For his entire life Damien had been what people called a misfit - that is, polite people; most people used a less kind choice of words to describe him.
Damien had a fragile and extremely pale complexion, made worse by his abundant and long pitch black hair, and metallic blue eyes surrounded by deep dark circles. He was extremely intelligent and well spoken, and he truly loved learning about different subjects, which, in conjunction with his repulsion towards any physical activity, didn’t help him make many friends during his childhood and adolescence years. He would much rather spend time at the central Achnahannet library browsing and reading about different subjects, ranging from folklore to advanced physics. And it was the library that helped him discover his real passion: ancient Egypt, particularly the gods and goddesses.
Damien was admitted to the Achnahannet University when he turned sixteen, and by eighteen he had completed his undergraduate studies in the History department and started his PhD in Egyptology. He was especially fascinated by Amun - in his opinion (and this was the topic of his thesis) the priests of Amun had secret powers, and the high priests could bend the physical world to their will, move objects, cure sickness, influence other people’s thoughts to make them do their bid. This idea came after several months of studying very old papyri that were donated to the University by a rich amateur archaeologist who bought them for what amounted to a few cents from a street vendor who claimed to have received them from ghosts. Upon returning home, the archaeologist was struck by a mysterious sickness that consumed him quicker than the doctors could figure out what its source was. In his will he left the papyri to the University along with a letter highlighting the importance of that discovery and asking that the brightest minds from the Egyptology department studied them.
And so they did. For many years the best and brightest spent countless days and nights trying to decipher the papyri, but although it was written in the same hieroglyphs familiar to all of them, it made no sense at all - it was encrypted. The Computer Science department's efforts to decrypt them were all in vain, and after a few years of fruitless efforts, everyone gave up and the papyri were shelved as a precious but never to be understood glimpse of ancient times. Until Damien heard about them.
Damien poured his heart and soul to the task of deciphering them; if anyone had a chance to do so it was Damien. He was fluent in ancient Egyptian - he could read hieroglyphs like he was reading the Sunday newspaper; he could also write fluently, translating from english as people dictated to him.
The task turned out to be more complex than Damien expected, but after several months he managed to translate the first page of the first papyrus - and what he discovered made him tremble with excitement. The introduction talked about Amun, his powers, and it provided a reference to what was in the other papyri - a book of enchantments, showing how certain sequences of sounds opened passages to other realms, and how those passages could be used to control our physical world. This breakthrough turned the somewhat forgotten History department the center of attention in the Achnahannet University, and put Damien in the spotlight more than he actually cared for, but had given him the material he needed for his PhD thesis, so in the end, it all worked out for him.
Unfortunately translating the first papyrus didn’t make the task of translating the others easier; whoever wrote them was not only very careful, but also very ingenious and certainly way ahead of his time in the subject of cryptography - each section was encrypted using a completely different technique, so what worked for one section didn’t work for the next. Damien, however, believed that there was some sort of meta-encryption regulating the encryption of the different sections of the papyri. In fact, given the number of sections to be decrypted, finding the meta-encryption was the only alternative to decades of work.
Damien decrypted one more section by sheer force and will, falling sick of exhaustion after completing the work. His advisor ordered him to take a few weeks off to recover, but Damien instead gathered every book in cryptography he could put his hands on, reading them without rest. He was finally ready to tackle the rest of the papyri.
And tackle them he did - anyone who visited his apartment would be baffled to say the least: copies spread all over the walls, with annotations, highlights, piles of paper everywhere. As many people pointed out, this was not a healthy environment for one to live.
The dreams started soon after Damien dove into the work; ephemeral in the beginning, but then becoming more realistic. They always followed the same theme - Damien had been transported to Egypt; not modern Egypt, but the apogee of the Egyptian civilization. He walked down the streets in awe, surrounded by the magnificent statues and temples, the Nile like a giant mirror reflecting a vibrant blue sky. He then walked down a street sided by sphinxes to a large temple - the temple of Amun; as he stepped into the temple, the images became fainter and he would finally wake up before being able to see what was inside.
Damien doubled his efforts to find the key to translating the papyri; the dreams were a source of inspiration to him, they kept him excited about the prospects of deciphering such an important piece of Egyptian history.
The more he worked, the clearer the dreams became - he gradually started to see people walking down the street with him, with their faces becoming sharper and their demeanor more detailed. He could see their dark faces, with noble features, green and yellow eyes, like a falcon’s, enhanced by eye liners, long, thin and elegant noses over plump lips. They were all dressed in white linen, men with a simple skirt, women with dresses baring one of their breasts; gold jewelry covered their flexible and well cared bodies, and golden sandals protected their small and beautiful feet, showing that they were not peasants, but noble people walking down one of the main streets of Thebes.
And thus summer and fall went by, with Damien making increasing progress towards finding the key; the days became shorter and colder, and as winter approached, in a cold, wet, windy and oppressive night, the dreams finally took Damien to the inner part of the temple.
