Page 124 of The Mob: Shio Cuppacio

“I see it, Twin.”

“What it look like?” I asked.

“Wait. You can’t see it?” Tunan queered, and I damn near screamed.

“I can’t see nuttin’ but black, and it’s not the mask.” I was sick of these niggas, my brother included.

“It’s a pyramid, Shio. Looks just like those ones we used to watch on the Discovery Channel. But it’s biggerI’m talking colossal.”

If this was a stimulation of ancient Egypt, it made sense for it to be a pyramid. Before I could ask Ezio if he saw a pathway to climb the pyramid, Don’s voice blared over the music that had yet to stop playing. “Looks like you niggas made it.”

“On the outside of the pyramid will be a screen where you all can see the inside. The one with only four senses is the only one who will go inside. The door will open for himonly. He will rely on you dumb niggas to guide him through. When he reaches the end, or if he reaches the end, he will get the resource he needs to gain his lost sense back. Bye, bitch-ass niggas.”

“Mane, what type of instructions is that?” Tunan grunted.

“Wait, you can’t see for real, Shio? Like for real, for real? Like Stevie Wonder’s vision?”

“Yeah, Metavello. Like Stevie… I can’t see shit.”

“You blind?” Tunan asked.

Realization set in that Don had really fucked with my vision. I was temporarily blind—some shit I thought I’d never be.

“Damn, Bible man. We thought you was talkin’ ’bout the masks.” Nel said, sounding somewhat serious for the first time since we woke up in the desert.

“Fuuuuck. I know what this is…” Tunan gasped.

“What?” Metavello asked.

“Making a blind man see. It’s in the bible.”

“John 9,” I responded.

“Okay. What happens in John 9, Bible freaks?”

“Jesus and his Disciples stumble across a blind man. They thought he was blind due to his or his parents’ sin. He wasn’t, though. He was born blind so that the works of God might be revealed to him and those around him. Then Jesus healed him.”

“But y’all stumbled across me, so I was supposed to be the blind one.”

Nel huffed before responding to Tunan. “Don just be doing shit. He didn’t know no better.”

I thought about the lesson in the scripture. I knew the blind man was healed with mud and told to go wash in the Pool of Siloam, and I knew the Pharisees didn’t believe in the blind man’s healing because Jesus did it on the Sabbath. Nel wasn’t lying about how Don just be doing shit, but he’d gotten some of the details right since it was Sunday and I was surrounded by niggas who didn’t believe in Jesus’ power. But the blind man was healed in Jerusalem, and Don’s non-reading ass had us in a fake Egypt. Ezio hadn’t mentioned a pool, which I was thankful about because I refused to be swimming with sharks and shit like Nel had.

“Ooo weeeee! Glad I ain’t gotta go in this bitch. You know, pyramids are zombie tombs, right?”

“Nel…” I warned.

The camels came to a stop and lowered to the ground. My whole body was stiff and drenched as I got off, catching myself from falling into the sand.

“So dey just gonna leave us?” my brother asked.

I could hear the grunts of the camel grow further away.

“How the fuck we gone get back?” Nel chimed in with his own question.

Ignoring both, I held my stick out until it connected with the pyramid.

“To the left a lil’ bit, Shio,” Ezio said.