Long before the first ray of sun kissed the limestone surface of the pyramid, Ethan was already deep beneath the earth. The cube, inert now, lay on a linen cloth beside him, flanked by three more strange fragments discovered overnight. The workers who found them had been spooked—refusing to touch them. Each was inscribed with a pattern that flickered when viewed from the corner of the eye, as though the symbols themselves didn't want to be seen directly.
Sahure joined him silently, holding a fourth fragment. "Another was found in the chamber of winds," he said, laying it beside the others.
Ethan ran his fingers across the edge. "These pieces fit together. Not mechanically, but conceptually. Like nodes in a larger interface. The traveler must have left them as part of a failsafe."
"Failsafe against what?" Sahure asked.
Ethan didn't answer. His mind reeled with calculations, theories—possibilities that bordered on madness. What if the loop wasn't just time repeating, but a mechanism, a defense system? Something designed to contain what the traveler described as alive?
A groan echoed through the lower chamber, deep and ancient. Hemiunu flinched. "That sound again. The earth doesn't like what we're doing."
"No," Ethan said slowly, rising to his feet. "Not the earth. The gate."
He pocketed the fragments and motioned for the others to follow.
They returned to the obsidian-lined chamber beneath the pyramid. Dust floated like motes in amber light from the torches. As Ethan approached the mural, something shimmered. The floor—the same material that had once responded to his presence—now pulsed faintly with color.
He knelt, placing the fragments down in a circle. One by one, they aligned themselves magnetically, snapping into place atop the glowing pattern.
The chamber responded.
A low hum filled the air, and the symbol on the floor spiraled outward, becoming concentric circles that rotated independently, each inscribed with alien script.
Sahure shielded his eyes. "This is not the work of men."
"It's code," Ethan murmured. "A locking mechanism. Each piece corresponds to a sequence... a part of the gatekeeper's code."
The name came to him not from memory, but from somewhere deeper—as if implanted. The Gatekeeper. The final failsafe.
He activated his scanner again. Lines of text blinked across the screen.
[Protocol K-7 Initiated] [Identity Match: Ethan Temporal, Temporal Designation Unknown] [Access Level: Interloper/Replacement] [Gatekeeper Command Interface — UNSEALED]
The floor split open, revealing a shaft not made by human hands. It descended straight down into the earth, smooth and perfectly vertical, lit by pulses of blue-white light that moved in rhythm with Ethan's breathing.
He swallowed. "It wants me to go down."
"You can't mean to enter," Sahure warned.
Ethan glanced at him. "If this really is a loop, and I'm the replacement... then this is the path Traveler 07 failed to complete. I have to know what's below."
Hemiunu stepped forward. "You won't go alone."
But Ethan shook his head. "I must. It's keyed to me. Anyone else might trigger a collapse."
The boy hesitated, then stepped back.
With one last look at the glowing chamber, Ethan stepped onto the platform. It sank slowly, silently.
As the shaft swallowed him, the last thing he saw was the edge of Sahure's robe—then only light and shadow.
The descent took minutes. Maybe longer. Time felt loose again, rubbery and stretched. The hum around him intensified, becoming something almost like a voice—not speaking words, but transmitting meaning.
He reached the bottom and stepped into a corridor unlike anything he'd ever seen. No stone. No earth. Only smooth, curved metal lined with blinking nodes and symbols shifting like oil.
Ahead stood a doorway.
And behind it—an interface. A pulsing column of energy, wrapped in a lattice of symbols.
Ethan stepped forward.
The room lit up.
The symbols coalesced around him, wrapping him in streams of data. A voice filled his head—not external, but inside.
"You are not the first. But you may be the last."
He gasped. "Who... what are you?"
"I am the record. The custodian of the cycle. The voice of the Gatekeeper."
The column pulsed.
"You seek control of the loop. But first, you must understand its origin."
The room dissolved into light.
And Ethan was no longer in the chamber.
He stood on the surface of a dead world.
Blackened skies. A ruined city. Towers twisted into spirals. And at the center—a colossal gate, ruptured and bleeding time itself into the void.
The vision overwhelmed him. He collapsed to his knees.
The voice returned.
"The gate was not built. It was found. A tear in the fabric. We tried to close it. We failed. So we looped time to hold it still. But each loop decays. Each traveler is a patch."
Ethan whispered, "And now I'm the patch."
"No," the voice said. "You are the test."