The sand still clung to his fingers** when he touched the solid object buried beneath the dunes. A strange coldness radiated from it, sharp and unsettling—as if defying the desert's scorching heat, where the sun threatened to vaporize souls from bodies.
Alpha knelt slowly, his fingers sifting through the sand like they were digging through memory itself. Minutes, maybe hours, passed as he uncovered the thing hidden beneath. Then it emerged: a massive stone door, half-buried in the earth, covered in strange carvings unlike any language he knew.
*"Hmm… What the hell is this?"* he muttered under his breath, scowling at the markings.
*"Why do I feel like… I know this door?"*
The air was still—too still. No wind, no insects, no sound. Just silence… the kind of silence that precedes great revelations or terrible endings.
He reached out and touched the door.
It opened slowly, without any visible mechanism. No locks, no chains. As if the stone itself had yielded to an unspoken command.
From within, a cold draft rushed out, carrying an ancient scent… like wet ash laced with betrayal.
Alpha murmured:
*"A smell that doesn't belong to this era… or this world."*
Step by step, he entered. The first thing he noticed was the walls—made of the same material as the carvings outside. Black, but not an ordinary black… darker, like the void itself. The walls pulsed faintly, as if alive, watching, judging.
*"Feels like walking through the guts of a sleeping beast…"*
The deeper he went, the heavier his body felt. The air itself grew thick, resisting his every movement.
Then he heard it—the first trap.
***Tschhk!***
An arrow shot from the wall, grazing his cheek and leaving a thin cut.
Alpha, dryly:
*"Lovely. A cave, traps, the stench of death… All I need now is a mummy screaming my name to complete the picture."*
But he was wrong. The mummy didn't scream—it emerged.
From the shadows, a two-meter-tall creature lurched forward, its skin cracked and wrapped in tattered cloth, its face featureless—except for a vertical mouth that swallowed darkness and exhaled icy breath.
It lunged at him without a sound, its movement fluid as a wave.
Alpha dodged, twisted, then drove his fist into its chest.
But the creature didn't flinch. It merely staggered back before exploding into dozens of sandy fragments… which then began reassembling themselves.
*"So, you're Ashborn too… That wretched clay that hates life yet mimics it."*
He raised his hand and focused. A faint spark flickered in his palm—remnants of an inner fire, still smoldering beneath his skin like a buried memory.
He released a small, almost invisible flame. When it touched the creature, the thing shrieked—not as if burned, but as if the fire had exposed something inside it.
*"You're just masks… You don't want a fight. You want a test. But… a test for whom?"*
He turned and pressed on. Every corner held another trap, another creature, another visual riddle carved into the walls. As if this place had been built specifically for the likes of him.
Alpha (internally whispering):
*"Is this a cave… or a buried collective memory? Am I walking through myself? Or through something else… something waiting for me?"*
Then he reached a vast chamber. Its floor was transparent, revealing hundreds of mummified corpses below—piled, tangled, as if they had all faced the same trial… and failed.
At the center stood a colossal statue of a faceless being, its right hand raised to the sky, its left pointing downward—as if tearing something between light and darkness.
*"I know this… I've seen it before—"*
A sudden, searing pain split his skull. Not a sound, but a memory—sharp, violent, incomprehensible.
Alpha (collapsing to his knees):
*"What have I hidden from myself? Who bled the truth from my memories?"*
Then—footsteps.
The masked figure reappeared, but this time… its face was visible. Or so Alpha thought. Because the face he saw… was his own.
A distorted, aged, desperate version.
Alpha (shouting):
*"Who the hell are you?!"*
The voice echoed, layered:
*"I am the first answer you forgot… and the last question you refused to ask. I am you… had you chosen differently."*
Then it vanished as suddenly as it appeared.
Alpha fell to his knees—not from exhaustion, but from the weight.
The weight of a truth… so close, yet still burning like fire at his fingertips.
He lifted his head and stared at the statue.
*"Not yet… I won't end here."*