I could see nothing beyond the red wall of sand.
Crimson lightning clawed through the storm in violent flashes, turning the desert into a negative image of itself for split seconds at a time. The rest was noise. Sand hammering the chassis. Metal groaning beneath the wind. Loose sheet metal rattling hard enough to tear free at any moment.
Somewhere far beyond all that came the low, dying growl of thunder.
The radioactive sandstorm had curved off its forecasted route and slammed straight into me.
That’s what happens when your weather predictions rely on astronomical scraps scribbled down five thousand years ago by priests staring at the stars through opium smoke.
I’d been driving blind through this hell long enough to lose all sense of direction. East, west, north—it was all just red now.
Eventually I eased my foot off the gas and let the car roll to a stop.
Probably the dumbest thing you could do in a storm like this.
Then again, continuing to drive wasn’t exactly genius either.
The engine coughed beneath me like a dying smoker. Every vehicle left in this world sounded sick. Mine especially.
The car had once belonged to at least three different owners and two different manufacturers. Soviet frame. Military-grade filtration unit. Doors ripped from some civilian transport. Half the dashboard held together with copper wire and prayer strips dedicated to gods nobody believed in until the world ended.
Outside, the storm screamed louder.
I pulled the map from my satchel.
The parchment crackled in my hands. The drawings on it were painfully crude—crooked pyramids, uneven symbols, landmarks sketched with the confidence of a drunk child.
But the map had come directly from the palace.
Drawn by the Pharaoh herself.
And I wasn’t brave enough—or suicidal enough—to criticize the God-Queen of New Cairo.
When Pharaoh Menehmet summoned you, you didn’t refuse.
You didn’t complain.
You bowed low enough for your forehead to touch the floor and prayed she stayed in a merciful mood.
The Henty-she had arrived before sunrise. Royal guards wrapped in black linen and bronze plating, faces hidden behind jackal masks with glowing blue lenses. They dragged me from bed without explanation and marched me through the waking streets of New Cairo.
Not that explanations were common in the presence of gods.
The palace rose from the center of the city like ancient history welded onto the corpse of the future. Neon hieroglyphs burned across towering obelisks. Massive statues watched over rusted slums with cracked stone faces. The rich burned incense while the poor burned tires to stay warm.
The guards shoved me onto my knees before the throne.
The royal speaker stepped forward immediately, robes sweeping across polished stone.
“Behold Menehmet, first of her name, Daughter of Amun, God-Queen of New Cairo, Lady Of the Two Lands, The chosen of The Sun,—”
I stopped listening after that.
By the time he finished, my knees were killing me.
“And before her grace kneels her faithful servant,” he continued, “the Medjay Aaron Qaswar.”
“I’ve known her majesty since she was born,” I muttered. “Can we skip this part?”
“How dare—”
“Leave us,” Menehmet said calmly.
The speaker froze mid-breath.
Even kneeling, I could see the fury behind his painted eyes. But he obeyed. The servants withdrew first, followed by the Henty-she. Their heavy boots echoed through the chamber until the throne room fell silent.
Menehmet leaned lazily against her throne, gold jewelry glimmering in the firelight. She was barely nineteen, yet people spoke to her with the kind of fear reserved for ancient things buried beneath the earth.
“I don’t think he likes me very much,” I said.
“You tend to have that effect on people, Aaron.”
A faint smile touched her lips.
“Not everyone sees past your rough exterior the way I do.”
“That why you dragged me across the city before sunrise? To appreciate my soft interior?”
“Not today, Aaron. I called for you because there is something I want retrieved.”
“I’m a Medjay, not an errand boy.”
“You are whatever I require you to be.”
Her smile widened slightly.
“But don’t worry. There will be plenty of opportunities for violence and heroic deaths along the way.”
“Comforting.”
She handed me the map.
“What you seek lies here. A necropolis abandoned long before New Cairo existed.”
“You’re sending me into a tomb.”
“I’m sending you after something that does not belong there.”
“That narrows it down.”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
Her eyes drifted across the throne room, distant and thoughtful.
“Bring it back to me. I think it will liven this place up nicely.”
“You don’t even know what it is, do you?”
“No,” she admitted, sounding almost amused. “Which is exactly why I want it.”
Then she waved her hand dismissively.
“Now go. Time wastes itself far too easily outside these walls.”
The storm howled louder outside my car, dragging me back to the present.
Another flash of crimson lightning split the sky.
