The Tomb of Amun-Serqet

I wake, and the silence cracks open like an old wound. At first, there is only the faint murmur of steps, the cautious tread of mortals sneaking through corridors meant for death. I know these footsteps do not belong here; they are too quick, too alive. They carry with them something strange—heat and motion, a force that pulses with life and disrupts my sanctuary. In the blackness, I savor the thrum of their steps, a sound as foreign as the lives they carry. I feel their warmth pricking against the cold of my tomb, and I am drawn toward it, stretching through the stone, drinking in every vibration, every heartbeat.

It’s been centuries, I think. I have waited, tethered here by the last breaths of those who loved and feared me, sealed away with rites and bindings meant to keep me from rising again. But there is no prison eternal, and these intruders bring something strange, something that disrupts the silence, calls to me with the echo of unfamiliar magic.

“Jasper, wait,” a woman’s voice calls through the hollowed corridors, faint and thin, fraying as it travels through the dark. “Do you hear that?” There is fear in her voice. Good, I think. They should fear me.