the clock and then held the glass. The ground vibrated from below and the lights flickered rapidly.

   Beads of sweat covered his forehead as the white-colored door with engraved flowers changed along with the vibrations into a bigger one painted brown with hieroglyphics engraved all over it. The vibration faded away; Ramzi got up, leaving the book on the table, and then went to the door to open it.

   On the other side was an unfamiliar room that had its unique vibe. The door opened to a metal railing and stairs. He looked down and saw a middle-aged man sitting on a burgundy couch with a coffee mug between his fingers. He looked at Ramzi and smiled. “Hello old friend, are you ready to pay your dues?” Pulse beating in his ears, blocking out any other sound. Ramzi couldn’t talk. His fear of what would happen to him left him completely paralyzed.