The sun was sinking into the horizon, casting its final golden threads across the dancing sand dunes, when Zane Riyami stood at the edge of the sandy hill, contemplating the desert stretching before him like a sea of molten gold. The air was still, the silence absolute, save for the sound of his ragged breathing and the hiss of sand beneath his feet. He felt that familiar shiver course through his body, the one that always came when his feet touched the desert soil.
"There's something about this place," he whispered to himself, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his dusty hand. "Something calling to me."
He pulled from his pocket the ancient manuscript carefully wrapped in a silken cloth and spread it before him. The map drawn on it was faded, but the strange lines and symbols were still clear enough. And in the center of the map was a circle drawn in red ink, with words written inside in an ancient language: "Sandbloom - Where Two Worlds Meet."
Zane had found this manuscript three months ago, buried among the pages of an old book in the basement of the National Museum where he worked. Since then, it had completely consumed his thoughts. As a young archaeologist, he knew that discovering the legendary city of "Sandbloom" would be an unprecedented scientific achievement. But something else was driving him, something deeper than mere academic ambition.
He carefully folded the manuscript and put it back in his pocket, then looked at his watch. It was approaching sunset, and he needed to return to camp before dark. But something caught his attention—a slight movement several meters away. He bent down to examine it more closely.
The sand was moving. Not from the wind, but as if it were breathing. A slow, rhythmic rise and fall, like a sleeping chest. Zane felt a chill run down his spine. This wasn't natural.
He approached cautiously, kneeling to examine the strange phenomenon. He slowly extended his hand to touch the moving sand, and as soon as his fingertips touched the golden surface, he heard a voice—a faint whisper, as if coming from the depths of the earth.
"Zane..."
He recoiled in terror, his heart pounding violently. Was he hallucinating? He looked around for the source of the voice, but the desert was completely empty.
"Zane... return to us..."
This time the voice was clearer, a woman's voice, deep and soft, coming from the sand itself. He felt a sudden dizziness, and the desert around him began to spin. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to regain his balance, and when he opened them again, he saw something that made his blood freeze.
Amid the moving sand, features began to form—the face of a beautiful woman with soft features and eyes that glowed with a strange golden light. The face was forming from the sand itself, appearing and disappearing with each breath of the desert.
"Who are you?" Zane asked, his voice trembling.
The sandy face smiled a mysterious smile and whispered: "I am the one who has been waiting for you for a long time... the last of the Guardians..."
Then, with astonishing speed, the sand began to swirl around itself, forming a small vortex that rapidly expanded. Zane tried to back away, but his feet seemed rooted to the ground. He felt the sand wrapping around his ankles, pulling him toward the center of the vortex.
"No!" he screamed, trying to grab onto something, but there was nothing to hold. "Help me!"
His screams echoed across the empty desert to no avail. And in a moment of absolute terror, the sand swallowed him completely.
---
"Zane! Zane, wake up!"
Zane opened his eyes suddenly to find himself lying on his bed in his tent at the camp. His body was covered in sweat, his breathing rapid. His colleague Ahmed stood over him, looking concerned.
"What's wrong? You were screaming in your sleep," Ahmed said, handing him a bottle of water.
Zane took a large sip of water, trying to calm his frayed nerves. "It was... it was just a nightmare."
But it wasn't just a nightmare, and he knew it. The dream had been vivid and alive, more like a memory than a dream. And this wasn't the first time. Since finding the manuscript, these dreams had begun to haunt him—dreams of the desert, of a voice calling to him from the sand, of a lost city waiting to be discovered.
"Looks like the desert is starting to affect your mind," Ahmed said with a smile. "Maybe it's time to return to the city."
Zane shook his head. "No, I'm not ready to give up the search yet. I'm sure we're close."
Ahmed looked at him skeptically. "Zane, we've spent two weeks searching this area without any tangible evidence of any ruins, let alone an entire city buried under the sand. The manuscript you found might just be its author's imagination."
"It's not imagination," Zane insisted. "There are references in multiple historical sources to an ancient city in this region. And the manuscript matches..."