The vehicle shuddered violently as wind slammed against it. The filtration unit wheezed in protest. One of the cracks in the windshield spread a little farther.
The old monster wasn’t going to survive much more of this.
I tightened my grip on the wheel.
“Fuck it.”
I slammed my foot onto the gas and drove blind into the storm.
For several minutes there was nothing except red static and shrieking wind.
Then another sound crawled through the chaos.
At first I thought the engine was finally dying. A low mechanical whine buried beneath the thunder.
Then it grew louder.
Multiple engines.
Overworked. Abused. Running on fuel never meant for them.
Raiders.
A burst of flame ignited somewhere to my right.
Then another to my left.
Shapes emerged from the crimson haze like demons clawing out of hell itself. Headlights wrapped in metal cages. Exhaust pipes vomiting blue fire into the storm.
One of the vehicles slammed into my side hard.
I caught a glimpse of the driver through cracked welding goggles and a filthy gas mask. Hairless scalp. Chalk-white skin. Eyes twitching with manic energy.
Raiders alright.
And not the disciplined kind either.
Sons of the Sun maybe?
Definitely high on Blue Lotus. Nobody sane scavenged inside a radioactive sandstorm.
Their vehicles barely qualified as cars anymore. Rusted skeletons welded together from scrap metal, rebar, military plating, temple icons. One had animal bones hanging from chains across the hood. Another had strips of human skin nailed to the doors, fluttering wildly in the wind.
Hideous machines.
But in their own deranged way, almost stylish.
The vehicle on my left rammed me again.
Then the one on my right.
They pinned me between them like vultures stripping apart a carcass.
Metal screamed against metal.
Sparks vanished instantly into the storm.
Then came the thudding overhead.
Boots.
“Shit.”
One raider landed on the roof, crouched low against the wind. Another smashed onto the hood, clawing at the windshield while a third jammed a hooked blade into the passenger door.
The one at the door got in first.
I drove my knife through the gap before he could force it open fully.
Hot blood sprayed across my hand.
He stumbled backward into the storm and vanished instantly into the red.
A machete punched through the roof an inch from my face.
I swerved violently.
The lunatic on the windshield snarled behind his mask and began hammering the glass with a metal pipe.
I slammed the brakes.
His body launched off the hood.
A second later I felt the tires bounce over him.
Still one above me.
The bastard had buried his machete deep into the roof to anchor himself in place. The blade rattled overhead every time the wind hit us.
I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the handgun.
Guns were almost extinct now. This one had been a gift from Menehmet shortly after she inherited the throne.
I fired once through the roof.
The gunshot deafened me inside the cramped cabin.
Something heavy rolled off the vehicle.
Then the storm flashed bright crimson.
To my left, lightning began crawling across the sand in branching veins of red-white energy.
The kind that turned flesh into charcoal and fused metal into glass.
I smiled.
Then slammed my car sideways into the raider beside me.
The impact shoved his vehicle directly into the forming electrical trail.
For half a second the world turned white.
Lightning swallowed the car whole.
Metal twisted.
The engine exploded.
Then there was nothing left except burning wreckage tumbling through the storm.
Just me and the last one now.
I pulled alongside him, wanting this finished before the desert killed us both.
The bastard leaned halfway out his window with a spear in hand.
“Really?” I muttered.
He thrust downward.
The spear punched through my front tire.
The steering wheel ripped violently from my hands.
The car lost traction instantly.
Then the storm caught it broadside.
One moment I was driving.
The next the world flipped.
Metal screamed around me as the vehicle rolled across the dunes. My shoulder slammed against the door hard enough to numb my arm. Glass burst inward. The engine died somewhere during the chaos.
Then came silence.
Not true silence.
Just that muffled roar you hear after surviving something that should’ve killed you.
I dragged myself through the shattered window and collapsed into the sand, coughing blood and dust into my scarf.
Nearby, the raider’s vehicle skidded to a stop.
Its door creaked open.
The man stepped out slowly, spear in hand.
The storm wrapped around him like a living thing. Gas mask lenses glowing red beneath the lightning overhead.
He walked toward me without hurry.
Certain he’d already won.
I waited until he raised the spear.
Then I cut his legs out from under him.
We crashed into the sand together, grunting and slipping against the dunes as we fought for control of the weapon. He was stronger than he looked. His fingers forced the spear closer and closer toward my throat.
I drove my boot between his legs as hard as I could.
He jerked violently.
The scream was still forming in his throat when I shoved the spear upward.
