The adrenaline drained from his body, leaving behind deep exhaustion and a burning thirst.
The dead scorpion lay in the sand like a grotesque marker of survival, its black blood already congealing.
He couldn't stay.
Other creatures might return, or evenworse they can be drawn by the scent of corpse.
He slipped the scarab amulet into his pocket. Its weight was small, but reassuring.
Forcing himself to get up, he turned away from the canyon.
He need water.
He need shelter.
As he retraced his steps, the warning carved into the stele seemed to watch him go, silent and unblinking.
He felt connected to it now, as if the words had been meant for him alone.
The curse was no longer a distant legend and the scorpion had proven that.
This world wasn't just ruined but rather it is hostile, twisted by something ancient and cruel.
Climbing out of the ravine was agony with every muscle protested and when he finally pulled himself back into the blinding sunlight, the desert seem even larger, more threatening still something had changed, beneath the fear was a thin thread of purpose.
He wasn't wandering anymore; he is searching.
He walked for hours, though it felt like days. The dunes slowly gave way to cracked earth and brittle shrubs.
The ruins he had seen in the distance grew clearer, resolving into the corpse of a city.
Twisted steel reached skyward with empty buildings stared back with hollow, sightless windows.
Near one of those skeletal structures, he saw it.
Dark, damp ground and blue color reflected.
Hope surged through him. He broke into a stumbling run, exhaustion forgotten. The oasis was small with a shallow pool no wider than a cart wheel, surrounded by tough, spiky palms but to him, it was a miracle.
He collapsed at the water's edge and drank greedily.
The water was warm, gritty with minerals, but it was life.
The fire in his throat eased and the pounding in his head softened.
He splashed his face, the cool shock sending a shiver of relief through him.
Only then did he look around.
This wasn't just a spring. Someone had lived here. A crude shelter leaned against the ruins, built from scavenged metal and torn canvas.
A fire pit sat nearby, its ashes only days old. Rusted car parts were stacked in a corner, part barricade, part salvage.
Someone else is surviving.
The thought filled him with both hope and fear. Were they friendly or just another predator?
He searched the shelter carefully. It was empty. A dented cooking pot, a worn blanket, and a handful of odd tools.
It looked like the occupant had left in a hurry. Tucked between two sheets of rusted metal, he found a small leather-bound book.
A journal.
The leather was cracked, the pages brittle and yellowed. He opened it gently. The script was written in the same ancient language as the stele. His pulse quickened.
Sitting in the shade of the palms, he began to read.
Understanding came in flashes, not translation but instinct. The writer had been a scholar rather a historian studying the fall of their civilization.
They wrote of a Great Catastrophe: burning skies, shaking earth, cities reduced to memory and dust.
The later entries chilled him.
The catastrophe hadn't been natural.
Evidence pointed to an ancient pharaoh and someone who is arrogant, reckless who had tampered with forbidden power. A tomb. A curse. A ritual gone wrong.
"…the seal is broken," one entry read, the writing shaky.
"The miasma spreads. The land withers. Creatures change and they become monsters. The old texts were right. The Pharaoh's Curse is real and It is the end of our world."
The journal ended there. The remaining pages were blank.
He closed the book slowly. The stele, the scorpion, the amulet, and the journal.
All pieces of the same truth.
A pharaoh's curse, unleashed from a tomb, had shattered the world and twisted reality itself.
He looked down at the scarab in his hand, then out across the ruined desert.
The emptiness inside him as the void of his forgotten past was still there. But now it was filled with something else. Purpose.
He didn't know who he was.
But he knew what he had to do.
The answers to his identity and to this broken world are now lay buried in the heart of that ancient mystery.
He had to find the pharaoh's tomb.
He had to understand the curse.
And he had to stop it.
He stood, eyes fixed on the horizon. The time for wandering was over.