Ankhara: Worlds Collide

By Crystal Ricketts

At eighteen years old, I never thought that my life as I knew it would end. With the death of my parents, I didnt think I would be thrust into a strange, new, and dangerous world.

Three years after her parents untimely death in a train accident, Ankhara Whitmore goes to live with her uncle in Egypt. What she doesnt know is that he has secrets, and his next archaeological find will send her through a mysterious portal to another world.

Among many dangers, Ankhara meets someone willing to risk everything to protect her. Dygrelan, a Nephilim, falls for her, and she soon falls for him. What they both dont know is how much they will need each other to save his people and the human race.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524552497

Crystal Ricketts

Crystal is happily married with two daughters. She currently resides in Manitoba, Canada, and spends her time reading, writing, or running after her girls. Any time left over is spent with her three horses or getting together with family.

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Copyright © 2016 by Crystal Ricketts.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2016917405

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-5251-0

      Softcover      978-1-5245-5250-3

      eBook      978-1-5245-5249-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/14/2016

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

PROLOGUE

Ankhara

The rain poured down in sheets, blurring the lines on the road. Why I was driving in the middle of a rainstorm at night, I had no idea. I should pull over and wait for it to let up, but all I could think of was getting home after my late shift at the bookstore. With my last year of high school nearing an end, I was still undecided on what I would do next. I didn’t know if I wanted to go to college or university or what I would study. I didn’t even know what I was good at. Mom wanted me to follow in her steps and study Egyptology. Don’t get me wrong—it was an interest of mine but not a fascination like it was to her. She and my father were my world though. I didn’t get along with people well. I came off as snobbish because I would rather have my head in a book.

Anyway, I’m getting off track. I knew I would be a disappointment to my mother if I didn’t become an Egyptologist, but I also didn’t want to let myself down either. I was almost eighteen; I had yet to live my life. What if there was something more out there for me? I didn’t want to dedicate eight years of my life to something that wouldn’t inhabit all my waking thoughts.

I turned off Highway 1 and travelled south on Highway 207 toward home but was stopped by a patrol car. There were emergency vehicles blocking the road ahead. Even with the rain, I could see there had been a devastating crash. It appeared a train hit a vehicle. The crossing bars were still flashing. A police officer was directing people to turn around and go back the way we came. I looked past him, not paying him any mind.

My blood ran cold, and I stopped breathing. I knew that crushed heap of metal. It was my parents’ SUV. I put my car in park in the middle of the lane and got out feeling numb. There was a figure on the ground covered with a black body bag. I didn’t want to know which one of my parents it was, but I got my answer as soon as I saw my mother being loaded into the waiting ambulance. She was unrecognizable. I pushed to get through to her, but a police officer blocked my way.

You can’t come through here, miss.

That’s my mother, let me go, I screamed at him.

He reluctantly let me go. I ran to the ambulance as fast as my rubbery legs would carry me, thinking this couldn’t be happening. My mother didn’t even look human anymore. There was so much blood. Both her arms and her right leg were bent at unnatural angles. A tube came from her mouth, helping her to breathe. I wanted to ride with her in the ambulance, but the paramedics wouldn’t let me. She was in critical condition.

A female officer approached me. Come with me, child. I will drive you to the hospital.

I barely heard her but numbly allowed her to direct me to her cruiser.

All I remember from the ride to the hospital was feeling that this wasn’t real. This was a nightmare, and I was going to wake up now, drenched in sweat in my own bed. I would go downstairs and find my mother in her study reading some news articles, and my father would be in the living room watching his comedy show.

Only this wasn’t a nightmare. This was a real-life horror story.

Once at the hospital, I was told that my mother had gone into surgery. No one could tell me if she would be all right. I slumped to the floor against the wall in the waiting room. Curling my knees up to my chin, I concentrated on not breaking to pieces.

Eight and a half hours later, a doctor came out to find me. I hadn’t slept since the night before, and he could see the tension in my face from waiting.

Ms. Whitmore?

I nodded, afraid my voice would break.

