She saw lights everywhere, bright lights like neon. She ran a hand over her eyes, feeling them sting.
Shocked, she turned her face to the side. A trickle of sweat trickled through her hair, dripping when Amanda caught sight of a huge room.
The place was a little dark. Large ball-shaped lamps hung on one side of each of the ten sandstone columns and lit and coated everything with a bluish glow. The colorful fine fabrics on the ceiling danced in the flickering light coming in through strange arches of rectangular pillars in the places of windows, the daylights also squishing the porcelain floor. The curtains were adorned with embroidery with strange images and jewelry.
Worried, Amanda didn't remember it being daytime and wondered once again if she was sleeping. She looked everywhere again after rubbing her eyes with her hands, noticing another dance of lights around her. To her confusion, a blue color glistened on the floor like water reflected in a mirror.
She peeked over her shoulder, and her heart raced. Right behind her, she saw what looked like a round door. An arched passageway that looked old and cracked and crumbling that Amanda was impressed to see the thing still standing. She feared he would fall on top of her, and she scrambled to the ground in shock.
She braced her hands on the floor behind her, still in horror. After a while, she realized that in the center of the arch, the black curtain or veil was shivering slightly where there was no breeze, like the waters of an undulating lake.
Amanda let an ugly word slip, squinting at the arch set in what looked like an altar to her. The platform was accessed by stairs that opened in triangular shapes, and its entire floor was covered with images that looked like hieroglyphics of a language she didn't know. All the walls looked decorated with symbols, as if she had just been transported to a temple of some ancient civilization.
First she was confused, then frowned for logic.
"Who's there?" said someone's sudden, abrupt voice, echoing across the room.
Startled, Amanda cringed to the side, listening to her heart thump in her own ears.
"Who are you?" The voice morphed into a person, coming out of the dark part of the room near a door.
Amanda blinked a few times, not understanding what was happening. She wasn't sure, but the person was dressed in strange clothes. Something that looked like a tunic with gilt details, with high collars and gilded plate shoulder pads. Underneath the tunic covering her body, she didn't seem to be wearing anything but a black skirt, sewn in the same details. The soles of her sandal slapped the porcelain floor.
Amanda's brows furrowed again. She started to believe that she was going crazy, or that this was the longest, weirdest dream she'd ever had in her life.
"I made a question!", the person asked again, and she felt she should run. "Who are you and what are you doing…"
When the person placed their face completely in the light, Amanda noticed that it was a rectangular face, and was a woman. Her skin tone was sun brown, with Middle Eastern streaks. Her hair was shaved, and she was drawing a kind of tattoo on her forehead. A sun, something religious it looked like.
Her dark eyes, beneath one of her eyebrows festooned with makeup that looked like gold, rose toward the stone monument behind Amanda. Her red lipstick-painted mouth opened wide.
"Where are you from?" the woman asked, glancing at the girl. "From the Stargate?"
Amanda blinked, confused, looking over her shoulder toward the stone archway. Her heart was pounding frantically, thinking this was the weirdest dream she'd ever had in her life.
"Who opened the gate for you?". The woman's voice was now razor-sharp.
"I... I don't know..." Amanda finally managed to mutter, though her voice was far from composed. "What... Where did I... Is this a dream?"
Approaching a step forward, the woman who looked like a kind of priestess to Amanda pushed aside the robe that covered her limbs. With her movement, she drew from a hem attached to her belt of her skirt, a curved-bladed dagger.
"Dream?". She questioned, her tone even more severe. "Who are you and who opened the gate to pass to us?".
Pointing her knife at the girl, Amanda swallowed, holding up her hands.
"M-my n-name is"...
"Itis!", exclaimed someone's voice, coming through the door. "What's going on here?".
Amanda's head began to ache fiercely at that moment. Several people entered the room.
"Someone opened the Hero's Portal". The person threatening Amanda responded, while many voices spoke at once. "I felt the temple tremble and came to check if the Hero's Portal was okay, so I found this woman here."
The burly man, wearing a tunic that resembled the woman but with a cloth that appeared to be made of feathers, looked at Amanda. Her face was rough and her appearance so violent it made the girl stiffen.
"The opening only?", asked the man. "Impossible!"
Confused, Amanda shrank back until her back hit a pillar.
"Look at her clothes, Hem-Neter Sisena". Itis pointed at the girl.
Amanda looked down at herself, dressed in her cat-patterned pajamas.
"It doesn't belong to Tammera". Itis observed, her nose flaring as she breathed fast.
Everyone gave a unison "oh" at the same time, though, approving Amanda as if she'd just walked into the courtroom of an Inquisition. She felt in danger, like a witch condemned for sorcery. One of the looking men even patted his chest with some indignation.
She had no idea what was going on.
"Heresy!", shouted one of those people.
"We don't need an ankham![1]".
"A ankham is only coming after sacred rituals, no one has done any rituals".
"Has there ever been a gate open on its own?".
After that question, Amanda looked towards the taller man, who looked like a leader. Her eyes were so grim, she cringed in fear again.
"Wait a moment...", she tried to speak, but the man's strong voice crossed hers:
"The only one, called by you, became an anti-hero".
They were again amazed by other collective "oh". Amanda raised her head. She was still shaking. She swallowed hard.
"The Great Divine Father needs to take notice!", said the man, raising a hand to his companions. "Quick, call Sinistre [2] Aiy. Send the Scribe!".
"Please, I..." Amanda held up her hand. The men shrank back, afraid of her. "Calm down, I won't hurt anyone... Just... I have no idea what's going on, I..."
"Silence, zophet!", what looked like the leader, shouted at her, grabbing someone else's clothes. "Hurry up", she yelled to a guy face to face. "Send for Aiy!".
As soon as the boy dressed in that beautiful black tunic with gold accents walked out the door, the leader's gaze was cold as an ice cube towards Amanda.
"Sometimes Sekhdaya sends her strays to haunt us".
Amanda frowned at him.
"Take her somewhere, and don't let her out until Aiy has arrived." She held up a hand to the others.
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Footnote
[1] Ankham is a made-up word, means Spirit of Pram, comes from Ankh (spirit) and Pram (a Hero of the story world). The female word is ankhamret.
[2] Sinistre it's a title, something like High Priest.