There, in the depths of the temple, was Amun himself, a giant with piercing black eyes, powerful and majestic. Damien prostrated himself before the god, and he could feel the warmth of acceptance coming from the divinity, which gave him courage to slowly look up at Amun’s face, who started to open his mouth to speak. At that precise moment he woke up, refreshed but frustrated at the same time.
Damien doubled his efforts, as it seemed obvious that he was getting closer. After working around the clock for two days with no sleep and no food, sheer exhaustion took over him, and he dragged himself to bed to catch some sleep. And dreamed he did.
Everything in the dream was incredibly clear; the streets, the people, the sounds, the smells, the gentle touch of the winter sun on his skin. He was dressed like everyone else, and like the others, his skin was dark, all of his body and head hair removed. He walked with confidence towards the temple, prostrating before Amun like before, and then finally the god spoke to him while his priests sang a slow and deep hymn behind him.
As the god spoke, he constantly changed shape - turning to a giant snake, then to a man with the head of a ram, a crocodile, and then back to human form. His thundering voice raised above all others, and he finished by producing a deep and long musical note.
Damien awoke at that point, without knowing where he was. The sun had finally come out, dispersing the clouds and the humidity; a promise of a nice and cold autumn day. He took a shower, changed, and went to the University’s cafeteria for breakfast, as he hadn’t eaten any food for quite a while. There, while he ate, he tried to remember what Amun had told him - our unconscious work in mysterious ways, and Damien thought that God had given him the key during his dream. He decided to take a break, clear his mind, hoping that would help bring the dream back, but the noise and distractions of the outside world were not helping; that’s when he had a brilliant idea - the department of psychology had sensory deprivation pods! What could be more conducive to recalling the dream in detail than being completely deprived of his senses, so he could relive the dream while fully awake?
Damien was well known in the psychology department, so he had no trouble convincing people to let him try the pod. He showered, changed, and stepped inside; the door was closed and he found himself in complete darkness, not a sound except for his breath, not a smell, feeling only the gentle warmth of the salty water. After a few minutes he started to relax; the sound of him breathing and the floating sensation disappeared - he was surrounded by nothingness, and he couldn’t feel anything.
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He focused on the dream, retracing his steps from outside the temple over and over again, until he could finally capture all the details. He was in absolute awe, it was just like he was there, in ancient Egypt, but not in a dream but in reality. He entered the temple, and Amun spoke to him; he could hear every word he said, clearly, unmistakably, and he was not disappointed: the god had given him instructions on how to crack the meta-key, the key to all keys to decipher the papyri.
Damien jumped out of the pod, barely washed and dried himself, and ran all the way back to his apartment. For the next few days, he worked feverishly, barely eating or sleeping, until he finally translated all the papyri. You would think that he would be happy to have completed this seemingly impossible task, but you would be wrong - and the dreams were to blame.
While working on the decryption, Damien kept having the recurring dream, but every time it was different, in an increasingly unpleasant way. First, it seemed like time had passed, and he was no longer in the apogee of Thebes, but in the future, with an obvious progressive decadence: people’s appearance was not as flattering, the gold jewelry becoming smaller and gradually being replaced with silver, the street and statues uncared for. But more disappointing was what was happening with Amun himself. As the nights passed, the god suffered a visible transformation; Thebes’s decadence was nothing compared to the increasing decrepitity of Amun, shrinking in size and power. But that was not the worse - although it made no sense, the god was becoming evermore frightened of something. Towards the end, Damien started to sense another presence behind the god; faintly, but then increasingly more prevalent. Damien couldn’t see who or what it was, but evil in its purest form emanated from it. There are evil people, but whatever was behind Amun was not “something” or “someone” evil, but almost like evil itself. And the god was extremely afraid of it, and so was Damien - he never felt sheer fear in its purest form like he did in those dreams; it completely overwhelmed him, making his mind shrink in profound despair.
The night before translating the last papyrus proved to be a challenge for Damien. The evil presence was there, stronger than ever, and both him and Amun were completely terrified. Then the unexpected happened: a deep melody filled the inside chamber of the temple, a disgusting, repulsive melody that could not be described with words. And the evil took form, if we could call it form - it was more an absence, but an absence that had shape and substance if that was ever possible. And that absence exulted in its evilness, marching towards Amun who was petrified; it engulfed the god tearing it into pieces while laughing - if laugh we could call that maddening sound. And then it turned to Damien.
Damien awoke drenched in a cold sweat, the winter sun coming through the windows, creating a startling contrast between the mundaneness of his bedroom and the terrifying dream he just had. He could barely breathe, and only after some effort he managed to move. But the world outside his window reminded him that it was only a bad dream, most likely caused by the intense work of the past few weeks, and that was finally coming to an end.
