The pharaoh's warning echoed in the silent void of his mind. It was an anchor in the sea of his nothingness,a solid point of dread to cling to.
He stared at the stele, tracing the ominous glyphs with his eyes, trying to force more meaning from them.
Who was this pharaoh? What was this curse? And what did it have to do with a world already so thoroughly broken?
The questions were a swarm of insects, buzzing without answer. The only certainty was the cold knot tightening in his gut.
This is important.
This is why he was here.
The conviction was baseless, an instinct rising from the depths of his forgotten self. A sound, sharp and sudden, shattered the ravine's stillness.
A skittering of pebbles from the rim above. He froze, every sense screaming to attention. The silence that followed was different , it was no longer empty, but filled with a predatory tension.
He was not alone.
He flattened himself against the rock wall, his heart hammering against his ribs, and peered up towards the lip of the ravine.
For a moment, there was nothing but the stark line of the cliff against the pale sky. Then, a shape resolved itself from the shimmering heat. It was low to the ground, its form a nightmarish fusion of insect and reptile.
A carapace of mottled, sand-colored chitin covered a segmented body the size of a large dog.
Multiple legs, thin and sharp as daggers, propelled it forward with an unnerving, jerky speed. But it was the tail that seized his focus , it is long, arched, and tipped with a glistening barb that dripped a viscous, black fluid onto the sand.
A scorpion, magnified by some hellish alchemy into a monster. And there wasn't just one.
Another appeared, and then a third, their dark, multi-faceted eyes scanning the ravine below. They moved with a horrifying intelligence, a coordinated purpose. They were hunting. They had found him.
There was no time for thought, only for the l raw, screaming instinct to live. He scrambled away from the stele, deeper into the ravine, his boots slipping on loose scree.
The creatures gave a chittering hiss, a sound like grinding glass, and began to descend, their sharp legs finding purchase on the steep incline with terrifying ease.
They were fast, far faster than he could run in the confining, twisting canyon. He rounded a sharp bend and his heart sank. A dead end.
The ravine terminated in a sheer wall of rock, offering no escape. He was trapped. He spun around, his back pressing against the cold stone, and faced his pursuers.
They were closing in, fanning out to cut off any chance of retreat, their barbed tails held high and ready.
The smell of them reached him now, a dry, acrid scent like ozone and burnt chitin. His eyes darted around, searching for a weapon, anything. His hand closed around a heavy, fist-sized rock.
It was a pathetic defense against their armored bodies and venomous stingers, but it was all he had. The lead scorpion lunged, its claws snapping, its tail whipping forward in a blur of motion.
He threw himself to the side the stinger striking the rock wall with a sharp crack, sending sparks into the dim light. The impact left a sizzling, blackened score on the stone where the venom struck.
He didn't have time to feel relief. The second one was on him, scuttling low and fast. He swung the rock in a desperate arc, connecting with one of its legs.
There was a sickening crunch, and the creature shrieked, a high- pitched chitter of pain, but it didn't stop. It drove him back, its sheer aggression overwhelming. The third one circled around, flanking him.
He was going to die here. The thought was strangely calm, a quiet statement of fact amidst the chaos. He would die in this forgotten place, a man with no name, his end witnessed only by ancient words of a curse.
But another part of him, a stubborn, furious core, refused. It was the same instinct that had driven him through the desert, the same part of him that knew the mirages were lies. It was a will to live that was stronger than despair.
He dodged another strike, the wind from the tail whipping past his face. In the struggle, he stumbled backward, his heel catching on something half-buried in the sand. He fell hard, the rock flying from his grasp.
The lead scorpion loomed over him, its stinger poised for the final, killing blow. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable.
But the blow never came. Instead, there was a flash of faint, golden light and a bizarre, low hum. He opened his eyes. The scorpion was recoiling, shaking its head as if confused.
The other two had also stopped their advance, their movements hesitant. On the creature's foremost leg, just above the joint, something was glowing.
It was a small object, tangled in the chitinous hairs of the beast's limb. A pendant. Seizing the momentary confusion, he acted.
He surged up from the ground, not with the grace of a warrior, but with the raw fury of a cornered animal. He charged the lead scorpion, ignoring the snapping claws, and grabbed its arched tail with both hands.
The creature thrashed, its strength immense, but he held on, his muscles screaming. With a guttural roar born of desperation, he used the creature's own momentum against it, twisting and heaving.
He slammed the stinger down into the soft, unarmored joint where its head met its body. The scorpion convulsed violently, its legs scrabbling at the sand, and then went still.
The other two, seeing their leader fall, seemed to lose their nerve. They chittered in alarm and scuttled back the way they came, disappearing over the rim of the ravine. He was left alone with the dead creature, his breath coming in ragged, painful gasps.
His body trembled with adrenaline and exhaustion. He had survived. He looked at the dead monster, then at his hands, slick with its dark hemolymph.
He is still alive.
The near-death experience had stripped away the last vestiges of his passive
confusion. He was no longer just a victim of his circumstances.
He is a survivor.
His gaze fell upon the pendant still tangled on the creature's leg. The faint golden light had faded, but it was still there.
He knelt and carefully worked it free. It was a small, metallic amulet, shaped like a scarab beetle, its surface covered in intricate patterns.
It was cool to the touch, yet he could feel a faint, residual warmth, a thrum of energy that seemed to resonate with something deep inside him.
This was no random piece of debris. The creatures had been drawn to him, but this amulet had confused them, saved him. It was connected to the curse.
He was sure of it. He closed his fist around it, the metal pressing into his palm. The stele had given him a warning. This battle had given him a clue. His journey had a direction now.