Chapter Four: Something Breathes Beneath the Mountain

“Vision shall be reborn when the pyramid is inverted… and the eye yet to be born shall see what was forgotten before it was ever written.”

The city’s voice finally softened that night.
It wasn’t silence, not truly – more like a quiet retreat, as if the streets had exhaled and slipped into the shadows of the alleys.

At the hotel, my mother sat by the window, gazing at the trembling reflections of light over the Nile’s surface, as though trying to read something in the water that had never been written.
My father sat across the room, pretending to read. But the pages never turned.

My sister had fallen asleep on the carpet, curled around her new toy – a small pharaonic statue with deep blue stone eyes – murmuring words in a language only children and dreams can understand.

As for me… I lay on the bed, waiting for sleep to come.
But something inside me was awake.

My eyes were closed, but I was not asleep.
I was waiting for something I couldn’t name – something I didn’t even know I was waiting for.

I don’t remember when wakefulness slipped into dream.
But suddenly, I was there.

Stone ground beneath my feet, cold as if it hadn’t known sunlight in centuries.
A narrow passage, low ceiling, carved straight into the rock.
No torches. No lamps.
Yet the walls glowed with a color beyond color.
The light had no source – it emanated from the stone itself, as if silence had turned into radiance.

The corridor moved forward, or perhaps I moved within it. I couldn’t tell.

At its end, a wall.
But not an end…
A beginning.

In the center of that wall, a hand –
Carved deep into the stone, grasping an inverted pyramid.
Not a symbol.
An act.

It was pulling the pyramid from the earth – or burying it, violently, deliberately.

Then came the voice.

It was not human.
It was as if the stone itself whispered – an ancient, brittle murmur, like what sand might say… if it could speak:

“When vision is born… the unburied shall return.”

I awoke.

I didn’t scream.
But my breath was gone.
And my heart pounded against my ribs as if seeking escape.

The room was as I remembered…
And yet, it wasn’t.

The next morning, I told myself it was just a dream – a mild hallucination, maybe something I’d heard the night before.
I decided to act as if nothing had happened.

We went down to the breakfast hall on the ground floor.

It was spacious, bathed in soft light filtering through tall windows overlooking the Nile.
The scent of coffee mingled with the clink of spoons and cups, and the low hum of foreign languages that never quite settled into meaning.

My mother sat quietly by the window, still searching for an explanation the night had withheld.
My father fiddled with a neatly folded tourist brochure, flipping it without opening it.
My sister was stacking sugar cubes and butter squares into a tiny pyramid on the edge of the table.

Then she cried out, delighted:

“Look! This pyramid is mine. I’m the queen!”

My father chuckled and patted her head.

“No doubt you’re the queen… but that pyramid is far too small for your reign.”

My mother, sipping her coffee, said:

“After breakfast, let’s visit the pyramids. You promised.”

He nodded, his tone light:

“Then let’s go… perhaps history will be pleased with us today.”

But we didn’t go.

Instead, we wandered briefly through the old city.
Visited the Coptic Museum, got a little lost in one of the bustling markets, and returned just before sunset, drained by the heat and the crowd.

In the elevator, my mother said:

“The pyramids deserve a full day. Rushed visits don’t do them justice.”

My father smiled:

“We’ll go when we’re ready to be astonished.”

That night…
The vision returned.

Same corridor. Same wall. Same hand.

But something had changed.

The walls had drawn closer.
The carving was deeper.
And the hand… was no longer just holding the pyramid.
It was etching lines beneath it – interwoven marks, as though trying to reveal a deeper symbol.

Then the voice returned.

Not like before.
It was closer. Inside.
As if the walls no longer whispered alone…
They had entered me. Settled within:

“You are not seeing… you are remembering.”

On the third day, my father kept his promise.
He took us to the pyramids.

Beneath a merciless sun, surrounded by crowds, we trudged across the sand, climbed, paused for photos, and listened to guides whose words felt more like rehearsed myths than truths.
My sister, meanwhile, was drawing strange lines in the sand with a little stick, studying them like maps only she could read – then laughing for no clear reason.

And then, in a fleeting moment as I turned toward the horizon, I saw something between the rocks.
A shadow – brief, sudden.
As if a symbol had been etched into the stone for the span of a blink… and vanished.
I blinked again. It was gone.

That night, the dream didn’t wait for me.
I was already inside it from the first breath of sleep.

The corridor trembled.
The walls pulsed.
The light glowed from deep within the stone.
And the wall was there – waiting.

But this time, the hand was no longer holding the pyramid.
It was driving it into the earth.

And the voices…
There weren’t just one.

