“Wait!” Appo called, trailing behind Lowya. The girl jogged in front of him, her golden curls flapping through the air as she ran down the pyramid steps.

“Hurry up, slow guy!” Lowya yelled. She seemed to float over the edges of the stairs as she glided over. As they descended, Appo realized that the city itself seemed to sink lower into the ground, falling in a pit that was destined to consume everything it had once been. Appo struggled to follow as he maneuvered down the staircase alongside the pyramid.

“No, please!” Appo immediately regretted shouting a command at something that claimed to be a God. “I, uh, need to ask some questions.”

Lowya floated down to the base of the pyramid, ignoring Appo’s pleas. She turned to Appo, her bright blue eyes meeting his again. Appo almost stopped in his tracks, for she had the eyes of someone far older. “Ask later,” she said. “The Lhugal is after you!”

“The what?”

Lowya laughed before running away again. Appo reached the bottom of the tomb, chasing her between two thin pyramids, struggling to keep balance as he followed her between the slanted pathways of cobblestone. She ran around an alley, and as Appo rounded it, she vanished.

“You really don’t know who I am?” Lowya asked. Appo turned around to find her standing behind him, pouting and folding her arms. “I’m so mad at you, you have no idea!”

Appo stopped his immediate thought, pondering his words. “I thought… are you not Lowya?”

Lowya blew another raspberry before gesturing down at herself. “Duh! I mean this body! This face! You’ve never seen it?”

“I guess not… I’m sorry?”

“Haha, it’s okay! Just surprised, is all. I suppose it doesn’t matter! I can take on other forms if you need!”

“Other forms?”

“Oh! Well… I’m still learning your words! So much has changed since I’ve last spoken to one of your kind.”

“So are you really a-”

“A God?” Lowya interrupted. “Or Goddess, if you wish! I also answer to deity, lord, celestial being, demiurge, daemon, and so, so, so many others!”

“If you’re a Goddess,” Appo asked, “why are you so young?”

“I am young! I mean, I’m been around the sun a few hundred thousand times, which is longer than you’ve been alive, but most Gods are older than that! Still, after so many years of dealing with you folk, why wouldn’t you want to see things through the eyes of a child!”

“I must admit, I have many questions.”

“You should have only one right now, Appo Illonnorot! And that one is: ‘what is a Lhugal!’ You better ask it before it’s too late!”

“How do you know my, uh… okay. What is a Lhugal?”

“Good! Good good good! The Lhugal is what you need to get away from right now! That or something very very bad is gonna happen!” Lowya smiled, pointing back through the alleyway at the sunken pyramid. There was a black smear that he could barely perceive exiting the hole he had just left. Appo remembered the long claws and emaciated body.

“That thing in the tomb?!” Appo almost shouted.

“He’s been disturbed too many times this century,” Lowya giggled. “He’s gonna look for you, probably until he catches you, unfortunately.”

Appo felt his stomach drop. He felt the desire to sprint away, but for whatever reason, this small Goddess was still next to him, giving him advice.

“What can I do to get rid of it?”

Lowya released a dramatic “hmm” before responding. “Maybe get higher? He’ll never stop looking for you, but going up could give you a few years!” Lowya paced around before dramatically sighing. “Oh, but then you’d have to eat. I always forget. Guess you can’t do that, sorry!”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

There were three pyramids directly next to Appo and Lowya, each with small entrances that vanished into darkness. Appo was afraid to find what else awaited him in the other buildings. Instead, Appo rounded a corner, finding a ramp that worked its way around one of the smaller pyramids. It would have to work for now. Lowya caught the decision before Appo did, for she began skipping her way towards it, humming a lullaby.

As Appo scaled the ramp, he spotted a peculiarity coming out of a crack in a ruined wall. It was a singular daisy, a jarring sight in the desert, let alone an abandoned city. It had been over a year since Appo had seen anything like it. He stopped running, almost transfixed. On closer inspection, he realized his assessment was not quite right: its petals were bigger than a daisy’s, with massive red thorns running down its stem.

Appo reached down to grab the flower before Lowya jumped in front of him. “Don’t touch it!” She shouted. “If you see a flower, stay very far away!”