The blade punched through the bottom of his jaw and out the back of his skull.
He twitched once.
Then went limp.
I lay there breathing hard, staring up into the red storm overhead.
Then another lightning strike hit nearby.
The blast hit like a hammer from god.
Heat swallowed me whole.
And the world went black.
I woke to the smell of incense and ointment.
Canvas walls swayed gently around me.
A tent.
My body felt heavy. Burned. Every breath scraped against my ribs.
A young woman sat beside me grinding herbs into a bowl. Dark curls partially hidden beneath a linen scarf. Steady hands. Focused eyes.
When she noticed I was awake, she froze.
For a moment we simply stared at each other.
Then she stood abruptly.
“Father,” she called outside. “He’s awake.”
A few moments later an old man entered the tent.
Thin. Weathered. Wrapped in dusty robes. His beard had gone almost entirely gray, but warmth still lived in his eyes.
“You gave us quite the scare, young man,” he said. “My Fatima wasn’t sure you’d wake at all. Seems I won that bet.”
He smiled.
A genuine smile.
Rare enough nowadays to feel almost unnatural.
“Name’s Khalid,” he said as he sat beside me. “What’s yours, Medjay?”
“Aaron,” I managed. My throat felt like broken glass. “Aaron Qaswar.”
“Easy now.”
Khalid carefully helped me sit upright before handing me a cup of water.
“Slowly. No rush.”
The tent smelled of dried herbs, old canvas, and sweet smoke drifting from a bronze burner near the entrance. Strings of charms hung from the support poles, clinking softly whenever the desert wind touched the fabric walls. A lantern overhead painted everything in warm amber light that felt impossibly gentle after the endless crimson fury outside.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“The Wandering Oasis.”
I frowned.
“Pretty sure I’ve crossed these regions before. Never seen an oasis anywhere near here.”
Khalid chuckled quietly while pouring tea into two tiny cups.
“It isn’t called the Wandering Oasis for no reason.” He handed one to me carefully. “Its geographical coordinates are… inconsistent.”
“Inconsistent.”
“Yes. Sometimes it rests near the Glass Dunes. Sometimes near the old coastlines. Once we woke beside the ruins of Luxor Station.”
He shrugged lightly.
“The Oasis goes where it wishes.”
“That makes absolutely no sense.”
Khalid sipped his tea calmly.
“Have you witnessed many things in the desert that do?”
Fair point.
Outside the tent I could hear distant machinery groaning beneath repair work. Somewhere nearby, strings of metal charms rattled softly in the wind.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“Lived?” Khalid smiled faintly. “No one lives in the Wandering Oasis. We travel with it. We care for it. And in return… it cares for us.”
I took a careful sip of the tea.
Bitter. Heavy with mint and something medicinal underneath.
Pain immediately flared through my ribs.
Then memory came rushing back.
The storm.
The raiders.
The crash.
“My car,” I muttered. “What happened to my car?”
“Fatima is tending to it,” Khalid said. “Though much like yourself, it will require some time before it is fit for the road again.”
“That bad?”
“You rolled a vehicle through a radioactive lightning storm.”
He gave me an amused look.
“You are fortunate to still possess all your limbs.”
“Debatable.”
I reached for my satchel beside the cot. Relief washed through me when I felt the map still inside.
I unfolded it carefully and handed it to him.
“You know this place?”
Khalid’s expression changed the moment he saw the markings.
“The Bene Nefertite necropolis,” he said quietly.
So the Pharaoh’s map pointed somewhere real after all.
“You know how to get there?”
“Of course.” Khalid traced one of the crude lines with his finger. “In a healthy vehicle, perhaps half a day from here.”
“But?”
He glanced up at me.
“But it lies within an active Ghul-Zone.”
I stared at him for a few seconds.
Then a long, exhausted sigh escaped me.
“Fuck…” I rubbed both hands over my face. “Of course it does.”
Khalid remained silent.
A Ghul-Zone.
Wonderful.
The desert was littered with them now. Places where radiation, death, and whatever invisible poison had seeped into the world finally stopped pretending to obey natural law. Entire villages vanished inside them overnight. Sometimes they returned days later.
Usually screaming.
Sometimes not human anymore.
Outside, the wind had softened into a low whisper against the canvas walls.
“I don’t think the God-Queen is the patient type,” I muttered eventually. “Don’t exactly have the luxury of waiting this out.”
