The room held its breath. The cube pulsed gently in Compass’s hands, its surface alive with glimmers of light. The lines along its edges weren’t just engravings anymore—they were channels, conduits of ancient energy responding to touch, to presence.

  Sphinx was already speaking, though it sounded more like prayer than analysis.

  “The cuneiform reads ‘Abzu.’”

  His voice was raspy with disbelief.

  “That’s the Akkadian term for ‘the deep’—not just depth, but primordial depth. The abyss.”

  He turned the cube slowly, his fshlight dancing across the opposite face.

  “And here... the Egyptian script says ‘Ta-Netjer.’”

  He paused, stunned.

  “Land of the Gods.”

  The room fell silent. Even Rivet had nothing clever to say. Even Echo, who usually watched everything through a lens, had lowered the camera.

  “Two civilizations,” Compass murmured. “Speaking across time. Across nguage. Saying the same thing.”

  He looked again at the central symbol—the brain, ced with fiments like fungal threads. It stared back at him. Not with eyes, but with intent.

  “It’s a message,” he said. “Left behind. Hidden. Waiting.”

  Sphinx nodded slowly.

  “A warning, maybe. Or an invitation.”

  Doc stepped forward, shining his light across the walls again.

  “There’s more here. Star charts. Frescoes. But it’s too clean. Too quiet.”

  He bent down and rubbed a finger along the stone.

  “There’s no dust. No decay. No bat droppings. No fungal growth. This isn’t a tomb.”

  He looked up, face pale.

  “It’s a sealed chamber. Preserved. Like a... vault. Or a capsule.”

  Compass exhaled, the weight of it all pressing on his chest. This was no ordinary archaeological site. This was a message in a bottle—hurled across millennia. And now they had opened it.

  He wrapped the cube carefully in a cloth from his satchel and slipped it into a reinforced compartment inside his pack.

  “We say nothing,” he said. “Not yet. Not until we understand what this is.”

  The others nodded. No questions. They understood. This wasn’t just another find. This was a threshold.

  “Let’s go,” Compass said quietly.

  They turned back toward the passage, moving silently through the chamber. Their footsteps echoed like whispers from the past.

  As they stepped into the outer tunnel, Rivet paused and looked back.

  “Feels like we’re leaving something unfinished,” she murmured.

  “We are,” Compass replied. “And that’s exactly why we’re coming back.”

  The light from outside was harsh when they emerged. The sun still burned overhead, merciless and absolute. But something had shifted. The team climbed back up the dune slope in silence.

  At the edge of the entrance, Compass turned. The stone sb stood open—still half-shifted from its original position, like the lid of a sarcophagus cracked for the first time in eternity.

  “Rivet,” he said. “Seal it.”

  She nodded, stepped forward, and pced her gloved hands on the ancient surface. With the exosuit’s strength behind her, the stone groaned and slid back into pce. The sound it made was heavy. Final. The tomb disappeared once more beneath sand and sky. The world above would forget again. And the world below would wait.

  They made their way back toward camp. Wind picked up behind them, erasing their footprints one by one. Sphinx limped slightly. Doc said nothing. Echo walked with his eyes scanning the horizon. Rivet walked beside Compass, eyes forward, silent for once.

  As they crested the final dune, Compass gnced back. The desert was already swallowing the past. But his thoughts weren’t in the sand. They were inside the pack on his shoulder. Inside the cube. Inside the message.

  “Something wrong?” Rivet asked softly, brushing dust from her cheek.

  Her tone was casual, but her eyes were sharp. He shook his head, smiling faintly.

  “Nothing we can’t handle.”

  She nodded and walked ahead. He lingered for one more breath, then followed. Behind them, the wind howled through the dunes, covering all traces. And ahead of them, unseen, the truth waited. Buried. Patient. Alive.