Read Samsara through time :: Hounds from Hell

In Norse mythology, Garmr is a hound of Hel, the Queen of underworld, and guards the gate of Helheim which is the lowest of the Nine Realms. Helheim is a dark cold resting place of the dead, but not of final retribution. The concept is similar to Purgatory in Christianity, or Barzakh in Islamic tradition.

Whether its Celtic, Greek, Nordic or Egyptian Mythology, all of them described hounds and wolves either as Harbingers of Death or Guardians of the Underworld. In Welsh folklore, Cŵn Annwn is a red-eared hound that hunts down the sinners and lost souls, and bring them back to the underworld.

It’s also them who saved me in the desert.

The sun started appearing on the horizon, and I tried to find my way back to our campsite.

I couldn’t let Okba, Karim, Irem, Sean and Zimar die as well. Besides, David and Abigail might already have found me gone. They wouldn’t let them rest either because of me.

However, something terrible had already happened there.

It’s quiet when I returned to the campsite, and saw the dead bodies of men lying near the tents. The local guide, two drivers, and three other men were shot dead. I hurried to look for Okba and the others in dread, and found Sean and Karim tied up and brutally beaten by David’s men. Zimar was also lying in a half-conscious state on the ground with a dislocated shoulder.

I looked at Okba who had been shot in stomach, and was bleeding profusely. I rushed to their side to help, but Abigail slammed the gun’s muzzle against my temple, and I dropped on the dusty ground as blood trickled down my busted head.

I looked up to see David holding Irem as his hostage.

“My, My! Look who is back?” He chuckled as he held his gun at her head. “Now, if you don’t want to waste our previous time, tell me where’s that golden hairpin?”

“Rhea, help me! ” Irem cried begging to save her.

“Let go of her!” I tried to get up to fight, but Abigail and Hisam held me down by shoulders.

“Miss Cordon, you’re in no position to make demands.” He said, “Tell me ,where’s the hairpin else I’ll blow her brains out.” The man threatened pressing his the gun’s muzzle against Irem’s head.

“Let her go, and I’ll give it to you!” I begged him desperately.

“Don’t do it!” Karim warned, but David shot him in his leg as a warning. “Next will be yours head.”

“Don’t!” I cried in horror. “I’ll cooperate.” I didn’t want to see anyone dying because of me.

David shoved Irem forward, and asked me to hand over the hairpin to her without any trick.

I pulled out the hairpin from my undershirt, and got up on my feet walking in her direction. She trembled in fear as David was still pointing his gun at her, and I dared not do anything. One wrong move, and she would’ve been shot dead.

I walked to her, and pushed the hairpin in her hand assuring her that I’d save her, but a sharp stabbing pain shot through my side, and I looked down in shock to see a knife pierced inside my belly.

“You’re really naive, Rhea.” Irem said as she pulled out the knife and shoved me back on the ground.

“It’s you…” I clenched my bleeding abdomen in pain.

“Why?” I asked her as tears stung my eyes. I had never expected her to be the one to betray me.

“Because you’re too kind for your own good.” She scoffed. “It’s quite easy to fool you.”

Since the beginning, she had been fooling me. She told me about the team on purpose to gain my trust, and learn about the secret of the hairpin. However, since Okba had warned me about her, she changed her tactics and confronted me about the moving ghosts with the video.

It’s no coincidence that her camera caught those figures in the sand storm.

The footage she had on her camera, and the one David had showed me were the same. It’s impossible for the team to record me at the same angle from distance during the storm.

It’s her who had provided him with the footage.

She was the mastermind behind this game.

“She is just a pawn in this game.” A man stepped out of the tent, and I was shocked to see Hachim standing in front of me.

“How?” I gasped, struggling to breathe through pain. Hachim crouched in front of me and said, “The one who died in the desert was the other me. He became me, and I became him.”

The two men had switched the identities, but it had caused the real one his life after being lied about the immortality. Hachim stood up and patted Irem her on the shoulder for her contribution. He took the hairpin from her, and inspected it carefully.

“No, one can stop me from becoming a god.” He laughed as he looked at others around him. “I’ll rule the heavens and earth.”

‘No!” I seethed through gritted teeth. “Your retribution is here.”

Three enormous black hounds with burning red eyes emerged from the sand, and attacked the people in the campsite. Those hellhounds were twice the size of an wolf, and had big canine teeth. One leapt over me, and killed Abigail and Hisam in an instant by tearing them apart into pieces. One pounced upon David, and ripped his head off the shoulder and threw it away.