He was interrupted by the sound of his mobile phone. He looked at the screen to see the name "Lyra Hakim" flashing on it. Lyra was his colleague at the museum, a specialist in ancient manuscripts, and she had been helping him translate the mysterious texts in the manuscript.
"Lyra, good morning," Zane answered, trying to hide the disturbance in his voice.
"Zane!" Lyra's voice came excitedly over the phone. "I found something. Something very important."
Zane felt his heart race. "What is it?"
"I can't tell you over the phone. You need to come back to the city immediately. This... this will change everything."
Zane and Lyra exchanged a few more words before he ended the call. He looked at Ahmed, who was waiting curiously.
"It seems we'll be returning to the city after all," Zane said as he rose from his bed. "Lyra has discovered something related to the manuscript."
Zane began gathering his things, but his mind was still preoccupied with the dream. The face in the sand, the voice that called him, the mysterious words: "the last of the Guardians." What did it all mean?
As he was packing his bag, his eyes caught something strange on his right wrist—a circular red mark, like a tattoo that had suddenly appeared. It hadn't been there yesterday. He approached the small mirror hanging on the tent pole to examine the mark more closely.
The mark was a red circle surrounding a strange symbol resembling an eye. The same symbol he had seen on the manuscript, in the center of the circle representing "Sandbloom."
He felt another shiver run through his body. How had this mark appeared on his wrist? Was this part of the dream too?
"Zane, are you ready?" Ahmed called from outside the tent.
"Coming!" Zane replied, pulling down his shirt sleeve to hide the strange mark. He decided not to tell anyone about it until he understood what was happening.
He picked up his bag and stepped out of the tent into the bright sunlight. The desert was completely calm this morning, but Zane no longer trusted this calm. He felt that something was watching him, waiting for him.
And as he got into the four-wheel drive with Ahmed, he took one last look at the vast desert. For a moment, he thought he saw a human figure standing on one of the distant dunes—the figure of a woman wearing a white dress dancing with the wind. But when he closed his eyes and opened them again, there was no one there.
"I'll be back," he whispered to himself, touching the manuscript in his pocket. "I'll discover the truth about Sandbloom, whatever it takes."
He didn't know that his journey had just begun, and that his life would never be the same again.
---
The city was bustling as usual, teeming with life and movement, in complete contrast to the stillness of the desert. Zane felt suffocated amid the crowds and noise as he made his way to the National Museum, where Lyra was waiting for him.
The museum was a massive sandstone building, standing proudly among modern structures as a testament to the antiquity of the past. Zane climbed the marble steps with hurried steps, ignoring the guard's greeting at the entrance, and headed straight to the manuscripts section on the second floor.
He found Lyra engrossed in studying a collection of papers spread across a large table. She was a woman in her late twenties, with long black hair gathered in a messy bun, and sharp hazel eyes that radiated intelligence. When she saw him, a wide smile spread across her face.
"Finally!" she said, rising to greet him. "I thought you'd never arrive."
"I came as fast as I could," Zane replied, setting his bag aside. "What did you discover?"
Lyra pointed to the papers spread across the table. "After you left for the desert, I continued researching the manuscript you found. I felt there was something familiar about the symbols and inscriptions on it."
She picked up a paper and handed it to Zane. "Look at this."
The paper contained an image of an ancient inscription on a temple wall. The inscription depicted a city with domes and towers, surrounded by sand, with a sun with strange rays above it.
"This inscription is from a temple discovered fifty years ago, two hundred kilometers from the area you were searching," Lyra explained. "But what's interesting is this..."
She pointed to a series of symbols inscribed below the image of the city.
"These symbols match the ones in your manuscript. They refer to 'Sandbloom,' but they also call it 'The Gateway of Worlds.'"
Zane felt his heart rate accelerate. "The Gateway of Worlds?"
Lyra nodded. "And that's not all. I found references to 'The Guardians of the Gate'—a lineage of humans who had the ability to communicate with... well, with beings from another world."
