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Oasis

*Fictional tale based on the events that happened in around 2490 B.C. in Egypt

2490 B.C.

Pharaoh Khufu had started concentrating on the three Pyramids of Giza. He gathered as many of his citizens as he could to build them. Pharaoh Khufu had grand plans for these three pyramids. The biggest of the three would be for him and would be his tomb. He wanted the construction to be started as fast as possible, therefore he was very busy.

He was so busy, in fact, that he could barely bother meeting his new child. Pharaoh Khufu has many wives trying to have the right heir to take his role as pharaoh. But so far, he had no luck. The first three of his children were girls (at the time, pharaohs needed to be male). Then the fourth was a boy, but Pharaoh Khufu just didn’t like him. During the construction of the Pyramids of Giza, his fifth child was born.

In the palaces, Pharaoh Khufu’s current wife, Aurora, knew that he cared more about his project than meeting his newest child. Aurora didn’t bother to tell Pharaoh Khufu that the child was a girl either, for he was too busy.

Aurora quite liked the little girl. It reminded her of herself. So she decided to name the child herself. Picking up her child, she tried to think of the most beautiful name she could muster. Finally, it came to her: she smiled and murmured, “Oasis”.

2482 B.C.

Oasis had grown up most of her life without Pharaoh Khufu. She wasn’t very supervised, either. Now as a young child, she often wandered the palace alone. Her mother and step siblings didn’t bother looking for her. Oasis was okay with that. She enjoyed being by herself and finding out things on her own. She wanted to have freedom and do things on her own terms. For the most part, she was allowed to. But there was one rule she was forbidden to break: she wasn’t allowed to leave the palace under any circumstances.

This made sense: she was royalty. Oasis and all her siblings had bounties on their heads. Pharaoh Khufu didn’t really care if his children got hurt. But if the public knew that his children had been kidnapped, it would bring shame to his name. He couldn’t allow that, so he made sure that his children were safe inside his palaces.

This shouldn’t have bothered Oasis much, because the palace was huge. There were many places to explore on the property. But Oasis was a very curious person. And knowing that she wasn’t allowed to do something just made her curiosity for the outside stronger.

She wandered the border of her home trying to find a way out. But every time Oasis tried this, she realized that it was close to impossible to get out of the property. Pharaoh Khufu had guards at every entrance and exit of his palaces.

At one point, Oasis’s curiosity grew so strong that she devised a plan and vowed to herself that she must escape the palace that month. Oasis patiently waited for the day that had the New Moon—when night would be darkest.

When the day came, she hid behind a bush until midnight. She waited for the guards at the easiest way out to change shifts. The exit was an arch leading out of the garden. When the guards walked toward the palace to rest, Oasis quickly ran for the exit trying to stay low before the new guards would take their place at the arch.

She luckily made it out right before the guards came. Oasis kept running until she couldn’t make out the palace. She was so proud of herself. But then it hit her. Her curiosity had blinded her to not see the obvious. If she went back Pharaoh Khufu would find out and would be furious with her. Oasis and saw a couple of times what her father looked like when angry, and she didn’t want to be the person that Pharaoh Khufu was angry at.

The only thing she could think of was to run and hide. She couldn’t have her father or anyone to find her. If anyone else does find her, she would either be brought back to Pharaoh Khufu to dealt with or she would be killed because of her royal heritage.

2477 B.C.

After five years, Oasis had managed to escape from everyone. But she wondered why no one from her home was looking for her. At this point they must have realized that she was missing. Maybe they just didn’t want to draw any attention to a missing offspring of the pharaoh, Oasis thought sadly.

She had managed to nick clothes from drying racks and steal food from markets when nobody was around. She had to do this to survive. Oasis, though, wanted to thrive, something she hadn’t felt for a very long time. On this particular day Oasis decided to have a break from trying to survive so hard. So she decided to visit the Pyramid of Giza that she heard her father had started to build 13 years ago.

She walked for a while, expecting to find the pyramids until a whole nother week. Oasis thought the pyramids must have been hidden or built far away. But to her surprise she found the pyramids in only a couple of hours. They weren’t very far from the main village and even though the Pyramids of Giza were only halfway done, they were already massive and could be seen miles away.

To make sure no one would recognize her, Oasis draped herself from head to toe in cloths. She wanted to see more of the pyramids, so she carefully made her way closer to them.

When she got to the pyramids, though, she was surprised to see all of the people working nonstop. The workers were too busy moving stones or carving out blocks to even notice Oasis walking past all of them. She managed to get to the entrance of one of the pyramids before someone said anything to her.

An older man called from behind and started to say, “I wouldn’t go in—” before getting yelled at by a guard to continue working. Oasis wondered why she shouldn’t go in. But her curiosity got to the best of her yet again, so she made her way in the pyramid.

Inside it was dark but had some light from the entrance and the unfinished roof. There was a corridor at the far end of the inside of the pyramid. Oasis thought that this corridor might be a tomb room. Maybe full of gold? Oasis was eager to see what was in the room beyond the corridor. She hurried over there before anyone could stop her.

But when she got to the corridor and walked through it, Oasis saw a bunch of blocks in a room. Could there be gold hidden under the blocks? She had heard people discussing how to hide valuable items from tomb raiders (people who rip through tombs to take gold) back when she was still in the palace. She wondered if the blocks were truly there for hiding things. There was a high chance the blocks were there for that reason. Oasis looked at one of the blocks and started to push in hopes to find gold. But when she started to, the whole room started to shake.

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