It all happened too quickly that I didn’t have a time process it.

Another hound passed by Sean and Karim and sniffed unconscious Zimar. I was slipping in and out of consciousness, and barely whispered to it not to harm her. The hound looked at me for a while, then, turned to growl at Hachim. The man tried to back away, but the hound lurched at him piercing his sharp canine teeth into his midriff and tore off his torso from his pelvis.

It was a horrific sight to witness, and I immediately closed my eyes.

Irem had tried to run away from the scene, but the hounds circled her. She looked at me in helplessness asking me to save her, but this time I didn’t stop them.

The desert had also turned me into a monster.

The hound took her by her shoulder, and dragged her behind the tents in the desert as her blood curdling screams echoed through the air. Sean sat there traumatized, and turned to check on Karim who’s holding his injured leg, but it’s too late for Okba.

I raised my arm to reach at him from afar, but it fell as I succumbed myself to sleep.

The death’s shadow led me through the desert to a campsite where the hounds were tearing apart the flesh and limbs of the people. I saw Sean lying dead in the pile of corpses. His dead eyes stared at me as if accusing me of his unjust death.

Karim was crying in agony after losing his both legs, and becoming crippled for life. His blood splattered on my face as he shot himself in head.

“Rhea?” Zimar called me, and I turned back to look at the girl. Irem was holding her hostage and with a wicked smile, she slit her throat with a knife in front of my eyes.

My entire body jerked up in a shock, and someone inside the tent shouted to hold me down and give me anesthesia. I struggled against their hold, but a needle-like pain stung my arm, and I passed out again.

This time, the passing ghosts of the desert led me through the sandstorm, but urged me to be quiet. Something else was lurking inside the storm beside us, and those people suddenly disappeared from my sight leaving me alone in the desert.

I called out Okba and Sean for help, but then, a snarling black hellhound appeared from the behind the dust and pounced at me.

I woke up in the tent for a second time, and saw a person in surgical mask tending on me.

“Who are you?” I asked the person grabbing his arm, but he ignored me and walked out of the tent. I got up wincing in pain, and went after that person to see where he was going.

He went inside Karim’s tent, and raised his scalpel knife to kill him.

“Stop!” I lunged at the man to stop him. His mask had come off during the struggle, and I was shocked to see Dylan standing in front of me.

“Why are you here?” I whispered in surprise, but he was swift enough to stab me with the scalpel knife.

The sharp stabbing pain in my left side woke me up, and I saw a woman in surgical mask standing next to me. Not knowing whether it’s a dream or reality, I snatched the scalpel knife from the tray and pressed it against her neck, but the woman remained calm and said, “I’d suggest you not to move as stitches might re-open”.

She took the scalpel from my hand, and put it back in tray.

In the meantime, Joachim had also walked inside the tent, and came to check on me.

“You’re awake.” He commented. “You should consider yourself lucky. If the knife had gone deeper, you wouldn’t have been lying here alive.”

“What did you do the others?” I frantically got up from the cot in dread and ran out of the tent to look for the others.

“What did you do to them?” I screamed at him.

“Where’s Okba?” I cried asking him to let me go, but he restrained me.

“He’s dead.” Joachim told me. “Okba is dead.” I slumped down in his arms and started crying. Okba was shot and died of excessive bleeding, but I remembered that I was also stabbed yet nothing happened to me.

“Why didn’t you save him?” I barked at the man. “If you could save me, why didn’t you save him first?”

“When we returned from the desert, it’s already too late.” Joachim told me. “He had died.”

The survivor guilt that settled in my heart, and I became nauseous.

Okba could have been alive if I had come earlier. He would have been if I hadn’t left to find Dylan that night.

Joachim helped me up and told me to be mindful of my stitches.

“You shouldn’t strain yourself. It’s already difficult to stitch you up in such circumstances.”

I asked him about Zimar and the others, and insisted on seeing them. He took me to the girl, and watching her chest rise and fall with each breath was a relief. I immediately grabbed her hand, and started crying in distress. I thought I’d lose her as well.

“She’s safe.” Joachim comforted me. “They are safe.”

“Why did you save us?” I decided to confronted him. Even though he had saved us, Joachim was David’s man, and there’s no way he wouldn’t bear a grudge against us after his entire team was killed in the desert.

