17 DESOLATION’S DESIRE/HOWL OF THE JACKAL

"You still look like you want to fight….. haha. Do you want to fight a god, boy?" Anubis inquired.

As he reached the bottom step, he held out his long fatless arms like he was awaiting an answer.

"The silent type, huh? Strong, though? That's to be revealed. But there is strength in resistance. In your spine…"

The truth was, Claude froze. He forgot to unball his fists and straighten because he couldn't feel his legs or the sweat drip from his hands under the sweltering sun.

Anubis let out a high pitched animalistic cackle. His massive ears lay flat and his black fangs gleamed.

"So! What'll it be, silent warrior?! Do you want to fight a god? Your truth is apparent. As mine should be. Let's face eachother as our truest selves!" Anubis ripped off his jewels and tore out his piercings until he was just as naked as Claude.

Another mouth in his belly grinned, spitting dead turquoise necromantic magics. Runes hummed with power over his shoulders and legs. His aura pulsed. Extra arms made from the bones of a dozen species unfurled from his back like wings.

The sands went black where his pawed feet fell.

"Yes….. resist." Anubis purred.

Claudes throat was so dry it felt like it was peeling. Every-time Anubis exhaled, a cloud of locusts flowed from his jaws.

In Claude's fear and urge to move, he dug his nails into his palm until they bled. He urinated like a subdued animal.

Anubis scented the air. His eyes looked down to Claude's blood in the sand.

The horrifying death-form faded. And the old kingly Anubis returned.

"Perhaps a misunderstanding….. perhaps a foreshadowing. We'll see. We always see." Anubis towered over him.

He still couldn't believe he was facing a god. There was so much to process. So many questions.

"I've watched you, child." Anubis hummed. "I've watched you as death follows."

Claude swallowed. "…..why?"

"I believe I just told you why. Why does any god watch a mere mortal? You all…" Anubis looked over to the other lights. "…are our only chance at true immortality."

Claude was so confused. So overstimulated.

"Because what is immortality if you exist to no one? What is power if not followed by fame? What is life if only lived in the shadows of long dead history?"

It felt wrong, but Claude couldn't help but remember Mr. Raizen telling Samuel to read more philosophy in class a week ago. Perhaps he should've done the same.

"What will you do with power? What will you do for your god?" Anubis questioned, "What will you do for me?"

Claude got some feeling back into his body. His soiled legs found their strength. Grass even grew from beneath the sands.

"I'll save the world."

Anubis' cloth wrappings moved like snakes, slithered around Claude's neck and lifting him to eye level with the god.

"….. what?"

Claude pulled at the binds, clawing for air. In between blinks, he didn't see the gods confused and offended face. He saw the plated snake. And that was scarier. That was more real.

And then he had an epiphany. One without research. Ok, he had a moment of psychosis.

"I'll….. save— the world." He coughed. For a second he could've sworn he saw a smile which only confused him.

Even so, he stood to his word for the simple fact that he couldn't die….

His mind rambled as the oxygen faded.

"This place…. The Astral Realm is so profound and important to human history because it gives us a place to train without having to face death. I can do whatever I want here. I can tell a god who I am. Ahh, damn…. I already pissed myself. More than anything I'm just tired of being choked out."

It felt good to defy. Even if it was a god. The reality dawned on him twice over as Anubis sneered.

"Oh boy, you Glorian-folk are so….. so much like The Nine that proceeds you. Your gods are people. Disturbed, hedonistic, arrogant, people…. I guess it's why you think you can speak any way to me. You think me man, somewhere behind this maw do you see pink lips?" Anubis leaned forward and peeled back his dog-like chops. Larvae squirmed in his gums.

"N-no…" Claude grunted.

"Your people are interesting. For duty and glory. Haha! Hopefully any day now the machinations of power will swing in your peoples favor and pull you out of your third world living conditions. Maybe it will be you who does it…. With my help."

Claude swallowed.

"I offer you power, and you offer silence?"

The binds tightened, leaving Claude to question if he could actually die.

"Tell me why!" Anubis smiled momentarily again.

"I….. we're not alike…. Anubis. Why—erhn…. Why me?" Claude questioned.

"Could I not make you like me? Is that not what we gods do?"

"I— I don't know." Claude spoke truthfully. He didn't have an answer to that— he didn't know enough about gods. For most people scraping to get by, gods were just stories.

Anubis pulled him closer. So close that his dry nose pressed into Claude's and his locust breath spread across his skin, "Let's say I do wish to make you like me. Let's say I try to do something with all that death that follows you and yours….. Would you resist the change? Would you resist a god?"

For a moment, Anubis literally nodded— like he wanted Claude to say yes. He looked in a frenzy. Eyes wild and jaws hung open. They flashed red— if only for a moment.

"I would try."

Anubis threw Claude across the desert. "NOooO….rRRr—BASTARD! NO! NO! NO!"

Claude rag-dolled in the sands and locust swarms clinging to his skin. All the while he could hear the god rage.

When he came to a stop and opened his eyes in a beige crater, Anubis stood over him along with the lights who'd decided to follow.

"Where'd your spine go, boy?"

"What do you mean?…. Uh— sir?" Claude wiped the sand off his bald head.

"You'll try? You're facing a god. The time for reason is over. Give me insane confidence. You have to have it. One does not TRY to resist us. You say you will. You say it. You mean it. Trying is for tasty treats and wild women… or men, I don't care. But me? No."

Anubis yanked Claude out of the sand. "I'll ask you again. Would you resist the cha—"

"Yes."

Getting choked out and thrown around was really becoming a pet peeve.

Anubis broke out into hysteric laughter and began jumping around like a maniac, turning Claude's choke out into a roller coaster ride from hell.

When he stopped, he looked at Claude, breathing swarms of locusts around his head. The buzz was deafening. Anubis's dark eyes glimmered in the blackness like stars. If stars could evoke feelings of hunger and desolation.

"You, Claude Grey, could be interesting….. it's all potential now. I watch you knowing what it could be— not what it is. Until then, death."

Anubis reached out with his real hand and ripped off Claude's head.