“BIRTH OF PHARAOH” CHAPTER 7

“NYERA IS GONE”

COPYRIGHT 2025. CORINNE DEVIN SULLIVAN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

A squad of guards walks into the private chambers for the King of Po. Each man HAS fabricated his own clothes. everyone dwelling inside the encampment’s confines were completely “living off the land”. There had been no further contact with The Factory since Skin made himself into their King.

Leading up to working with The Factory, there had been several dark ships bearing the sign of a large bird upon them. These were flown by troopers who called themselves gangsters. All were hired by the Creator to “hire” people living upon Po’s neighbor, Planet Fresus. All these gangsters, too, seemed to have removed themselves completely from Po.

Behind these stalwart guards enters the new priest. His garb is a formless smock that travels from his neck to his ankles. It has been adorned with stitched flowers for adornment. He concocted all of this himself, the other day, when it was agreed priests were going to be some of their callings.

Skin’s face draws back in surprise and he screams, “I am interrupted with this thing!”

With this feeling of shock at his having been suddenly interrupted, Skin experiences a simple revelation that he is there in his bed chambers at all, as if there were endless possible other places for him to escape to. Next, he is able to encounter yet another sensation inside his body: the hormonal development of surprise, internally.

“Nyera is dead, isn’t she?” Skin asks the guard from the bedroom floor.

Skin kneels inside a pool of deceased matter, its innards splayed everywhere, his own mouth moist with the wet blood he had drawn. Nyera’s hair is everywhere. There is no sign of her face at all.

In pledging alliance to Skin, the commitment was something so remote that each guard finds himself telling one and all they are, also, now Skin’s priests. As they have never been anointed, they allow the senior authority to pass through them. It is Priest Tyre who must answer to both heaven and to the King for this day’s results.

Tyre guides Skin up onto his feat, and the king asks, “Did she ever bear my child?”

Tyre pats Skin’s arm, guides him out of the mess on the ground.

Tyre says, “No, sire, for you were joining with her for less than a year.”

Skin asks, “Nyera was like me, wasn’t she?”

“Eh?”

“She…,” began Skin, “seemed good. It was… pure. Was she brought into the world for no one’s sake, free? She… seemed Pharaoh.”

Skin is bursting to speak more. But this mind and body of his instead begins to cry. It is a holy experience for the man who was brought to Po as something like a machine. He never knew he couldn’t understand himself, the way he can’t understand anything much else that surrounds him, at least during that moment of deep contemplation.

“Will you clean me, sir?” asks Skin, as if he is only a boy.

Tyre touches Skin’s chin, accepts the beauty of the mold used to craft Skin’s appearance. In the beauty of Skin’s face, obtuse fragments of deceit and lies are there, too. Accepting his and the Pharaoh’s alliance as his own mortal fate, Tyre feels warmth inside his own soul that he has made it to this moment, at all.

“There are many advancements of the mind’s technology I can’t learn about yet, can I?” asks Skin, and he cries.

Tyre responds, “We understand. You are human. Like us.”

From the edge of the room, a guard proclaims, “Your kindness amazes me, sire.”

Tyre explains to everyone, “This is goodness. With this day—which we shall name Nyera and bestow an upcoming holiday with attached ceremonial feast—King Po shall try something, maybe, better. And better is needed here. There are always so many risks. We aren’t ever certain of tomorrow. Things were getting very trying with Nyera. Now, all the trouble is gone from here. Things are going to be better tomorrow. Is that right?”

Resting his bloodied arms and goo on the priest’s smock, Skin asks, “Am I good?”

“Yes,” Tyre responds at once, and with a kind smile, he says at once, “You are good, my human. And, you are my master but, also, my boy-child who I adorn.”

The same guardsman calls out, “Master of everything!”

Pharaoh prepares himself for speech with the microphone strapped again to his jaw. The men in the area are out of breath. Exhaustion is everywhere. The terror dead in front of them all, inside her own sleep chambers, is too gruesome but this something in the air enjoins that they mock this thing they have spotted on the ground. The men begin to smile in a strange manner.