Your mother has suffered a couple broken ribs, one of which punctured her right lung. We have repaired it the best we can, but she also suffered some head trauma. We won’t know the extent of the injury until she wakes up. He paused as if what he had to say next would hurt me worse than what I already heard. There has been quite a bit of trauma to her spine. You should be prepared that your mother may not have full use of her legs. If she does, the complications from the fractures might prove difficult. We set the fractures in her right arm as well, and we are confident she will regain full use of it in time. We have done the best we can, and the rest is up to her.

I let it all sink in. My mother possibly paralyzed? Pictures of her running in the yard with me as a child ran through my head, her quiet laughter echoing in my mind.

She should wake soon. You are welcome to wait with her if you like.

I nodded and let the nurse beside me lead me to her room.

My mother was motionless on her bed. She looked so small and fragile wrapped up in all those bandages. All I could hear was the beeping of the heart monitor, letting me know she was still with me in this world. I walked to her side and gently touched her fingers as if any pressure would make her crumble. I couldn’t stop the tears as they streamed down my cheeks and landed on her blanket. I couldn’t bear to see her like this. My mother had always been strong. I was like her in the way that we never showed any weakness, at least not beyond closed doors. I wondered if she would condone me crying now at her bedside.

I sat and rested my head on her bed, but still my body refused to shut down and sleep. Thoughts of my father raced before my eyes. I kept expecting him to burst through the door and hold me in his arms. He didn’t come. He never would.

With no one but my mother in the room, I let myself break down. I cried as I had never allowed myself to cry before.

I woke a couple of hours later to feel my mother gripping my fingers. I sat up to see her watching me.

Mom… My voice broke, and no more words could come out.

She squeezed my fingers again. I could tell she was in pain and got up to push the button next to her bed to announce to the nurses she was awake and needed more pain medication. I sat back down beside her, trying desperately not to break down all over again in front of her. Her eyes fixed on me questioningly.

Your father?

I shook my head as my eyes threatened to overflow.

She blinked her eyes as if she too were fighting back tears.

Your Uncle Asha in Egypt… She winced. He will help take care of you—

I didn’t let her finish her sentence.

Don’t talk like that, Mom. You’re going to be all right. We are going to go home together, and I will help you get better. You’ll see.

I smiled weakly, trying desperately to believe my own words. Sadness crept into her faulty smile like she too wanted desperately to believe that were true.

I love you, Mom. I knew that if I didn’t say it, I could lose my chance, and I would regret it.

I love you too, Ankhara. Please don’t forget that. Your father loved you very much too. You were his whole world. Her voice cracked, and I could see the hurt tearing her to pieces inside. I have a journal. It is on the top shelf in my closet. I want you to have it. There are some things you need to know, but I can’t explain them here. The woman who wrote it can teach you more than I.

You can give it to me or tell me yourself when we get home.

She smiled dimly and closed her eyes, too tired to continue talking. I rested my chin on her bed, unable to bring myself to leave her. I remember sitting there, watching her breathing slow down and thinking that God could not be so cruel as to take both of them from me today. I wasn’t an overly religious person. I never went to church, but I prayed that night as if he were in the room watching me. I silently begged him not to take her from me that night. I think he heard me since she made it through the night.

**********************************************

Lost in sleep again, I awoke abruptly the next morning to the high-pitched beeping of her monitors. Two nurses rushed into the room. I got up and moved to the wall, giving them room. I watched, horrified, as they worked to start her heart again.

Page Dr. Hudson. She is crashing.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I was losing her too, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Her last words to me rang in my head. I love you, and so did your father. She was never an overly emotional person. She kept her feelings guarded, and her outpouring of love should have been my first clue. Those were her last words to me before a blood clot tore us apart forever, and I was angry at her because she knew I would be leaving that hospital without her.

In just twelve short hours, I lost both my parents, and everything that I thought I was—strong, independent, invincible—died with them that night.

CHAPTER ONE

Ankhara (Three Years Later, Luxor, Egypt)

The wind gently stirred the sand around my feet. My long black hair blew out behind me. I loved the smell and the feel of the desert. I thought after leaving Canada that I would miss home almost as much as I missed my parents, but the truth was I adjusted to being here in Egypt surprisingly