They continued deeper into the corridor, the air getting thicker with dust and age. Cobwebs brushed Evelyn's sleeves, but she barely noticed — her steps quickened the moment the passage widened into a chamber.
At the center stood a lone pedestal.
On top of it rested a box, aged but intact, carved with jackal motifs and ancient scripts.
Evelyn's eyes widened, her breath catching.
"This is it… This is the box from my dreams."
She approached slowly, almost reverently, tracing the carvings with trembling fingertips.
"I've seen this exact scene—this angle, this room… everything."
Daniel stood beside her, scanning the walls.
He remembered this part.
All too well.
Evy circled the pedestal, searching for some kind of latch or hidden switch.
"There must be a mechanism… some sort of release—"
Daniel reached toward a nearby statue, and took a circular locket as he knew this was the key to the box.
He held it out to her with a small smile.
"Try this. Might help."
Evelyn blinked at him. "Where did you—?"
"Lucky guess," he said casually, even though both of them knew it definitely wasn't.
She took the piece, heart pounding as she aligned it with the slot on the box. And turned it in.
The box opened.
Inside the box, nestled in old linen wrappings, lay a single artifact.
A golden, jackal-headed bracelet.
Evelyn's eyes went wide the moment she saw it.
"The… Bracelet of Anubis…" she whispered, almost breathless.
For any other archaeologist, this would've been a myth — a legend whispered in forgotten texts. The Scorpion King wasn't recorded in any official history; scholars dismissed him as folklore, a warrior-phantom lost to time.
But the bracelet sitting in front of her was unmistakably real.
Evelyn gently lifted it.
"A relic of the Scorpion King," she murmured. "Daniel… this shouldn't exist."
"Sigh… Evy, you and your curiosity always bring problems," Daniel muttered, rubbing his forehead.
He already knew what would happen the moment she picked up the bracelet — the trap was triggered.
And soon, just like in his memory of the movie, this entire chamber would be swallowing Nile water like a cursed bathtub.
Evelyn blinked innocently. "What problem?"
As if the temple itself wanted to answer her—
R R R U U U M M M B B L L E E —
The entire chamber shook violently. Dust rained from the ceiling. Ancient stones groaned. Somewhere deep within the walls, gears began to grind awake after millennia.
Daniel pointed upward.
"That."
A deafening CRACK split through the chamber.
The sidewall collapsed inward, bursting apart like wet paper as a massive wave of Nile water exploded through the opening.
"Evy!" Daniel grabbed her instantly, pulling her against his chest.
A surge of red aura flared around him — blood-energy whipping outward like a protective shell just as the flood slammed into them.
WOOOOSH!!!
The water hit with the force of a stampede.
The entire chamber turned into a raging river in seconds.
The flood hurled them down the corridor, smashing through debris, broken stone, and ancient carvings. Daniel held Evelyn tightly, bracing his body around her as the red energy shield flickered under the pressure.
Evelyn clung to him, coughing, barely able to see through the torrent.
And the two of them were swept violently into the darkness of the temple's flooding tunnels.
The water spun them like rag dolls as they hurtled down the narrowing stone passage. Walls blurred past in streaks of brown and gold, the roar of the flood echoing like thunder in their ears.
Daniel, for reasons unknown to all logical science, was actually enjoying it.
"This is basically an ancient Egyptian water slide!" he yelled over the rushing current, grinning like a lunatic.
Evelyn, meanwhile, was not enjoying a single second of it.
Her hands were clamped around him in a death grip, her terrified screams drowned out by the rushing water as they tumbled and spun through the twisting chute.
The passage narrowed even more—then suddenly widened—and the two of them were launched out of the tunnel like projectiles.
They hit the shallow pool outside the chamber with a massive SPLASH, skidded across the water, and rolled onto the sand in a heap.
Daniel sat up first, shaking water out of his hair like a dog.
"That," he announced proudly, "was a good ride."
*****
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