Chapter 2 - Beh the Temple

  The first dest into the temple was met with a weight her the soldiers nor the researchers could expin. The air had a pressure to it, like stepping into a room where something vast and unseen loomed just out of reach. The deeper they went, the more tangible it became.

  Elian adjusted the straps of his pack as he moved through the corridor, his boots g against loose debris. The stone walls bore faint carvings, their meaning eroded by time, yet their presence was enough to ule. He traced a gloved hand over them, feeling the iions where symbols had once beeiculously carved. The Hollow Signal pulsed iic waves, shifting in frequenot just data. A presence.

  The chamber opened before them, vast and a, its architecture a reminder of a civilization long past. Statues loomed in the darkness, figures half-ed by the earth, silent wito something that had transpired here before. And in the ter, half-buried beh yers of dust and rowth, was the source.

  A statue. Not a statue.

  Elian’s pulse quied. He khe stories—fragments of myths, whispered theories about artifacts that weren’t just relics, but remnants of something still waiting. He stepped forward, the air around the structure dist ever so slightly. The others were busy setting up equipment, unaware. The signal wasn’t just ing from here. It was reag to them.

  Dr. Rivera caught up to him, her voice tehis isn’t just a temple. Look at this,” she gestured at the carvings encirg the statue’s base. “They don’t match the architecture of the outer chambers. It’s older.”

  Elian didn’t answer. He could feel something stirrih the surface, a shift that wasn’t just theoretical. He g his ser—it flickered erratically, struggling to interpret the readings. It was no longer deteg just a pulse. It ig up something else.

  Something aware.

  A distant sound echoed from the corridors behind them. A deep, guttural reverberation, almost lost beh the hum of the equipment. Not from their team.

  Miguel, the local guide, had been standihe entrance, watg the excavation with silent apprehension. Now, he took a cautious step forward, his voice low. “This pce wasn’t built for us,” he murmured. “It was built for them.”

  Elian turo him. “For who?”

  Miguel didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he gestured toward the carvings along the stone walls. At first ghey were indistinct—just another faded piece of history worn down by turies. But as Elian stepped closer, he saw them.

  Figures, carved in long, flowing strokes. Tall, humanoid shapes, adorned with intricate patterns that wound around their limbs like living tattoos. And at the ter of the chamber, partially buried beh colpsed debris, the statue.

  A jaguar, carved in unnatural precision, its eyes hollow, empty sockets staring back at him.

  Elian’s fingers grazed the stone, and something shifted in the air—just a whisper, a ge in pressure, a moment of stillhat didn’t belong.

  Then, the sound.

  A distant scrape.

  Not from their group.

  Not from them.

  Elian’s pulse quied. He exged a gh Dr. Rivera, who had heard it too. The military persoensed, instinctively shifting their grips on their rifles.

  Miguel took a step back, his gaze flig toward the darkened archways leading deeper into the temple.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” he whispered.

  And for the first time, Elian agreed.

  A sharp statiapped through the s. Then a voice, ced with interference.

  “Unknowy detected.”

  Elian’s stomach dropped. He turo warhers—but before he could speak, the grouh them trembled.

  Then, the statue’s eyes opened.

  The chamber exploded into chaos. Soldiers scrambled, ons raised, researchers stumbled backward. Elian stood frozen as the weight of what was happeniled into his bones.

  This wasn’t an artifact.

  It was a guardian.

  The Hollow Signal spiked violently, its pulsing reag a cresdo that rattled through the stohrough their bodies, through the very air. Something was ing.

  Then—

  The lights failed.

  In the suffog dark, something moved.

  Something watg.

  And it wasn’t the guardian.