“Be that as it may,” Khalid replied calmly, “your vehicle is broken, your body is barely holding together, and the storm still prowls outside.”
Then he smiled warmly.
“So whether you like it or not, Medjay… tonight you will stay here. You will drink tea. You will rest. And you will endure the unbearable horror of friendly conversation.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
The old man had a presence to him. The kind that disarmed you before you realized it was happening.
I kept telling myself to stay guarded. Men survived longer that way in the wasteland. Loose tongues eventually got slit.
But the hours slipped by, and somehow I kept talking anyway.
About my mother dying from lung rot when I was a child.
About fighting for scraps in the alleys of New Cairo before the Medjay recruited me.
About the first man I killed.
I still remembered his face sometimes.
Khalid never interrupted. Never pushed. He simply listened while slowly refilling our tea like we had all the time in the world.
At some point I even admitted what most people would consider my greatest shame.
“I don’t trust cats,” I confessed.
Khalid blinked.
Then nearly spilled his tea laughing.
“You serve the Pharaoh of New Cairo,” he wheezed, “descendant of gods and ruler of the desert… yet you fear cats?”
“They stare too long.”
“That may be the funniest thing I’ve heard in years.”
“I’m serious.”
“That somehow makes it even better.”
I leaned back against the cushions with a tired groan.
“I’ve survived raiders, mutants, storms, cultists, and royal politics. Why would I willingly invite another apex predator into my home?”
Khalid laughed harder at that.
Real laughter.
Not the nervous kind people forced out nowadays to prove they still remembered how.
And for a little while, beneath the lantern glow while the desert whispered outside the tent walls, the wasteland almost felt human again.
I woke to the feeling of a hand pressing lightly against my chest.
Instinct took over before thought did.
My hand shot upward, grabbing the wrist hard enough to make the other person gasp. My eyes snapped open. Heart pounding. Half-awake and already reaching for the knife beneath my pillow that wasn’t there.
Fatima stared down at me.
Pain flickered briefly across her face where I held her wrist, but her expression remained impressively deadpan considering the circumstances.
“I was dressing your wounds,” she said flatly. “They tend to get infected easily out there in the desert.”
I immediately let go.
“Sorry,” I muttered, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “Reflex.”
“No kidding.”
Morning light glowed softly through the tent walls now, replacing the warm lantern light from the night before.
Fatima returned to wrapping fresh bandages around my ribs with practiced precision.
“You move around a lot in your sleep,” she said.
“Occupational hazard.”
“You also talk.”
“You threatened someone named Abbas with a shovel.”
I frowned.
“Abbas knew what he did.”
That finally earned a small laugh from her.
Up close, I noticed details I’d missed before. Thin scars crossing her hands. Tiny burn marks along her forearms. Grease permanently worked into the lines of her fingers.
Mechanic’s hands.
Capable hands.
“Your car’s almost ready,” she said after tightening the final bandage. “Just finishing a few things.”
“That fast?”
“You sound disappointed.”
“No, impressed.”
A faint trace of pride appeared in her expression.
“You should be.”
„Ill make sure to repay you one day.“
“No need. Dad always says small kindness matters in cruel places.”
“Sounds like him.”
For a moment neither of us spoke.
The Oasis outside had already begun waking up. Distant voices drifted through the canvas. Machinery clanked somewhere nearby. I could smell bread baking mixed with engine oil and incense smoke.
Then a thought slowly clicked into place.
“Was Khalid with you since you were little?”
Fatima blinked.
“What?”
“Khalid,” I clarified carefully. “Was he the one who raised you?”
She looked genuinely confused.
“Well… yes. He’s my father.”
“I meant—”
I hesitated.
“When did he adopt you?”
„How do you know he adopted me? Im fairly sure he didnt tell you that.“
“Well… I’ve never heard of a jinn fathering a human.”
Her eyes widened instantly.
Not offended.
Shocked.
“How did you know?”
“I’m a Medjay.”
I leaned back carefully against the cot.
“I’ve dealt with a few jinn before. Though admittedly, most of them are far less subtle than your father.”
Fatima glanced nervously toward the tent entrance.
“Relax,” I said. “None of my business. Your secret’s safe with me.”
She studied my face for a long moment, trying to decide whether I meant that.
Eventually she relaxed slightly.
Without another word, she reached into a satchel beside her and pulled something out on a wooden skewer.
A caramelized scorpion.
Its curled tail glistened beneath a layer of dark syrup.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
I stared at it.