There were dozens. Hundreds.
As if the entire place had awakened.
As if time itself had begun to speak:

“That which is beneath… shall turn the sky.”

I woke up.

I sat on the bed without thinking.
Then stood.
I couldn’t bear the silence anymore.

That morning, I walked up to my father and said, in a voice that felt foreign to my own:

“It’s not just a dream. It repeats. Every night.
And each time it goes deeper – each time something new happens.
Last night… the walls were all speaking.”

He looked at me.
But I didn’t see surprise in his eyes.
What I saw was worse.

I saw knowing.

He was silent for a long moment. Then, with a voice heavy and low, he said:

“Tell me everything… from the beginning.”

He didn’t touch his coffee that morning.
He just stared into space, as if waiting for silence to answer him.

I sat beside him, stirring my juice, replaying the dream in my head like one replays an old pain that no longer bleeds, but never fades.

My mother, meanwhile, flipped through a tourist booklet without much attention – performing some slow ritual to keep herself from thinking too hard.

After breakfast, my father pushed his chair back and said:

“I’m going to the front desk for a moment. I might need help with something.”

Behind the counter stood a man in his fifties, dressed in a gray suit with a tight tie, scribbling something into a logbook.
My father approached and spoke calmly:

“Good morning… I have an unusual question.”

The man looked up with interest.

“Of course, how can I assist?”

My father said:

“A friend once described a place to me. It intrigued me, but I don’t know where to find it.
He said he walked through a narrow corridor carved in stone – not a natural cave, but something man-made.
The walls were bare, no inscriptions, no ornaments. But at the end… a strange wall. Maybe with a symbol. Maybe not.
And the light – he said it wasn’t coming from anywhere. It was as if the place itself was glowing.”

The clerk paused, thoughtful, then opened a drawer and pulled out several illustrated guidebooks.
He began flipping through them as he spoke:

“That’s a rare description… but it does remind me of a few obscure sites.
There’s an old temple in Ain Shams, though it’s open-air with no inner passages.
And here – this small shrine beneath one of the old arches… and a Roman cave near the eastern plateau. It’s been abandoned for years.”

He gathered the booklets and handed them to my father:

“Take these. You might find something that matches, or at least sparks a familiar impression.
And feel free to rent a private car from the hotel if you’re planning a longer tour – some of these places are off the beaten path.”

My father nodded his thanks and returned to the table.
He laid the illustrated booklets before us.

“He didn’t give me a precise location,” he said as he sat down,
“but he suggested some places that might resemble what you saw in your dream.”

My mother picked up one titled “Unusual Landmarks of Cairo” and began leafing through it slowly.
I reached for a blue one, its cover showing a half-buried stone entrance, and started flipping through its pages.

There were many images – abandoned shrines, narrow stone corridors near aqueducts, half-forgotten caves at the city’s edge, and semi-ruined temples.

Then I stopped.
One photo caught my eye.

It showed a narrow corridor, raw stone, slightly curved.
No columns. No carvings.
Just smooth walls, closing in the deeper they went.

Something about it made my fingers pause.

“This looks a lot like it,” I said quietly.
“Maybe it’s the same place… or very close.”

My father leaned in, looked, and nodded.

“Let’s try this one – or something nearby. If it’s in Cairo, we can reach it.”

He returned to the front desk and requested a private car for the day.

Within minutes, the vehicle was waiting at the main entrance.

The driver was a well-dressed man in his forties – neat shirt, dark trousers, a calm demeanor, and eyes that held quiet balance.
As he opened the door for my mother, he said:

“Good morning. My name is Girgis. I’ll be your guide today. I can take you wherever you’d like to go.”

We all got in, and the car began moving slowly through the streets of Cairo.

Not long into the drive – toward the location my father had picked from the guidebooks, a long-abandoned rock shrine on the eastern edge of the city, occasionally mentioned in obscure travel routes – Girgis spoke:

“You’ve chosen an interesting place. It’s not an official site, not often requested by tourists… but it does show up in some of the niche guidebooks.”

My father turned slightly toward him:

“Truth is… I’m not looking for that exact place. I’m looking for something that matches a description a friend once gave me.
He said he entered a narrow stone corridor – entirely carved into the rock. No inscriptions. No decorations.
But there was something about it… something unusual.
At the end, a wall – possibly with a symbol or a strange carving.
And the light… he said it didn’t come from any visible source.
It was like the walls themselves pulsed with it.”

Girgis went quiet for a moment, eyes shifting in the mirror.
Then, with a thoughtful tone, he said:

“That description… sounds very familiar.
I’ve seen places like that myself, inside some of the old caves in a remote part of the mountain.
It really sounds like you’re describing the ancient caves in Mokattam.”