Damien finally translated the last papyrus, and basked in the glory of his accomplishment for the next few weeks - and the dreams stopped completely. The departments of History and Computer Science of the Achnahannet University reached a level of excitement never seen before, and Damien was the center of it. He received his PhD with honors, and was quite busy for the next few weeks going around the world to deliver lectures about the contents of the papyri, how they were encrypted, and how he managed to break the code. The papyri talked about the dichotomy of our universe, how it started as one but separated in two, good and evil, isolated, but not completely. They discussed how certain sequences of sounds and words, known by the priests of Amun, could temporarily open a passage between the two universes, and how the flow of energy could be controlled and directed by the trained mind to move heavy objects or bend other people’s minds. It also warned about the need for the fine equilibrium required to keep the passage open only enough to carry on the deeds but not more, lest the evil from the other universe enter into ours. It also gave stern warnings about the consequences of letting that happen - demons running loose, or, worst of all for the person performing the enchantment, being sucked into the evil universe, where torture and pain were the only things to be expected for eternity.
When all the craziness subsided, Damien became increasingly curious about the enchantments. How much of the descriptions were true? He studied them, but although there were precise instructions on the sequence of sounds, he had no reference to start with. It would be the equivalent of giving the score of a symphony to an ancient culture and expect them to play it flawlessly without telling them what the score notation was supposed to mean, or how each instrument was supposed to sound. Damien researched other ancient texts, looking for a Rosetta stone that could give him some hints about how to interpret the music notation, but it was useless - the centuries buried the secret, and this was a key that could not be broken by any mathematical means - the papyri were very insistent on the precision necessary to make things work. They also warned the reader to never try it without the supervision of a senior priest because of the dire consequences of letting evil spirits come to this world, or the eternal suffering expecting people who made the journey to the other universe.
Damien was obsessed with the musical notation, to the point of neglecting the classes he was supposed to teach. He carried copies of them with him everywhere until he learned everything by heart; it was sad to see him mumbling around the University hallways, or sitting on a bench going through pages and pages of scribbled paper, but people were happy to overlook his eccentric behavior in the hopes he would eventually snap out of it, or even make another outstanding discovery.
Then one day he had an idea - the sensory deprivation pods. Of course! They worked once, why not try them again? In his dreams there were always priests singing, perhaps if he could remember the sounds with detail he would be able to find some logical association between them and the ancient musical notation.
And so he did. Although the technician mumbled something about being sensory deprived for extended times not being healthy, Damien’s piercing blue eyes convinced him to let Damien stay in the pod for a few hours before disturbing him. Damien got in, the pod was closed, and once again he was in complete darkness, hearing only the sound of his own breathing. He forced himself into remembering the dream, and after a long time, it started to come back to him - the sounds as he was stepping into the temple of Amun. After several attempts, he managed to manipulate the dream, standing at the temple’s portico, listening to the chanting of the priests and mentally passing the manuscripts in front of his eyes. And then like pieces of a puzzle falling into place, one of the papyri seemed to logically match the sounds he was hearing; all of a sudden it all made sense. He had discovered the key to understanding the musical notation.
Overly excited, he started singing along with the priests; after some time, he felt like he was floating in the air, above the salty water in the pod. Initially he thought he was imagining things because of the sensory deprivation, but when he stopped singing he distinctly felt the warm water touch his back again. He was actually floating!
The different papyri flew in front of his eyes, and he decided to try another one to see what would happen; he started singing a different melody, deep and sad. After some time, the darkness around him started to dissipate - a faint red light was shining in front of him. Because of his excitement, he stopped paying attention to what he was singing, and he made a few mistakes. The red light then disappeared, and it was replaced with darkness again, but darkness a different quality: it was not an absence of light, but the presence of that absence, material, touchable. He stopped singing, but the darkness did not go away - on the contrary, it took shape around him, like a passageway that gradually opened to reveal a starry sky, but one that lacked poetry and beauty, and utterly terrified Damien. He tried to move, open the pod, call for help, but the pod was gone; in sheer horror Damien screamed, but only unnatural creatures heard his scream, and they turned to Damien with a smile of pleasure - if you could call that ripping of flesh a smile.
After several hours, the technician finally decided that enough was enough. Damien had been in the pod for way too long, so he decided to put an end to that experiment. He knocked on the pod and told Damien he would finish the session, and opened the hatch.
To his astonishment, Damien was not there, not a trace that he had ever been there. He looked at the floor, it was dry. He went back to the lockers, and Damien’s clothes were there, neatly folded. He looked around, and couldn’t find Damien, so he called security. They arrived, and were baffled just like him - it was winter, very cold, and the sun was shining, with not a single cloud in the sky. A naked man walking around would definitely draw attention, plus he couldn’t have gone too far naked in all that cold.
They searched the building, Damien’s apartment, and then the University, and he was nowhere to be found. They called the police, who searched the area around the university, but nobody had seen Damien after he went into the sensory deprivation pod. The technician was there most of the time, having taken only a quick restroom break. Security tapes showed Damien going in, but never coming out. After a few days of investigation, the police gave up - there was no explanation for the disappearance of Damien. Students talked about how weird Damien had become, and how obsessed he was with the papyri, but nobody paid attention to a couple of people who raised the hypothesis that he may have found a key to a place where people were not meant to be.