Page 12 of The Secret Shape of Worship
The voices were moving now. Farther away and growing harder to decipher, though Mina thought he could hear Devon’s above the rest. The thought gave him an unexplainable thrill. He pushed it down.
Suddenly, the need to get out of here was all-consuming, and he began to panic at the thought that soon the group would be out of earshot.
Why had he not tried to escape sooner? What had he been thinking?
Had he been under some kind of intoxication?
Possessed by the creature?
How had he so easily given up on his promise to God? On giving his faith one last try? What chance did he have here? With this creature?
Mina found the doorway behind the head of the bed and ran out into the dim tunnel. The voices continued to call out, but Mina knew that in just a couple more minutes, it would be too late.
He stood still, straining into the quiet, but couldn’t decipher which direction, left or right, would take him closer. What would happen if they never found him? Would they just assume he was dead and give up the search altogether? He couldn’t chance being left behind. Mina had no choice.God, please save me,he prayed.
Mina gathered all the strength in his lungs and called out, “I’m down here! Hey, I’m down here!”
The voices stopped.
And then all sound stopped.
A deep rumble grew into a quake more terrible than anything he’d yet experienced, shaking the foundations of the temple. Fearing another tunnel collapse, Mina staggered back into the room. Incredibly, it seemed as though nothing in the room was being affected by the quake. Vases on furniture were still, and even the dust on the ground remained undisturbed.
Mina wrapped his arms tightly around himself at the feeling of his bones being shaken loose from his muscles. He managed to make it back to the bed, clutching one of the thick posts for support.
A shadow passed across the room. Turning to look back toward the doorway, he froze.
It was Anubis. His red eyes blazing, thick muscles beneath black furred skin pulsing like each possessed a fury all its own.
Mina felt the weight of the god’s presence cover him like oil, hot and claustrophobic. It made him want to crawl out of his skin.
“What do you want from me?” he screamed over the quaking bones of the temple.
But Anubis did not speak. The god growled and bared his teeth. The ground continued to thunder, and somehow, impossibly, the god grew before his eyes. Bones stretching, muscles expanding until he was the twelve-foot-tall monster Mina had first encountered in the statue chamber.
The fear was so real, it felt like a living thing. Coiled around his throat, so that he struggled to breathe.
Mina braced for a punishing voice. For shame. For guilt. For all the things he’d always felt when he did something wrong.
But there was no voice. No sermon of shame. No grand declarations.
Anubis did not block the door.
He did not reach for Mina or command him to stay.
Mina looked into the god’s eyes and saw not anger, but pure, raw, unfiltered power. He saw a reminder.
It was as if the god wanted to ensure that if Mina were to leave, he would leave knowing exactly what it was he was leaving behind.
Every prayer he’d ever prayed came back to his mind.
Please hear me.
Please see me.
Please save me.
Please change me.