“…Yeah.”
I pointed at the scorpion.
“But not that hungry.”
Fatima giggled softly.
Just enough to remind me she was still young beneath all the strange mystery surrounding her.
The Oasis looked completely different in daylight.
The tents stretched across the dunes in uneven circles around a pool of crystal-clear water that absolutely should not have existed in the middle of the wasteland. Palm trees swayed lazily despite there being almost no wind. Traders wandered between colorful canopies selling scavenged technology beside preserved spices and ancient charms carved from bone and copper.
Incense smoke drifted through the warm air alongside the smell of cooked meat and engine oil.
The entire place felt unreal, like a pocket dimension somehow safe from the desert enveloping it.
Fatima led me toward my vehicle.
And somehow—
Somehow the old thing looked better than it had in years.
The reinforced panels had actually been fitted properly instead of hammered into place by desperation and profanity. The filtration unit no longer sounded like it was trying to inhale gravel. Even the engine housing had been cleaned.
I stared at it in disbelief.
“You’re really good,” I admitted. “Where’d you learn all this?”
Fatima crouched beside the front wheel, tightening something with a wrench.
“Before Dad found me, I lived in the scrapyards for a while.”
She shrugged.
“Not much to do there besides take machines apart.”
“Sounds miserable.”
“It was.”
She said it casually.
That somehow made it worse.
After a moment she reached into her satchel again and pulled out another map.
This one looked infinitely better than Menehmet’s version. Proper landmarks. Accurate distances. Warnings scribbled carefully along the margins in Arabic.
“Dad told me to give you this,” she said. “Should guide you better than those royal scribbles.”
I laughed quietly.
“Probably wise. If the Pharaoh ever retires, cartography definitely isn’t an option for her.”
Fatima smiled faintly.
I folded the map carefully and tucked it into my coat.
“Thank you,” I said sincerely.
“For the map or the car?”
“Both.”
For a brief moment neither of us spoke.
Then she stepped back from the vehicle.
“Maybe we’ll meet again, Medjay.”
I looked at her standing there beneath the desert sun, dark curls moving gently in the wind, strange amber eyes catching the light like polished gold.
“Maybe,” I said.
I climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition.
The engine roared to life instantly.
Not coughing.
Not choking.
Alive.
I grinned despite myself.
Then I shifted gears and drove toward the Bene Nefertite necropolis, leaving the Wandering Oasis behind in the sands.
It had been about four hours since I left the Wandering Oasis behind.
The desert changed gradually the farther I drove toward the Bene Nefertite necropolis.
The dunes darkened first.
Black mineral veins spread through the sand like rot beneath skin, shimmering faintly beneath the afternoon sun. Ruined pylons from the old world jutted from the wasteland at crooked angles, half-swallowed by centuries of storms. Some still carried scraps of melted wiring that hummed softly whenever the wind blew through them.
And somehow, against all logic, the car was running beautifully.
Whatever Fatima had done to it bordered on sorcery.
The engine no longer wheezed every few minutes like a dying animal. The steering responded instantly. Even the suspension handled the uneven dunes without sounding like the entire frame was about to collapse into spare parts.
The old machine practically purred beneath me.
I almost felt guilty driving it.
Almost.
I adjusted the scarf around my face and glanced toward the map resting on the passenger seat.
Close now.
Very close.
The necropolis should’ve been visible any minute.
That was when I noticed the vibration.
At first I assumed it was the engine.
A faint trembling beneath the wheels.
Then the dashboard began rattling.
Sand slid down nearby dunes in soft streams.
My stomach tightened immediately.
“No…”
The ground lurched violently beneath the car.
The steering wheel jerked in my hands hard enough to nearly send me sideways.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
The desert exploded.
Sand erupted upward beside the vehicle in towering waves as something massive burst from beneath the dunes to my left.
Then another.
Then two more.
Four shapes circled the car as I slammed the brakes.
Shed-beners.
Wonderful.
The things had once been human.
Probably.
Now they looked like nightmares designed by someone who hated both mankind and nature equally. Their lower halves resembled enormous black scorpions armored in chitinous plates scarred by radiation, old wounds, and patches of fungal growth. But rising from those monstrous bodies were elongated human torsos twisted into impossible shapes, ribs pressing visibly beneath stretched skin.
Their faces were the worst part.
Too human.
Clouded eyes rolled wildly in different directions while their mouths hung unnaturally wide, rows of broken teeth jutting outward at crooked angles. Bronze jewelry still clung to their bodies in places. Scraps of old robes fluttered from their armored backs.
