The God of Gravity part 2: Olympus

Faces of the Dead

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Just as Saadah passed by an open door to his left, through it, he got a glance of the thin man he thought had been killed by his men. The man smirked at him as he passed by so he went back to see if it was real. Then he saw nothing but a dark room full of old computers.

"Saadah!" called Lateef.

"Right away, my lord!" he answered and quickened his pace to catch up to him.

They used flashlights as they walked on the dusty road after leaving the building. Then walked a few minutes as they passed through the towering plateaus that have been carved by nature. The sky above them is dark but alive as the stars looked like millions of blinking eyes. The smell of the dusty rocks around them was mixed by sweat and blood for this place was echoing with the heavy footsteps and swinging pickaxes of thee suffering people during the day. It is a suffocating smell that Saadah hated. It is reminding him of the sin he made: The Sin of Omission.

Saadah passed by a boulder and he saw another face that he thought was dead. The old woman is standing to his right at the distance and like the man he thought he saw, she smirked at him with her toothless gums full of maggots. He stirred and blinked and the woman was gone after he opened his eyes. He gulped and although the night is cold he sweated.

They got to this large quarry that looked like a giant hole on the earth and the bottom is inconceivable because of the darkness. And like a spiral staircase, the only way to go down is to use the carved road made out of the earth in the cliff walls of the quarry. They walked on it while Saadah looked at the right - where the cliff wall is and the shelters of the slaves. Their shelters are just caves they dug up through the earth. Like giant honeycombs on the earth they were that every cell is lit up by the glowing yellow honey deep inside because they have light from inside using candles and lamps. They looked like curious cavemen as they watched Lateef and Saadah walk down to the bottom of the quarry. Lateef is not bothered by this because he thinks this is a good idea that they are watching so they could witness the thing he is about to do.

They have reached the bottom and Lateef said "Emaan!" with a friendly voice as he pointed his flashlight at him.

Emaan has his hands and feet bound with very thick chains. Like the chains of the anchor of a ship. The chains were bolted on the cliff walls with deep enough anchors to resist being plucked out. They are rusty and the moisture precipitated on the chains like they are sweating for Emaan. The moisture brought rust with it and turned into bigger drops as they combined and met his b****y wounds on his wrists and ankles. They are swelling and flies began to infest. His shirtless body is full of the mark of a centipede after they used glowing hot metal to stamp these marks on his skin.

"Looking good!" laughed Lateef.

Saadah does not have the guts to look at the suffering god. He felt guilty because he is the one who ordered his men to do it after an order from Lateef. He just looked to the side and he saw another dead face to his left. Although it is very dark and he did not point his flashlight in that direction, it is as if his eyes are choosing to see the figure of the dead person. It is a dead boy with the same smirk as the others. He finally pointed the flashlight at the boy and he disappeared. This shook the insides of Saadah even more that he felt sick.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Lateef to him.

"Uh, nothing, my lord," he answered and stirred.

Lateef went back to look at Emaan - who is looking dead as his eyes were watching the ground like he is counting the number of grains of sand on it. His every breath was slow as if he is contemplating what could possibly be the number of grains of sand there are in the whole Ra Desert.

"So, you never screamed while they burned your skin, Emaan?" asked Lateef with a smirk. Then frowned after a second because Emaan did not respond.

Lateef prepared his fist then punched the chained god in the abdomen, so hard that the shockwave disturbed the dust on the cliff walls and sounds of hissing sand can be heard as they fell on the stones. Emaan gasped for air after a rib in his lower chest has been broken and his liver got hit.

A punch to the liver is not a "funny feeling." It is a major organ in the body and the body cares about its organs so the nerves send the most powerful distress signals to the brain whenever the organs get damaged. The brain senses it as a major pain.

Saadah saw the people around the quarry looking at their suffering god. Their faces are without emotion and like the dead faces Saadah hallucinated on. Their eyes were like stars on the cliff around the real starry night sky.

"That's right!" addressed Lateef to the people who are watching. "I want you all to hear your 'Heir' scream in agony and despair before he dies! I will not kill him just like that, no," he said shaking his head. "That's an easy way to escape punishment! Your god let his brother lay waste in the north. It is his fault also for not telling me that his brother had that scheme going on! All of you should be grateful that the Ra Clan and Olympus gave you second chances to prove that even how worthless all of you are, you can still contribute to the cause of the Realm! And this is how you repay us! Lies and deception and betrayal! All of you said, that nobody knew Hammad made tunnels with his lizards to escape but you are still guilty because you allowed yourselves to be fooled! You should've watched him closely! Now, you are gonna work a hundred times harder tomorrow! And those who trip will be shot on the spot! Children, women, and the elderly alike! How do you like that, Emaan?!!" screamed Lateef as he pulled the hair of Emaan and looked at him in the eyes.

