No one spoke for several minutes.
The name Clara seemed to hang in the corridor like an echo.
X sat against the stone wall, staring at his hands.
He could remember her face.
Her voice.
The way she smiled when she became excited about an experiment.
But everything else remained fractured.
Katrina finally broke the silence.
"Tell us everything you remember."
X gave a weak laugh.
"That's the problem."
He looked at her.
"I don't remember enough."
"Then start with Clara."
X closed his eyes.
The memories came slowly.
A laboratory.
White walls.
Glowing screens.
Machines unlike anything the wasteland had ever produced.
And Clara.
Always Clara.
"We worked together," X said.
"On what?"
"I don't know."
Katrina frowned.
"You remember the machine."
"Yes."
"Then what did it do?"
X hesitated.
"It opened something."
Jacob leaned forward.
"Something?"
"A rift."
The word made the others exchange uneasy looks.
X continued.
"We were studying energy. Something beyond normal physical space."
Katrina's expression sharpened.
"Dimensional energy?"
"I think so."
"You think?"
X pressed his fingers against his temples.
"The memories are incomplete."
He could almost see the laboratory again.
Clara standing beside him.
The machine humming.
A brilliant sphere of light suspended inside a ring of metal.
They had been laughing.
They had believed they had solved something impossible.
Then the memory changed.
The lights were red.
Warning symbols covered every screen.
The machine screamed.
X's breathing quickened.
"Something went wrong."
Seren immediately moved closer.
"X."
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
He ignored her.
"I remember Clara."
He swallowed.
"She was afraid."
A flash.
Clara grabbing his arm.
Aris, shut it down.
Another flash.
X pulling away.
We're too close.
Another.
The machine's energy rising.
The rift expanding.
Something moving inside it.
X opened his eyes.
"There was something on the other side."
Zarok's expression hardened.
"What?"
"I don't know."
"You saw it?"
"No."
X shook his head.
"But I felt it."
The pendant suddenly pulsed.
Everyone looked down.
A faint purple light spread beneath X's fingers.
Katrina stepped closer.
"That's the same energy we've seen in the curse."
X stared at the pendant.
"No."
Katrina frowned.
"No?"
"It's similar."
He slowly stood.
"But it isn't the same."
Jacob's eyes narrowed.
"How do you know?"
X looked toward the darkness ahead.
"I don't know."
A pause.
"I just do."
Katrina examined the glowing symbols still faintly visible on the wall.
Then she looked back at X.
"Your memories and this place shouldn't be connected."
"But they are," X whispered.
He approached the wall.
The symbols brightened.
Katrina immediately stepped aside.
X lifted his hand.
The moment his fingers touched the stone, the ancient markings rearranged themselves.
A pattern appeared.
A circle.
Inside it was a symbol resembling an open eye.
X stared at it.
"I've seen this."
"Where?" Katrina asked.
"In the laboratory."
Jacob's face became grim.
"Then the Old World and the curse are connected."
"No."
Everyone turned toward him.
X shook his head.
"They're not just connected."
He looked at the symbol.
"I think the curse came from the same experiment."
Silence.
Seren's face tightened.
"You mean the catastrophe began because of that machine?"
"I don't know."
X's voice cracked.
"I don't know what happened after."
Then another memory struck.
Clara.
Blood on her sleeve.
Alarms screaming.
The machine tearing apart.
And X standing before it.
She was shouting something.
He couldn't hear her.
Then the rift opened completely.
Something enormous looked through.
X stumbled backward.
Seren caught him before he fell.
"What did you see?"
X stared at her.
His face had gone pale.
"Her."
"Clara?"
He nodded.
"She was trying to stop me."
Zarok's eyes narrowed.
"Stop you from doing what?"
X didn't answer.
Because the memory had changed again.
Clara was crying.
She stood behind the containment barrier.
X was on the other side.
The machine was reaching its limit.
And X was smiling.
Not because he was happy.
Because he believed he could control it.
His own voice echoed through the memory.
Trust me.
Clara shook her head.
I do trust you.
Her voice broke.
That's why I'm scared.
The memory vanished.
X dropped to his knees.
Seren knelt beside him.
"X."
He stared at the floor.
"I caused something."
Katrina immediately crouched beside him.
"You don't know that."
"I remember the machine."
"That doesn't mean you caused the collapse."
"I was there."
"So was Clara."
X looked up.
Katrina's voice softened.
"You remember the beginning. Not the end."
Jacob nodded slowly.
"Memories are pieces. We cannot build the entire truth from one."
X looked at the pendant.
The purple light was fading.
"But the pharaoh said I created him."
Nobody spoke.
The words changed the atmosphere instantly.
Zarok's hand tightened around his sword.
"The voice in the canyon."
X nodded.
"He said I created him."
Seren looked at X.
"Do you remember creating him?"
"No."
"Then don't accept his accusation as truth."
X looked at her.
"What if it is?"
Seren held his gaze.
"Then we'll face the truth when we find it."
Her voice was quiet but firm.
"Not when the curse tells us what to believe."
For the first time since the Hall of Mistakes, X felt the crushing weight inside his chest loosen.
Not disappear.
Just loosen.
He stood slowly.
"We need to keep moving."
Zarok nodded.
"Agreed."
Katrina turned toward the passage.
But before they could leave, X stopped.
He was staring at the wall.
The symbol had changed again.
Beneath the eye, a single line of unfamiliar writing had appeared.
X stared at it.
He couldn't explain how he understood it.
But he could read it.
His voice barely carried through the corridor.
"Project designation..."
He swallowed.
"AKHENATEN."
Everyone went still.
Jacob's face drained of color.
Katrina stared at X.
"That's impossible."
X touched the writing.
His fingers trembled.
The final fragment of memory surfaced.
Clara's voice.
A machine.
A name.
And a sentence spoken by X himself.
Begin the Akhenaten protocol.
The memory disappeared.
X slowly withdrew his hand.
For the first time, the name of the pharaoh no longer felt like an ancient mystery.
It felt like something he had once known.
Something he had once touched.
And perhaps—
something he had once created.