Chapter 3 - The Awakening

  Darkness swallowed the chamber, thid absolute, muting sound and thought alike. The only thing that remained was the pulse—the Hollow Signal, now thrummih their feet like a sed heartbeat.

  Elian’s grip tightened around his ser, though the device was useless now. The s flickered erratically before cutting to static. A warning. A presence.

  Then, the first tremor.

  It wasn’t violent, not yet—just a subtle shift, like something a stirrih yers of time. The dust that had settled undisturbed for turies suddenly lifted, spiraling in zy patterns through the stagnant air.

  The statue at the ter of the chamber—not a statue—remained motionless, its jaguar-like form looming, its hollow eyes fixed on something unseen. A, Elia it. A presence. A sciousness.

  The others felt it too. A soldier muttered a curse, his rifle raised instinctively. Dr. Rivera’s breath came quicker, sharp and trolled, her mind already w through calcutions she couldn’t expin.

  Miguel, the local guide, stood frozen at the entrance. His voice was barely above a whisper. “We shouldn’t be here.”

  Then, a sound.

  A scrape.

  It came from beyond the chamber, from the corridor they had just passed. Not footsteps. Something slower. Something deliberate.

  Elian turned sharply. The soldiers followed his gaze, fshlights swinging wildly toward the darkness. The beam of one caught movement—just for an instant, just long enough tister something shifting.

  A shape, too tall, t.

  Then, the scream.

  A soldier at the rear was yanked back so fast it looked unnatural—one moment he was there, the he was swallowed by the dark. His strangled cry was id-breath.

  Gunfire erupted. Chaos.

  Dr. Rivera grabbed Elian’s arm, pulling him back toward the statue. “We o move, NOW—”

  Another soldier stumbled into the chamber, his body shaking, his breath ragged. His vest was shredded, deep gashes cutting through his uniform. He opened his mouth to speak—

  And something tore him backward into the corridor.

  The fshlights caught glimpses—shifting limbs, elongated fingers, eyes that were not eyes but voids.

  “Elian!” Dr. Rivera’s voice barely reached him through the surge of panic. “Get away from the statue—”

  But he couldn’t move.

  Because the guardian was moving.

  Not fully. Not awake. But aware.

  A tremor rippled through the ground, deeper than before. The Hollow Signal responded, pulsing in time with something that wasn’t a mae, wasn’t a frequenething alive.

  Miguel’s voice came out strangled. “The Dark Stalker…”

  Elian barely heard him. His eyes were locked on the guardian as its hollow eyes began to shift.

  A glow built from within, faint at first, but growing, pulsing. The carvings along its stone frame illuminated in fragments, f patterns he didn’t reize—no, patterns it was showing him.

  The dark lurched forward.

  The Stalker wasn’t after them. It was ing for him.

  Elia it.

  Not just fear—not just instinct.

  Reition.

  The guardian was looking at him.

  And in that moment, something clicked.

  A forot physical, not tangible—something deeper ed around him, like the cold press of knowledge before it forms into thought. The Hollow Signal surged again, this time tered on him. The numbers on his broken ser flickered—impossible, unreadable.

  The Dark Stalker lunged.

  The guardian awoke.

  A pulse of raw energy exploded from the statue—not light, not sound, but a force older than words. It hit the Stalker mid-charge, sending it reeling, its form flickeriween solid and something else. For the first time, it made a sound—not a roar, not a snarl, but something almost like speech.

  Then, it vanished.

  The silehat followed was suffog.

  Elian staggered, breath heaving, his fingers still tingling from something that had ouched him but had ged him.

  Miguel whispered hoarsely, “It’s not gone.”

  Elian’s gaze flickered to the guardian, its glow dimming, but not fading.

  No. Not gone.

  Waiting.

  And this time, so was the guardian.