Emaan is breathing so fast and short because just squeezing his lungs to breathe, moves his broken rib, and causes pain.

"You still wouldn't say something, huh?!!" Lateef punched him again in the same spot. This time, his liver got crushed inside his body and still, Emaan did not scream. He is on the brink of death but screaming will not save him from it.

"AARGH!!!" screamed Lateef as he continuously punched Emaan everywhere. There were no screams and grunts of pain, save the screams and grunts of Lateef exerting force for his every punch.

The sound of splattering blood and crushing bones made Saadah lock his jaw as he could not bear to hear the suffering. Far from Lateef, he knelt behind him as he covered his ears to stop hearing the horror. But the shock waves pierced through his hands and skull and his brain felt them. His eyes got blurry that he is about to faint because of his heavy breathing. He saw another smirking face of the dead behind Emaan. He hit his head with his palms alternately until they bruised.

His sweat met the sand below his face as he was pushing against the ground. He shivered in horror like maggots started to wiggle inside his spine. His heart pumped so fast that the pain feels like someone is chewing his heart. His throat is numb and dry as the air steals its moisture. The sand filled his nostrils like they are getting cemented by the minute to choke him to death. Then his drops of sweat on the sand made random figures and dots. He started to see every dead face on these dots like connecting stars that will get you many shapes and figures and constellations. Those random dots were not random for him, because, for him, they are like the combination of the dead faces. His brain matched every dot to every face of the dead.

"AAAAARGH!!!!" he screamed in madness as he repeatedly hit his head on the hard ground.

Lateef turned to look at him and he is confused about why Saadah has gone mad. "What happened to you?"

Saadah groaned and grunted as he did it. Then he felt dizzy after his last hit and he lied sideways on the ground. He saw everything as if the world has tipped sideways and he is stuck on a wall at his side. He could not hear anything but only taste his teeth and blood. Then he saw them all - the dead faces in a single body in the distance. It shifted forms into the people who already died. Then finally turned into someone he just met earlier. It is Khufu and he smirked at him. Saadah screamed and pulled out his handgun to shoot him down many times until he ran out of bullets. Khufu smirked while falling backward but he stood up after a second and his wounds have healed. It is now apparent for Saadah that he has gone mad so he thrashed around to kill himself.

"You're bothering me!" screamed Lateef as he sent his centipede to kill him.

The centipede crawled around Saadah's body and injected its venom right on his cheeks while he smiled. "At last!" he laughed and died as his skin turned yellow and the centipede devoured him.

"LORD EMAAN!!!" screamed the people around the quarry. They called his name many times while crying as they saw him already stopped breathing. Most of them had their knees on the ground as they felt weak after seeing their god died before their eyes.

Then "Gagh!!" he coughed as if he revived himself. Then Lateef noticed as Emaan looked at him with a face of a man fueled by rage. His eyes were glowing violet and whispered, "I will take it."

"That's all we need to hear," said Hyun as he suddenly appeared behind Emaan and tapped his wounded back. Then he healed him completely.

"Argh!" roared Lateef as he punched Hyun.

Hyun just blocked it with his palm then said, "I am not the one who's gonna fight you." Then pushed Lateef's fist in a snap that he got knocked back and slammed his back on the cliff.

Then he saw Khufu beside him. "Who are you?" he asked.

He changed into the form of someone with a redhead and a smirk. It is Jasper. "Nice show," he said as he leaned on against the wall with his elbow.

"LORD EMAAN!!!!" cried all the people around them and the quarry's dead silence has been killed.

He broke from his chains with his own strength and his muscles snapped the braces and he was free. Then there were crashes as the people above them turned on the lights. Sayuri, Hiroki, and Jack were above and in the middle of the hole of the quarry and they were watching all this time.

"I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU SAID, EMAAN!!!" screamed Sayuri that everyone heard her and they stopped their noise.

They heard Emaan inhaled like he could inhale the whole air in this quarry before screaming, "I WILL TAKE IT!!!"

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