“Do you have to ask it?” He said to me. “If it weren’t for someone helping you out secretly, do you really think you could’ve sneaked out of the tent at night.”

“W-Who are you really?” I stared at him in surprise.

“You should rest first. All your questions will be answered later.” He asked the woman named Yanxi to take me back to my tent.

She helped me back to the cot, and instructed me to lie down after having the painkiller.

I looked up at ceiling of the tent, and fresh tears fell from my eyes as I thought of Okba. Life was unfair. How many more deaths would I witness before I could go as well?

Memories and Dreams had become a slurred reality. I was unsure whether I was alive or not. I couldn’t tell whether it’s Irem or Dylan who had stabbed me before, or whether the woman whom the serpent had killed in the desert was Irem or someone else.

The reality had become blur for me. Zhuang Zhou couldn’t tell whether he’s a man dreaming about a butterfly, or he was butterfly dreaming about being Zhuang Zhou.

I even suspected myself as Dylan who had killed all those people, or I might be a vengeful spirit of the desert with false memories.

When Zimar regained her consciousness, she broke down into tears after seeing me and cried her heart out the soon I hugged her. She’s as traumatized as the rest of us after Okba’s death. Karim couldn’t move around by himself so Sean helped him up when we bid farewell to Okba. We buried him in the desert along with the others under the sand of painful memories.

A human heart is indeed more scarier and vicious than a vengeful ghost.

“Amira and I had already known about the team.” Joachim admitted, and I was surprised to hear it from him.

“When our team went into the desert in Egypt, our team encountered a sandstorm there. Amira and I had to stay behind, and waited for the other team members to return. However, when the team returned from the desert after three days, Amira sensed that something was wrong with the people. Their behavior had completely changed, and her professor started acting strangely too. Later, we learned that this of group people who has returned isn’t the same one who has gone into the desert earlier.”

“The team was switched.” I remarked, and Joachim nodded in agreement. “Didn’t they do anything to you?”

“No, they needed us to get out of the desert. Moreover, Amira and I acted along afterwards and pretended to be interested in their research. David came to Morocco, and Amira had to go there because of Karim.

Later, we learnt that he, and the others were looking for a dagger to go back into the desert, but…”

“But, I appeared.” I said to him. “They were looking for me.” I pursed my lips in a thought, then said, “I have always suspected Amira to be one of them.”

“If it weren’t for her, would you be able to locate the water in the desert?” I was taken back at his comment, and stared at the man who smiled in return.

“Didn’t Okba mention the moving water to you as well?” Joachim told me, and it made sense why Amira had mentioned the story of Khidr to me, and later, Okba said the same about the water. Both had been guiding me throughout the journey, but I doubted the woman because of Irem.

“What would have happened if I hadn’t returned?”

“The original plan was to kill the entire team in the desert, but we didn’t expect that—”

“—that Irem would be the mole.”

Irem had been secretly observing the movements of Okba and Joachim, but didn’t expect him to be game changer as well.

“You could’ve saved him.” I said, and Joachim knew that I was talking about Okba. “If I hadn’t gone into the desert to take care of the others, I’d have.” Joachim had to lure Hachim’s team away into the desert to silence them. Okba had to wait for his return before taking an action, but none of them had expected a strange turn of the events.

“We are leaving today. Yanxi did a good job in stitching you up, but there’s a risk of infection. You and Karim need to be treated at the local hospital.”

“I can’t go back.” I told him. “There’s something that I need to do.”

“You can’t go in this condition.”

“I insist” I said to him. “So many people have died because of me and this is the last thing I can do it for them and myself.”

“Then, I’ll ask Yanxi to pack you some food and medicine to last for few days.”

I packed my bag, and looked for the dagger and the hairpin inside Hachim’s tent. At noon, I bid goodbye to Sean and Zimar, and told Karim to thank his wife for me. I handed a letter to Zimar and told her to send it to my family if I didn’t return after a month.

I slung the bag on my shoulder, and saw them leave in their cars. I looked over at the mounds of sand, and I walked in the direction of the water holding the dagger in my hand.

However, I didn’t know that I was too late. The hǎi zi was gone. There’s nothing except for the stretch of sand and a burning sun on the sky. I had no option but to continue further into the desert.

During the day, the ghost of Okba would keep me accompany, but when the sun would set, Kasim would walk beside me and ask me to give up.

In the end, I realized they all were in my head.