Chapter 24
The chapter begins with Marcus, utterly alone in the desolate expanse of the desert on this island. The desert stretched endlessly, the sands whispering with the voices of the dead, the wind carrying the murmurs of those who no longer existed. Marcus fell face-first as the pyramid with the cross spat him out, his body trembling, his mind shattered. It wasn't just a fall… it was a rebirth into a nightmare.
He lifted his head, and there was a shadow above him. The second pyramid… not like the first. This one bore a massive carving of the god Osiris, his eyes hollow like pits of hell. Before Marcus could scream, the pyramid opened, as if it were a mouth swallowing its prey. An invisible force pulled him inside, the ancient structure's innards closing around him. The interior was black, but not just darkness… it was the void itself.
He found himself standing in a vast hall, the red light seeping through the walls, pulsing like blood flowing through veins. The hieroglyphs moved, pulsated, and shifted… revealing images of a pharaoh kneeling before a great entity… an entity that was neither human nor divine… it was more like a corroded skeleton, a crown of black fire atop its head, its bones carved with symbols, not of this world. It commanded the pharaohs to build something… temples? Pyramids? No… it commanded them to build a tomb… a tomb for an entire world.
Marcus didn't realize someone was watching him until he felt something behind him.
He turned slowly… and there stood Osiris.
But this wasn't the Osiris from the statues… he was taller than any human, and his golden skin cracked like burnt papyrus. His eyes were a white void, like a light burning without fuel. He carried a staff, but it wasn't a staff… it was a living serpent, coiled around his hand, whispering sounds that should never be heard.
"You were not meant to come here, Marcus."
His voice was not human. It was an echo, a repetition of an ancient voice, a voice that came from the depths of time itself.
Marcus didn't wait… he ran.
The hall was changing, the walls moving, the floor turning into living sand trying to swallow him. Osiris was behind him, moving without walking, as if the distance between them wasn't real. Marcus drew his weapon, aimed it at the god, pulled the trigger…
But there was no sound.
The bullet didn't fire.
Osiris's hand reached out… and grabbed Marcus by the neck.
The pain was indescribable. He felt his breath evaporating, his entire being being pulled out of his body. Osiris didn't kill him… he was pulling him into something else.
Then Amunet appeared.
She emerged from nowhere, her gray hand grabbing Marcus and pulling him back. In the next moment, the place exploded.
They fell… but this time it wasn't a fall into ordinary emptiness.
The fall was deeper.
Marcus fell into his mind.
Time shattered. Space dissolved.
He saw everything… and he saw nothing.
He saw the pharaonic cats watching him, their faces shifting, turning into skeletons, then into familiar human faces, then into nothing.
He saw the pharaonic dogs barking, but their barks weren't barks… they were the sounds of soldiers screaming, children crying, and men dying.
He saw… his past.
He saw himself there… in the Mushroom War.
He saw himself running, hiding from death, firing without thought, without mercy.
Then… he saw the girl.
The four-year-old Egyptian girl.
She was there, in the mud, in the destruction, holding onto his leg, her eyes filled with tears.
"I don't want to die."
"I'm scared."
Marcus remembered the feeling that washed over him then… that void inside him, that decision that wasn't a decision…
The scene shattered.
Marcus fell again.
But he wasn't alone this time.
There was… something waiting for him in the darkness.
Something that had no name, no fixed form.
But Marcus knew it.
It had been waiting for him all his life.
And when Marcus opened his eyes in the void, the thing smiled at him.
Then, quietly, it spoke its first words:
"You are now one of us."
In the midst of his endless fall into that abyss that seemed to have no end, Marcus felt time shattering around him, fragmenting into memories, images and sounds that intertwined and tangled. Suddenly, in the dark whirlwind, a strange scene floated before him in the void: an image of a man—or perhaps an entity—sitting cross-legged, wearing a white robe like mist, or as if it had been pulled from threads of faint light.
The background was wooden in texture, but not like any familiar wood. It looked like layers of intertwined veins, twisting and curling upon themselves, like rivers of brown and pale green. At times, resembling water eddies, and at others, like neural lines showing a hidden pulse beneath the surface of the painting. The colors ranged from warm brown to pale gold, with shades of green and brown suggesting organic, living movement as if the wood itself was breathing or dancing in the shadows.
In the very center, the figure of a man sitting in a meditative lotus position emerged, his features unclear, his face almost melting into the colors and lines. The robe he wore seemed made of pure white mist, sliding over his body smoothly, without any real wrinkles, appearing as a block of light shaped into a human form. His arms were crossed at chest level, his hands resting at his abdomen or lower chest as if encircling something invisible. Notably, the robe showed no clear human details; no hands or fingers were visible, almost blending with the wooden background at times, reflecting rainbow colors at others.
Directly in front of his chest, or perhaps where his heart would be, floated a complex geometric symbol: a multi-pointed star surrounded by circles and intricate patterns, resembling a majestic mandala, with turquoise, blue, and greenish-gold colors dancing around it. The lines intertwined and crossed, forming layers of patterns; some lines were very thin, like spider threads, others thicker, as if expressing another dimension or a mysterious spiritual force. This symbol seemed to pulse faintly, emitting a soft light that illuminated the folds of the white robe, giving the impression that it was the heart of the image, its pulsating core.
