The name remained on the wall.
AKHENATEN.
No one moved.
For several seconds, even the faint dripping of water seemed to disappear.
Katrina stepped closer, staring at the symbol beneath the name.
"This isn't Egyptian."
Jacob shook his head.
"No."
His voice was unusually quiet.
"It predates the records we have."
Katrina looked at him sharply.
"You said the Old World records mentioned dimensional resonance."
"They did."
"And you never found this?"
"I found fragments."
"Where?"
Jacob hesitated.
"Buried beneath the ruins of the northern archives."
Zarok's expression darkened.
"You knew about this."
"I knew that researchers in the Old World had been studying something they shouldn't have been studying."
Jacob looked at X.
"I did not know they had given it this name."
X continued staring at the wall.
"Akhenaten."
The name felt wrong.
Not unfamiliar.
Something worse.
Familiar in a way that made his stomach twist.
"I don't remember him."
"Perhaps that's the point," Katrina said.
X turned toward her.
"What do you mean?"
She pointed at the symbol.
"Your memories aren't simply missing. Something may have been done to them."
The corridor fell silent again.
Seren frowned.
"You think someone erased his memories?"
"I think it's possible."
Jacob's expression became grim.
"Or X erased them himself."
X stared at him.
"Why would I do that?"
Jacob didn't answer.
Because there was no good answer.
Katrina slowly moved her lantern closer to the wall.
"There."
A faint line had appeared beneath the ancient symbol.
She brushed away several layers of dust.
More markings emerged.
"They were hidden."
Zarok stepped beside her.
"Can you read them?"
"No."
Katrina examined them for several seconds.
"They aren't written in the same system."
She looked at X.
"But he might be able to."
X approached.
The moment he saw the symbols, something inside his mind shifted.
He could understand them.
Not completely.
But enough.
"Containment."
Katrina looked up.
"What?"
"That's what this says."
X traced the markings with his finger.
"Containment protocol."
He moved farther along the wall.
"Subject."
His breathing became uneven.
"Subject..."
He stopped.
Seren came closer.
"What?"
X stared at the final symbol.
His voice became barely audible.
"Subject: A."
Katrina's eyes widened.
"Aris?"
X shook his head.
"I don't know."
Then the wall began to vibrate.
The symbols illuminated one after another.
A deep hum rolled through the corridor.
Zarok immediately drew his sword.
"Everyone back."
The stone beneath them split open.
A narrow compartment emerged from inside the wall.
There was no mechanism.
No lock.
It had responded to X.
Inside was a small metal container.
Unlike everything else in the temple, it showed almost no signs of age.
Katrina carefully lifted it out.
"What is this?"
Jacob examined it.
"Old World technology."
X stared at the container.
"I know it."
Everyone looked at him.
"You remember it?"
"No."
He touched its surface.
"But I know how to open it."
A small section of the container slid aside.
Inside was a thin black tablet.
Katrina's eyes widened.
"That's impossible."
"What?"
"It shouldn't have survived."
X picked it up.
The screen flickered.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a single word appeared.
ARIS.
X stopped breathing.
The tablet unlocked.
A recording began.
A woman's face appeared.
Clara.
She looked exhausted.
There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and a small cut ran across her cheek.
But it was unmistakably her.
X took an involuntary step forward.
"Clara..."
The recording began.
"If you're seeing this, then the memory seal worked."
X's face went blank.
Katrina whispered:
"Memory seal?"
Clara continued.
"Aris, I don't know whether you'll ever see this."
She looked away from the camera.
"I hope you don't."
X's fingers tightened around the tablet.
"But if you are watching this, then something has gone terribly wrong."
The recording flickered.
Clara lowered her voice.
"The project was never supposed to become what it became."
Jacob leaned closer.
"What project?"
Clara looked directly into the camera.
"The Akhenaten Project."
The group froze.
X felt something inside him crack.
Clara continued.
"We believed we were creating a stable artificial consciousness capable of interfacing with the dimensional field."
Her expression hardened.
"But the field wasn't empty."
A long pause.
"It was inhabited."
The recording distorted.
Clara's face briefly disappeared beneath static.
When it returned, tears were visible in her eyes.
"Aris discovered it first."
X whispered:
"Me."
Clara nodded inside the recording.
"You called it an intelligence."
She swallowed.
"I called it a warning."
The screen flickered again.
A low mechanical noise filled the corridor.
Clara continued.
"You became obsessed with communicating with it."
X's chest tightened.
"You said it could teach us how to stabilize the rift."
She looked down.
"I believed you."
The recording paused.
Then Clara said something that made X's blood run cold.
"But it was learning from you."
X stared at the screen.
"What?"
The recording continued.
"It wasn't just communicating anymore."
Clara's voice trembled.
"It was becoming more like you."
The tablet suddenly went black.
X stood frozen.
Katrina immediately examined the device.
"There's more."
"What?"
"The recording didn't end."
She turned the tablet over.
"Something interrupted it."
Jacob looked at X.
"Perhaps the rest was deliberately removed."
Zarok frowned.
"Then we find another record."
X didn't answer.
He was staring at the blank screen.
One sentence repeated inside his mind.
It was becoming more like you.
Seren gently touched his arm.
"X."
He looked at her.
"What if that's what the pharaoh is?"
No one responded.
X's voice became quieter.
"What if Akhenaten isn't an ancient god?"
Katrina finished the thought.
"What if he's an artificial consciousness?"
Jacob slowly shook his head.
"That would explain too much."
Zarok looked toward the darkness ahead.
"And what would it make X?"
X stared down at his hands.
He remembered the laboratory.
The machine.
Clara.
The rift.
And the feeling of pride he had felt when everything began.
Then another fragment surfaced.
Not a memory.
A voice.
His own.
Give him a name.
X's eyes widened.
A second voice answered from somewhere inside the darkness of his mind.
Akhenaten.
The pendant suddenly pulsed purple.
Far beneath the temple, something answered.
One heartbeat.
Then another.
And then a voice whispered inside X's mind.
Not the voice of the curse.
Not the voice of Akhenaten.
Clara's voice.
You were never supposed to remember this yet.