In one city, four young people were walking at a confident pace towards a certain house, as if they knew their destination well. Once they reached the door until someone rang the bell with an annoying item, opening moments later a door left behind by a woman in the late forties, wrinkles of fatigue seemed evident below her blue eyes.
She yelled at him as she raised an eyebrow, ironically:
"What, you idiot Didn't I repeatedly tell you to knock on the door gently "
The younger replied, confused as he scratched his head: "Sorry aunt, I swear I forgot. But I promise to remember next time."
"Shut up and enter, you and your brothers." She gestured them gruffly to enter
"Okay okay, but... Where is Ozir He said as he smiled lightly.
"In his room, as usual, he follows political events."
The second young man intervened, saying in a resentful tone: "Auntie, politics will spoil him. Have him pay attention to his life."
"I've tried repeatedly, and I failed every time. You are my last hope... Get in and talk to him, turn him on those trifles a little." She said as she looked at the ground desperately.
The third advanced, trying to give reassurance in her voice: "Don't worry, aunt, this time we won't disappoint you."
"Shut up, Jamal! You always disappointed me!" I looked at him angrily
He said desperately: "Why all this frustration !"
The four progressed: Ahmed, Jamal, Yusuf, and Salah towards Ozir's room. They knocked on the door once... Twice... No answer. Then Ahmed took the initiative and opened the door without permission. As soon as he entered, he fell his gaze on a young man in his twenties, with a long brown hair that reached just a distance from his shoulders, and bright blue eyes that were like a metal that was refined in the moonlight.
That was 'Uzair'. Not his real name, but a nickname his friends and relatives used to call him. No one knew that this name, which began as a joke, but would later turn into a name to be codified in history.
Ozir's room was a world apart from the rest of the house, more like a small museum of organized chaos. The right wall is covered with old photographs and newspaper clippings, interspersed with torn maps and drawings of pyramids, kings, and legendary figures. An eye inside a triangle, an incomplete symbol, a round table, all hung with red threads arriving from one image to another, like a huge spider web woven by his mind.
On the desk near the window, piles of open books have accumulated over some of them; some in history, some in politics, and others in Scandinavian and Egyptian mythology. Many leaves stained with black ink, with empty coffee cups left faint circles over the wood. A small lamp shines faintly, almost extinguished by the intensity of exhaustion, casting long shadows on the wall.
The floor wasn't better off; dumped notebooks, broken pens, and an open laptop on a stopped clip at a faint image of an old statue. Near the bed, a small wooden box half open, featuring old family photos and leaves that no one dares to touch.
The place sent a strange feeling: a combination between an archaeologist's library, a teenager's room drenched in his dreams, and his vast imagination.
Ozir shouted, his voice rising as sharp as an arrow: "Ahmed! Why didn't you knock on the door "
Everyone suddenly laughed, and they ridiculed him in a loud voice. Ozir said, the seriousness in his eyes seemed: "Did I say something funny !"
But the laughter didn't stop, until Salah said sarcastically: "We knocked on the door repeatedly, but it looks like you've become deaf!"
"I even hear well, but I was preoccupied with something important, so I didn't notice your ways."
"It's okay... But we want to talk to you about something you know very well."
"Not now Salah..." He said it as he looked over his front documents
Joseph interrupted sarcastically: "I bet on my underwear that you were writing a new article to post on Tik Tok or receive in a live broadcast."
Ozir looked at him and said, "It doesn't matter..."
But Yusuf interrupted him with unusual seriousness: "It matters. I got addicted to politics and became obsessed with superstitions and legends! Trump and Biden photos cover your walls! Your books on Mamluks and Middle Ages fill the place. We are in 2025, not in 1200. Even your office is covered by the pictures of Ra, Tot, Oden and Arthur! Scattered articles everywhere... hours ago you were talking in a live broadcast about Arthur, and now what would you write ,about the round table !"
Ozir laughed sarcastically: "The article didn't like me, so I decided to rephrase it from a new angle." Tellk is still reading the documents.
Salah shouted as he tried to adjust his nerves: "It doesn't matter! Let's from these trifles. Let's go eat pizza. Whether you want or not, you'll come with us."
"Go you, I don't want to disturb now."
Everyone was suddenly silent, and the place uncle was heavy silent. The aunt entered quietly, her face holding stern looks, and said steadily: "You'll go with them, Ozir, to get me some requests. You want me to go out myself and I'm an elderly woman Don't I have a son !"
Ahmed hurried to say joking: "Huh, I always thought you hid him younger... You don't seem old!"
She looked down on him and said: "Cheap compliment."
They all walked out of the room, and Ozir asked them to give him some time to switch his clothes. Soon after, he left with them, in a rare moment of surrender.
But hours later, when Ozir returned home, he decided on a difficult decision: To sleep, instead of a live broadcast of the round table.
Ozir sat on his bed and the exhaustion clear but soon he got into a long slumber. Several hours later he suddenly woke up. But this time, he didn't wake up to pictures of Biden or Trump, nor to scattered articles... He even opened his eyes to find himself standing in front of a towering castle hugging the clouds, with towering wooden doors, and with guards in strange clothes.
And strange people moving around him. It was the first time he saw these people in his life . The sound of people was annoying, Ozir didn't get used to that inconvenience in his life because he was always in his room and rarely went out to me buying the things of the house .
Everyone in the place dressed in simple cotton clothes, free from any decoration.
"What is this" he said with utter amazement at what he sees.
Raising his head towards the top of the castle, he read a inscription carved on the wall:
"The Castle of Amentet."