Location: The Inner Sanctum, Beneath the Earth – 3024 B.C.
The chamber pulsed with power. Walls of black stone, carved with symbols that moved when no one looked. A fireless glow rose from the veins of gold running beneath the floor, casting ghostly shadows across the priests.
At the center of the circle, a child cried.
He couldn't have been more than six.
The High Priest, crowned with a jackal skull dipped in molten copper, raised his arms. His voice was not loud, yet it carried through stone.
"Let the pact be sealed."
A younger priest stepped forward—his hands shaking slightly as he held the obsidian scarab.
"The Heir is of pure descent," he said. "Born of the surface bloodline. Marked by the Gift."
Another priest added, "And cursed with the Sensitivity. He will hear the Call when the drums rise again."
The High Priest knelt by the child. His eyes burned with a strange compassion.
"You will not remember this," he whispered. "But your blood will carry the signal. One day, your seed will return. And he will open the path again."
He pressed the scarab against the child's chest. It sizzled.
The boy screamed.
The glow beneath the floor surged.
And the walls whispered in a thousand forgotten tongues.
Then—darkness.