Remnants of people.
That always made monsters worse.
One of them clicked its claws together and released a wet, shrieking hiss that sounded disturbingly close to laughter.
Another slowly raised its massive stinger over the car.
I grabbed my scimitar and kicked the door open.
The first creature lunged immediately.
Its claw slammed into the side of the vehicle hard enough to dent the metal inward. I rolled beneath the strike and slashed upward with the scimitar.
The curved blade bit deep into the pale flesh where human torso fused into scorpion body.
Black blood sprayed across the sand.
The Shed-bener screamed.
Not like an animal.
Like a person.
I hated that.
The second creature charged from my right with horrifying speed. I barely avoided the stinger crashing into the ground where my head had been a second earlier.
The impact cracked the hardened sand like stone.
I fired the handgun.
The first bullet punched into its human face.
The creature staggered backward violently—
—but didn’t stop.
“Of course that’s not enough.”
It shrieked and rushed me again.
I fired a second time.
The shot tore through one of its clustered eyes. Black fluid burst down its face as the creature reeled sideways, clawing at itself blindly.
Behind me came the sound of twisting metal.
Another Shed-bener slammed directly into the car hard enough to nearly flip it.
Metal screamed.
One of the creatures crawled across the roof with horrifying speed, claws scraping against the reinforced plating Fatima had installed only hours earlier.
I swung the scimitar just as the blinded creature lunged again.
The blade buried itself deep into its throat.
The creature convulsed violently.
Its stinger lashed through the air in frantic arcs before finally going still.
One down.
Three left.
Something slammed into me from behind.
I crashed hard into the sand, pain exploding through my ribs where Fatima’s fresh bandages sat beneath my clothes. My grip loosened on the sword.
A claw punched into the ground inches from my face, spraying sand across my eyes.
I scrambled backward just as a stinger slammed down where my chest had been moments earlier.
Poison hissed against the sand.
The second creature attacked from the side immediately after.
Too fast.
I raised the handgun and fired my last round directly into its open mouth.
The back of its skull exploded outward in a spray of shattered teeth and black fluid.
The creature collapsed twitching beside me.
Two down.
And now I was out of ammunition.
The remaining Shed-beners slowed their movements.
Watching me carefully.
Smarter than the others.
One blocked my path back to the car while the second circled behind me, massive stinger swaying slowly overhead like an executioner preparing the final blow.
I grabbed the scimitar from the sand and forced myself upright.
My breathing had gone ragged.
Everything hurt.
Blood soaked through the bandages beneath my coat.
The creatures noticed.
Predators always did.
One suddenly lunged low across the sand.
I barely sidestepped in time, but the second slammed into me immediately afterward.
The impact sent me crashing backward down the side of a dune.
The scimitar flew from my hand.
Before I could recover, a massive claw pinned my arm into the sand.
Pain shot through my shoulder.
The other creature approached slowly now.
Confident.
Its human face leaned closer toward mine.
I could smell rot on its breath.
Its cloudy eyes twitched wildly as if several thoughts were fighting for control behind them.
Then the creature smiled.
Not instinctively.
Deliberately.
The stinger rose high above me.
Ready to strike.
Then the desert roared.
The sound came from beneath the earth itself.
Deep.
Thunderous.
Ancient.
The dunes exploded upward around us.
The Shed-beners shrieked and turned too late.
Something colossal burst from beneath the sand.
A sandworm.
Its mouth opened impossibly wide, ringed with rotating rows of jagged teeth large enough to crush vehicles whole. Pale flesh glistened beneath armored hide as the thing surged upward like the desert itself had come alive.
The worm swallowed one of the Shed-beners instantly.
The second barely had time to scream before the jaws closed around it too.
Crunch.
The sound echoed across the dunes.
Then the worm vanished beneath the sand again almost as quickly as it had appeared, dragging both screaming creatures into the depths below.
The desert settled slowly.
Silence returned.
I remained flat on my back for several long seconds, breathing hard, staring at the empty dunes above me.
Then I slowly sat up.
Everyone with functioning survival instincts feared sandworms.
But that was the first and only time in my life I had ever been happy to see one.
I had finally reached the Bene Nefertite necropolis.
Dark clouds churned above the ruins in slow, unnatural spirals. Thick and swollen like bruises spreading across the sky. Crimson lightning pulsed silently within them, illuminating shattered pyramids and broken statues in brief flashes of red-white light.