Zane laughed nervously. "Lyra, you're talking about myths and legends. We're archaeologists, we look for historical facts."
"I know how it sounds," Lyra said seriously. "But there are many cross-references in different sources. And there's something else..."
She suddenly stopped, seeming hesitant.
"What is it?" Zane asked.
Lyra sighed. "Well, you might think I've lost my mind, but... since I started working on this manuscript, I've been having strange dreams. Dreams about the desert, about a hidden city, and about... people talking to me."
Zane felt the blood freeze in his veins. "What kind of dreams exactly?"
Lyra noticed the pallor of his face. "Zane, are you alright?"
Instead of answering, Zane rolled up his shirt sleeve, revealing the red mark on his wrist. "Have you seen this symbol before?"
Lyra's eyes widened in astonishment. "Where did you get this?"
"It appeared this morning, after... after a strange dream in the desert."
Lyra looked at the mark intently, then at Zane's face, and seemed to be making a difficult decision.
"Zane, there's something I need to tell you. Something about myself, and about you, and about why I'm interested in this manuscript."
Before she could finish her words, the door to the room burst open violently, and a tall man wearing an elegant black suit entered. He had a sharp-featured face and eyes as cold as ice.
"Dr. Lyra Hakim," the man said in a deep voice. "And Dr. Zane Riyami. I'm pleased to finally meet you both."
Zane felt a strange tension in the air, as if the room had suddenly filled with static electricity. He noticed that Lyra had taken a step back and looked pale.
"Who are you?" Zane asked.
The man smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "My name is Malik Shadowveil. I'm a researcher interested in your work on... Sandbloom."
How did he know about Sandbloom? Zane hadn't told anyone about the manuscript except Lyra and a few close colleagues in the expedition.
"And what exactly do you want, Mr. Shadowveil?" Lyra asked in a tense voice.
"I want to make you an offer," Malik replied, advancing toward the table. "I have the resources and information you need to find the lost city. And I'm willing to fund a complete expedition... on my own terms, of course."
"And what are your terms?" Zane asked cautiously.
Malik picked up one of the papers from the table, examining it with piercing eyes. "We'll discuss the details later. Now, I'd like to see the original manuscript."
Zane and Lyra exchanged worried glances. There was something unnatural about this man, something disturbing.
"The manuscript belongs to the museum," Zane finally said. "We can't take it out without official permission."
Malik gave a soft laugh. "Dr. Riyami, we all know the manuscript isn't in the museum. It's with you, in your pocket most likely."
Zane felt shocked. How did he know that?
"I don't know what you're talking about," Zane tried to deny.
Malik sighed impatiently. "Well, we'll do this the hard way then."
He gestured toward the door, and two large men wearing similar black suits entered.
"Last chance, Dr. Riyami. The manuscript, please."
At that moment, something unexpected happened. The lights in the room suddenly went out, plunging it into darkness. Zane heard the sound of breaking glass, screaming, and rapid movement.
He felt a hand grip his arm firmly. "Follow me!" Lyra whispered in his ear. "Now!"
She led him through the darkness toward a back door he hadn't known existed. Behind them, he heard Malik shouting angrily: "Catch them! Don't let them escape!"
They ran through the dark corridors of the museum, with Lyra guiding him confidently as if she could see in the dark. They finally reached an emergency exit and burst out onto the back street.
"What's happening?" Zane asked, panting. "Who are these people? And how did they know about the manuscript?"
"I'll explain later," Lyra said, pulling him toward a car parked nearby. "Now, we need to go somewhere safe. There's someone you need to meet."
"Who?"
Lyra looked at him with serious eyes. "Someone who knows the truth about your parents, and about why that mark appeared on your wrist. Someone who knows who you really are, the last of the Guardians."
And as the car sped through the city streets, Zane felt that his life had changed forever. His true journey had just begun, a journey that would lead him to the depths of the desert, and to the depths of himself, to discover secrets he had never imagined existed.
And somewhere, amid the endless desert sands, Sandbloom was waiting, pulsing with life, calling him to it with its magical breath.