From the top of this white figure's head, a vertical line of colored light split the sky; bands of red, orange, green, and blue extended upward and downward simultaneously. This band resembled a rainbow but with darker, more saturated colors at times, closer to cosmic hues, as if it were a portal of energy or a rift in the fabric of existence itself. The band split in the middle at the entity's chest, where the colors merged with the geometric symbol, appearing as if they were feeding it power or consuming its radiance at the same time.
As for the face, nothing was visible. No eyes, no mouth, no nose. Just avoid merging with the background. In this void, part of the geometric symbol overlapped, making the star seem as if it was displacing the features of the head, or as if it was replacing consciousness itself. A terrifying feeling crept into Marcus's heart as he looked at it: Was this a human entity that had lost its features in pursuit of cosmic wisdom? Or was it a manifestation of a celestial being whose image humans could not comprehend?
Amid this scene, Marcus felt everything in the image moving slowly, as if the wooden background pulsed like skin, and the geometric symbol undulated like a fiery heart within a transparent chest. Faint whispers echoed in his ears, like distant chants, as if ancient spirits were reciting forgotten hymns. At one point, he imagined this figure lifting its empty eyes and looking directly at him; an overwhelming sense of fear and awe coursed through his veins as if he had discovered he was being watched by something far beyond his understanding.
All the details were intertwined, blending with Marcus's sense of loss and guilt, as if the painting itself was a mirror of his obsessions and sins. The cold white light radiated from the seated entity, while the warm wooden background surrounded it, in a terrifying paradox between apparent serenity and hidden anxiety. Even the geometric symbol, despite its beauty, carried something menacing within, as if it had the power to ruthlessly expose the depths of the soul.
All of this happened in fleeting moments; as soon as Marcus focused on the last detail of the geometric symbol, he felt a strong rush pulling him into other worlds of horror and delirium. He wasn't sure if this image was inviting him to meditate or warning him of the unknown that awaited him. And though his mind screamed at him to look away, he remained transfixed, as if enchanted, unable to escape those intertwining shapes and colors that slowly consumed him.
As Marcus continued his endless fall into the dark void, his consciousness suddenly jolted to another scene, even more terrifying than the last, as if the darkness itself had decided to reveal its true face. He saw before him a vast expanse of nothingness illuminated by strange cosmic lights, where small suns and stars on the verge of explosion danced. Amid this celestial chaos, a massive entity with wolf-like features emerged—its head that of a wolf or jackal, but its body bore the majesty of an ancient pharaoh, adorned with cracked golden ornaments and a royal collar glowing with a metaphysical blue light.
The eyes of this god of death were like two burning embers, their crimson red glowing in deep sockets like windows to an eternal hell. He sat behind a massive table resembling a chessboard, but its squares weren't just black and white; some appeared burnt or charred, while others seemed made of bleached human bone, emitting faint moans with every tremor of the board. In every corner of the board stood strange creatures writhing and twisting, half resembling mythical beasts and half mummified humans, with others looking like pharaonic warriors whose heads burned with unquenchable flames. Every piece on the board burned with a different kind of torment; one spewed black smoke from its eye sockets, and another oozed a glowing liquid dripping onto the squares like cursed blood.
Behind the wolf-like entity stretched a dark purple sky dotted with two or three moons, slowly rotating as if they were cosmic eyes watching the game. One of the moons was split down the middle, dripping silver light like liquid blood, as if the sky of this dimension was dying. The other moon was submerged in glowing blue shadows, outlining the faces of the damned suffering within, screaming without sound. Between them spread clouds of sparkling stardust, but it seemed closer to the ashes of burned souls than to innocent stars.
The pharaonic wolf-god sat over this board like a bloodthirsty ruler, moving the chess pieces with his long, claw-like fingers. With every move he made, a demonic hum emanated from the void, as if each piece displaced left behind echoes of muffled groans or screams. Sometimes he leaned close to a piece as if whispering a secret, and the piece writhed as if stabbed in the soul before bowing and continuing its march.
There was no mercy or human life in the features of that wolf-like face. Even his smile, when his pale lips parted, revealed massive fangs dripping with sticky fluids in unearthly colors. They seemed like poisons consuming time itself, as if moments were being pulled from around you, and your heartbeat quickened against your will. Every blink of his red eyes felt like a hammer striking the depths of Marcus's soul, making him certain he was facing a force that belonged to no world he knew.
As Marcus's panicked heartbeats raced, he began to realize that the pieces on the board weren't just symbols; they were reflections of souls trapped in a mysterious underworld. Some screamed as if begging for help, others panted as if fleeing through a maze with no exit. The wolf-god was the master of the ceremony, distributing death and torment with quiet taps of his claw, flipping destinies between his fingers. Everything in this scene screamed of cosmic horror: the aberrant sky, the bleeding moons, the board teeming with ghosts, and the wolf-god who seemed to relish moving the pieces of life and death.
Without warning, the wolf's eyes turned directly toward Marcus, as if piercing the veil between vision and reality. At that moment, Marcus felt something heavy crushing his chest, looming over him like an inevitable fate. He wanted to scream, to close his eyes, but he couldn't; the haunted part of him reveled in witnessing this hellish game. With the last beat of his soul, he felt as if the entity smiled at him with a deeper smile, and gestured to the chessboard as if welcoming him as a new player in this terrifying game… a game where there was no escape, where everyone eventually became pieces moved by the fingers of this cosmic ruler thirsty for souls.
The chapter ends with the god of death of the pharaohs preparing to place a massive chessboard over Marcus as the officer screams in terror.
End of Chapter.