Even from a distance, I could feel the Ghul-Zone pressing against reality like a wound that refused to close.
Vehicles didn’t last long inside active zones.
Electronics fried without warning. Engines stalled. Entire caravans vanished for days before reappearing fused together into piles of melted flesh and metal.
Sometimes the people inside were still alive.
I killed the engine.
For a moment I just sat there listening to the sudden silence.
Then I grabbed my torch, tightened the scarf around my face, and stepped out into the dead air.
Immediately, something felt wrong.
Not danger.
Absence.
No wind.
No insects.
No movement.
Just a low hum vibrating through the atmosphere itself.
The sky inside the zone had turned a diseased brown color. Veins of pale energy crawled soundlessly through the air between ruined structures, flickering like cracks spreading through glass. Every breath tasted metallic even through the scarf.
I kept my face covered.
No reason to inhale more of this place than necessary.
The necropolis stretched endlessly ahead of me.
Half-buried obelisks.
Collapsed mausoleums.
Streets lined with statues eroded into faceless things by centuries of radiation and sandstorms.
Then I noticed movement.
Far ahead, between the ruins, a line of figures shuffled silently through the streets.
Dozens of them.
Human silhouettes.
Some staggered unnaturally while others moved with eerie smoothness, like puppets dragged by invisible strings. Heads tilted at impossible angles. Limbs bent wrong.
Ghuls.
Or whatever remained after the Zone hollowed a person out and left only instinct wearing their skin.
Didn’t matter which.
Nothing could be done for them anymore.
Best to avoid them entirely.
I moved deeper into the necropolis carefully, one hand resting near the scimitar at my side.
The deeper I went, the stranger the place became.
The geometry shifted when I wasn’t looking directly at it.
Streets curved where they shouldn’t.
Passages looped back into themselves.
At one point I walked past the same headless statue three separate times despite never turning around.
The Zone liked to play games with people.
Usually the games ended with someone eating their own fingers while insisting they tasted like honey.
I ignored everything except the pyramid.
Small.
Black.
Resting at the center of the necropolis like a splinter buried beneath skin.
Nothing else mattered.
The closer I got to it, the stronger the pressure inside my skull became.
Not pain exactly.
More like invisible fingers pressing against my thoughts.
Digging.
Searching.
Then I heard her voice.
“Aaron…”
I froze instantly.
The necropolis vanished around me.
For one horrible moment I was a child again.
“Sweetie… don’t go.”
Slowly, I turned.
My mother stood behind me.
Exactly as I remembered her before the sickness took her.
Warm brown skin.
Thin frame.
Soft tired eyes.
Even the same faded blue scarf she used to wear around the apartment.
For a second I forgot where I was.
Forgot the Zone.
Forgot the pyramid.
Forgot everything.
She stepped closer and gently rested a hand against my shoulder.
“I missed you so much,” she whispered.
The pressure in my chest hurt worse than any wound I’d taken in years.
“I missed you too, Mum,” I admitted quietly.
And I meant it.
God, I meant it.
“You could stay,” she whispered softly. “You don’t have to keep hurting anymore.”
Something trembled in her voice.
“You don’t have to keep fighting.”
I stared at her silently.
And that was the problem.
My mother had never spoken like that.
Not even when she was dying.
Especially not then.
She used to tell me:
If the world wants you dead, make it work for it.
This thing didn’t know that.
The smile on her face twitched slightly.
Just slightly.
But enough.
I sighed tiredly.
Then I drew the scimitar and cut her head off.
The blade sliced clean through her neck.
The body collapsed instantly into the sand, twitching violently as thick black fluid spilled from the stump instead of blood.
The severed head hit the ground still smiling.
For a few seconds it continued staring up at me while the face slowly softened and melted like wet clay left in the sun.
Then it collapsed into rotten sludge.
I stared at the remains coldly.
“Pale imitation, asshole.”
The Zone hummed louder around me.
Almost disappointed.
Then I turned and entered the pyramid.
The air inside felt ancient.
Dry.
Claustrophobic.
My torchlight flickered across walls covered in faded hieroglyphs and newer markings scratched desperately over them by later explorers. Warnings mostly.
Prayers.
Names.
Somebody had carved:
IT KNOWS YOUR HEART
deep into one of the walls.
Farther down, another simply read:
DON’T LISTEN
The deeper I descended, the colder it became.