Pharaoh speaks in clear tones that feel so sweet to each man’s soul, and in this he says, “I am Pharaoh. I am man. I am more… to my amazement.”

The men at Skin’s call accept they cannot understand their new king’s mindset. They caress him and fill his void with hope that he as a man is the same as them. It this isn’t true for Skin is a Pharaoh. This will always mean he is a reborn monster from the Netherworld, in truth.

Some days later, in the Main Hall of the ancient encampment, many tables are set. Upon them are fruits and berries and sawed-off carcasses of land mammals. All of the people at Skin’s command join him for a feast.

Amongst these people is a woman goes by the name Pavla Feyta Max. She was married to Problo Max. She hid by dressing as a man and sat beside her husband on the flight when he was sent to Po.

Pavla’s depth of friendship with her husband was bliss for each. She had never loved someone like Problo before. Alas, he was killed by Pharaoh of the worst type: the first batch who hunted, slaughtered and ate until, suddenly, someone stabbed them each in the back and they all died one night.

Since those first terrifying nights, and the grief she accepted in the aftermath, Pavla has put her mind onto the company’s ease. Their circumstances are eerie. This band of free people have no information about the approaching seasons. They lack resources and have not dared to tread far away in the event the creatures or plants outside may be murderous to man. This gives Pavla ample work.

Gaining an understanding about weather as well as plants and animals living on Po has proven a challenge. Half of the people have taken this work upon themselves. It is something to consume themselves with every day and night.

Entering the feast, something established by King Po’s followers, Pavla is amazed at what has been grown and harvested in the food terrariums. It is beautiful.

For Pavla, the world is vapid tonight. Something is terrible inside her now. She clutches at the table in front of her. She is aware that somebody is going to murder someone, and that now is the time for her to be able to fight. She draws the conclusion to keep a knife held in her lap.

“The Law of Meat is now my new thing,” says Skin, the King of Po.

All the diners stop and look at him.

Skin is straddled on his chair, kicking his feet that dangle in the air.

Skin says, “I know what to do.”

The guard were expecting terrible things. What they were not expecting was Skin to take one to the room’s center.

Seated at the head table is Thamy. He asks, “What is this?”

Priest Tyre’s worried look sets off a chain reaction of gasps.

Priest Tyre asks, “What should we know, sire?”

“I will show you,” he whispers, and draws near to the terrified man. In a flash, their King has hurt the innocent man deeply. Blood gushes everywhere for the people to see.

“This is terrible. I am right about this. Leave him!” Skin screams at the many people who want to help the dismembered man.

The guard dies alone, slowly, while calling, “Jessica… Jessica…” to thin air.

 Skin, satisfied the man is gone, asks, “Do you feel good, now, to see him wicker away?”

The room is dead silent. An even stranger look comes over the face of the King of Po.

He screams, “I can’t eat you. Go! Now!”

There is a strange feeling everywhere. Thamy is not good with this but has learned to be more strategic. Instead of arguing with Skin, he nods slightly at Pavla who is seated a few tables away. They have put in hours together in the sunshine, working on crafting something in the dirt, and Thamy wants Pavla safe.

Pavla tells herself she will survive this night. Something inside her agrees. She knows she can outrun most people. She knows she has a way of getting out of scrapes.

Skin strolls back to his seat. He places his hand on the top, drags the crown off. It’s been there for ages. He drops it on the ground.

“Disgusting dirt!” he says to everyone.

Next, he straps his microphone to the chin, calls out, “Don’t forget this, ever. I can only eat the good. People like me are fine for me to eat. Pharaoh only for me, guts and all.”

Skin’s words are too perfect in pronunciation. They can’t be so good, think the people in this room. They sink into their contented thoughts, never knowing how they can possibly go about preparing the body of their fallen friend, there on the ground.

TO CONTINUE THE ADVENTURE CLICK ON CHAPTER EIGHT: “THE BONNE VILLA QUATRA” FROM THE RENEYT HOMEPAGE!