Rise Up with Malik

"You weak, pathetic creature. You couldn't even save your own worthless life."

He can hear her words as he stumbles blindly through the sand dunes. She is right. He is a fool. He was never strong enough, quick enough--daring enough to escape from them. The others must be laughing at him now, with their sharp teeth and the burning fire that flashes in their eyes. His feet are heavy in the sand and he cannot run anymore. But it does not matter. Far behind him, he hears her whip crack. He is still too close to her horrible den of snakes and scorpions and she has caught up with him again.

He falls forward into the sand and lies there, waiting for her to beat him again, but she doesn't come closer. Instead, he hears a rustling noise above him and he rolls over onto his back to see her towering above him on the dune. Even though she has been following them across the desert for so many days now, he finds himself still shocked by how huge she is. Her gold dress seems to be made of light itself and her long black hair shines like a living thing as it flows around her shoulders and down her back. He had always thought that she was beautiful when he lived with her in Cairo as a child, but now his heart aches at how evil she really is.

"Why do you follow me?" he asks her, choking on the words because his throat is dry from lack of water. "What did I ever do to you? Why do you want me dead so badly?"

"You've done nothing!" Aloesha shouts back down at him, sounding angry for the first time since they began this seemingly endless journey south through Egypt's vast desert wastes. "You're just a filthy little half-breed Arab! Every time I look at you I'm reminded of what you are! I've tried everything to get rid of you--I've sold you to my worst enemies! I've strangled you unconscious while you slept in my bedchamber! I've tried everything short of killing you myself because I don't want your death on my conscience! But no matter what I do, you always manage to find your way back to me! And now...now..."

Her voice trails off and Malik realizes suddenly that Aloesha's magnificent eyes have begun filling up with tears until they spill out over her cheeks like rain from heaven. Before he can stop himself, he starts crawling towards her through the sand and reaches out his arms pleadingly towards her as if he could somehow comfort her suffering soul simply by touching her hand or hugging her feet like a son would his mother's legs in times of sorrow. But before he can reach his goal, Aloesha steps quickly backwards down onto the ground next to where he lay and raises up that terrible whip in both hands high above her head again as if preparing to strike downwards upon him once more with all of her strength--but instead she pauses for one beautiful moment with each end of the whip curled tightly around one fist and then looses them both simultaneously so that they wrap around his neck tightly like Egyptian cobras coiling themselves around helpless prey before squeezing slowly together until all life has left their victims' bodies...