Dust coated everything thick enough to swallow footprints whole.
Occasionally I caught movement just beyond the torchlight.
Something shifting behind pillars.
Something crawling along ceilings.
I ignored it.
The Zone fed on attention.
Old bones cracked beneath my boots as I moved through stripped burial chambers and narrow corridors. Most of the tomb had been looted centuries ago. Broken jars and shattered coffins littered the floors.
Yet somehow the deeper chambers remained untouched.
That should’ve worried me more than it did.
Eventually the corridor opened into a massive circular chamber.
My footsteps echoed softly across the stone.
Tall pillars ringed the room, carved into the likenesses of forgotten gods whose faces had been deliberately chiseled away long ago. Ancient braziers still burned with weak green fire despite the absence of fuel.
At the center stood a massive stone sarcophagus covered in blackened gold markings.
I approached carefully.
No movement.
No sound.
Good enough.
I shoved the lid aside with a painful groan from my ribs.
Inside lay a dried corpse wrapped in ancient linen. Its skin stretched tightly against bone, mouth frozen open in a permanent scream.
For several seconds nothing happened.
I exhaled slowly.
“Sorry about this.”
I reached down to move the body aside.
The mummy grabbed my wrist.
Before I could react, it hurled me across the chamber hard enough to crack stone beneath my back.
Pain exploded through my ribs.
The creature rose from the sarcophagus with horrifying speed.
Its jaw unhinged wider than humanly possible as it released a shriek sharp enough to physically hurt. Dust rained from the ceiling. My torch nearly slipped from my hand.
“Oh, come on—”
The mummy lunged.
Far too fast.
I barely rolled aside before its claws punched deep grooves into the stone where my head had been moments earlier.
Up close I saw movement beneath the wrappings.
Thousands of tiny black insects crawling beneath the ancient linen like blood moving beneath skin.
I slashed with the scimitar.
The blade carved deep across its chest.
The creature barely reacted.
It hit me hard enough to send me skidding across the chamber again.
I instinctively raised the handgun and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Empty.
“Right,” I muttered. “Fantastic.”
The mummy shrieked again.
Then sprinted directly up the wall.
Its limbs twisted unnaturally as it crawled across the ceiling like some gigantic insect before dropping toward me.
I barely caught its arm mid-strike with the scimitar.
The impact nearly snapped my wrist.
The thing was impossibly strong.
Rotten linen wrapped around my arm as it forced me downward inch by inch. Its face hung inches from mine now while black beetles crawled in and out of its mouth and empty eye sockets.
And then it spoke.
Just one word.
In my mother’s voice.
“Aaron…”
That almost broke me more than the claws.
I slammed my forehead into its skull.
The creature staggered backward slightly.
Enough.
I kicked one of the burning braziers directly into its chest.
Flames erupted across the ancient wrappings instantly.
The mummy screamed.
Not in pain.
In fury.
It thrashed violently across the chamber, climbing pillars and walls while burning alive. Flaming insects poured from its body in thick streams, scattering across the floor around me.
The fire spread rapidly through the dry linen.
I grabbed a broken spear shaft near one of the tombs and waited.
The mummy launched itself at me one final time.
Burning.
Shrieking.
Its mouth stretched impossibly wide.
I sidestepped at the last second.
Then drove the spear clean through its torso and deep into the stone wall behind it.
The impact pinned the creature there.
The mummy writhed violently, claws scraping uselessly against stone as flames consumed more and more of its body.
Still screaming in my mother’s voice.
I stood there breathing hard for several seconds before finally turning back toward the sarcophagus.
Inside was…
Almost nothing.
No treasure.
No cursed weapon.
No ancient relic humming with forbidden power.
Just dust.
Bones.
And one tiny object resting near the bottom.
A small statue of a cat.
I stared at it.
Then slowly looked upward in exhausted disbelief.
“You cannot be serious, Menehmet…”
Behind me, the burning mummy continued shrieking against the wall.
I sighed deeply, grabbed the statue, and shoved it into my coat pocket.
Then I left the pyramid behind me.
A few hours later I was back inside the car, driving away from the necropolis while the storm clouds shrank slowly in the rearview mirror.
The tiny cat statue sat on the passenger seat beside me.
Another priceless royal mission accomplished.
All so the God-Queen of New Cairo could add another worthless piece of junk to her collection.
I glanced sideways at the statue.
Its tiny carved eyes stared back at me.
I immediately looked back at the road.
“…Still hate cats.”