Just ahead of Appo were two more flowers extending out of the edge of the pyramid. Down in the alley below, he saw several hundred springing from various cracks and holes in the ground. None of them grew close together, which was odd.

In the city’s silence, Appo noticed hurried footsteps approaching behind him. If the creature from the tomb was following him, he had much more important things to focus on. He rounded the flower, keeping his distance, and continued to climb up the ramp of the pyramid. The higher he climbed, the thinner the ramp became.

After another corner, Appo saw what seemed to be a connecting bridge to the pyramid next to him. It was a short pathway balanced by a multitude of thin columns. The bridge was perhaps twenty meters long, but it was thin and completely exposed. On the other side was Lowya, skipping without a care as if she were a street kid playing hopscotch. Appo crouched down to his hands and knees, slowly making his way across.

“What is it, exactly?” Appo asked, doing his best not to look below him. “The one you call a Lhugal?”

Lowya sighed, swaying her legs from side to side. “He used to be really nice! Him and his brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers and on and on and on!”

“Are there more like him?”

“None that are freed. The others are still in their tombs! You have your friend to thank for that!” Lowya scrunched her face in anger before relaxing again. “After centuries of being trapped inside, I’m sure his hearing is very sensitive. Hope he can’t hear you and I talking right now!”

“ Or we can always talk here, if it comes to it ”

Lowya’s disarming voice came from within Appo, almost from his chest. If he responded at all in his thoughts, it came as various expletives. He had never been so high to develop a fear of heights, but he was quickly developing one.

After more shuffling, Appo finished his way across the bridge. Looking back on it, the structure was less a bridge and more support beam for an aqueduct, one that connected to seemingly all the pyramids in the city in some form or another. He wished he had time to appreciate more of the architectural brilliance of the city.

“If I could only have just a moment of peace,” Appo thought.

“ You swear a lot in your head ”

“Shit!” Appo said out loud, not expecting the voice to come again. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to insult. This is a lot of getting used to.”

“You are a strange man,” Lowya said, pacing down the middle of the aqueduct. “You’re the first one to have consecrated to me in who knows how long, yet you don’t address me with monikers! Do your people still use them in this age?”

“Uh, I apologize. Where I come from, there’s not a lot of information on you.”

Lowya giggled. “Yet you chose me, anyway?! Forever and ever? I’m flattered! Even if you did it for yourself!”

Appo nearly tripped over himself at the comment. “That’s not true!” he stammered.

Lowya waved her hand at him. “Relax! Some Gods care about those things, but I don’t! I just like anyone who likes me back!”

“How did you know? Did I say it in my head?”

“Nah! There are some things in your life I can connect with. I knew your name, right? I know that you’re a healer, I know that you’re from some place called Jyväsk, and I know that becoming consecrated to me hurt a lot of people’s feelings. I also have a connection with some souls that have passed beyond the astral plane into the Great Beyond, but since you don’t recognize who I am, I’m wondering how true that is for your people.”

“Do you mean… you can talk to the dead?”

Lowya laughed, skipping ahead of Appo. “If only! That would be good. No, there are some things even I can’t do. I can look and sound like them if you wish, though! And with you, there are so many to choose from!”

“I’m not sure I follow,” admitted Appo.

“I can show you! But first, come with me!” Lowya suddenly turned and sprinted away, jumping over the edge of the aqueduct. Appo reached out and attempted to grab her, but was too late; Lowya had jumped down a chute of the aqueduct that slid down at a sharp angle towards another pyramid. Appo stood around, looking side to side before sighing.

“Children,” Appo murmured before stepping into the slide himself.

The chute was uncomfortable on Appo’s back as he bounced over bump after bump. The aqueduct was smooth but not perfect, and he felt centuries of degradation punch into his back several times. His momentum almost launched himself out of the aqueduct before he landed on the ground. He held onto his back for a second, checking to see if he broke any vertebrae in the fall.

“Get up,” called a feminine voice. It sounded similar to Lowya, but deeper. As Appo saw who was speaking to him, he gasped in fright.

It was Tomi Yald. She looked no different from this morning.

“There it is!” said Tomi, her voice dripping with sarcastic glee. “That’s the response I usually get!”