My mother looked up, calmly:

“I’ve read about that mountain… they say the view of Cairo from up there is breathtaking.”

“That’s true,” Girgis replied. “From the top, the whole city lies at your feet.
But what most people don’t realize… is that what’s inside the mountain is even more unforgettable.”

My father leaned forward:

“What do you mean?”

“The mountain is full of old caves.
Some say they’re natural.
Others believe they were carved long ago for reasons no one remembers.
There are places only locals know about – and even they don’t go near them.
Some of those caves… it’s said they were in use before they had a name.
Like they existed before their story could be written.”

He paused, then added:

“There’s also an old story passed around by the Copts.
They say the Mokattam was about to collapse onto the city…
But it ‘moved’ – shifted – after a miracle, following the prayers of a saint.
His name was Saint Samaan the Tanner.
Of course, it’s symbolic. But many believe the mountain hasn’t been the same since…
As if it’s held something within it ever since.”

My father asked:

“Is it open to visitors? I mean… can we get inside?”

“There’s no official access yet,” Girgis said.
“But I’ve heard whispers that some priests are planning to carve a monastery into the mountain itself.
Still a recent project… maybe even a secret one. They say it’ll be called the Monastery of Saint Samaan.
For now, it’s mostly rumor – but people talk.”

My parents exchanged a quick glance.
Not surprise – something sharper.

My father leaned in and whispered to her:

“Damn it… they’ll bury whatever’s there. Like always.”

She didn’t look at him as she replied:

“Another monument… to make people forget what came before it.”

Then she turned to the driver:

“Is it safe?”

“It’s in a neighborhood called Garbage City,” Girgis replied.
“It’s not a tourist zone, but it’s not dangerous either – especially since I grew up there. I know every corner.
Even if we can’t reach the inner caves, there are elevated spots to sit, and a small coffee shop overlooking all of Cairo.”

My parents exchanged another look.
My father exhaled slowly and said:

“Let’s try. We’ve nothing to lose if we see it.”

Girgis smiled faintly.

“You won’t regret it.
Some places aren’t captured by cameras… only by instinct.”

The car turned slowly onto a road that didn’t appear on any map.

And gradually, the higher we climbed, the more the city seemed to release us – letting go of its noise as if we were crossing into something that never belonged to it.

I sat by the window, watching the neighborhoods shift, then recede… then vanish.
The buildings grew smaller.
The traffic thinned.
Piles of stones emerged.
Dusty streets.
Faces that didn’t look up.

I saw boys pushing broken wood on iron carts, and children playing near crumbling walls.

Then I saw something that struck me:

A half-collapsed stone wall – faded symbols etched on its surface: circles, squares, strange geometric shapes.
As if someone had begun to write something… then stopped.
Or had been stopped.

The road narrowed.
The air grew colder.

My mother, staring out the opposite window, said:

“Strange how the air changes the higher we go.
It’s like this mountain isn’t part of the city…
But the opposite of it.”

My father replied, almost recalling something he’d read:

“Geologists say Mokattam isn’t a mountain in the traditional sense.
It’s a limestone plateau that once lay at the bottom of an ancient sea.
Its layers are uneven – some solid limestone, others soft shale.
That contrast creates hidden voids… fractures the eye can’t see.”

My mother, more curious than convinced:

“Do you think it could be hiding something?
I mean that… literally?”

As the car climbed a rough, winding dirt road, my father glanced at his watch and said, surprised:

“The compass stopped working. It was fine a moment ago.”

Girgis met his eyes in the mirror, speaking gently:

“It happens sometimes…
In certain parts of the mountain, the compass spins strangely.
I’ve heard drivers say the radio signal cuts out for no reason…
then returns as suddenly as it vanished.
One tourist told me he felt a sudden dizziness near one of the paths – like pressure wrapped around his skull.
And there’s one spot, up on a ridge…
If you stand there, you hear no echo.
Your voice disappears.
Like the mountain swallows it.”

My mother tilted slightly toward the window, thoughtful:

“What you’re describing… sounds like magnetic anomaly.
I read about something like that once.
These symptoms match almost exactly.”

Girgis nodded quietly:

“No one has a clear explanation…
Some things here don’t map well.”

Then my father, squinting through the glass:

“Do you see that edge over there?
On the side of the slope.
It’s sharp… almost unnaturally so.
Doesn’t look like a sedimentary formation.”

Girgis slowed the car a bit.

“Yes. There are places deeper in the mountain where similar edges appear – sharp, clean…
Almost like someone carved them deliberately.
They’re rare, but noticeable.
Even some geology professors who visited said…
‘That doesn’t look like something formed at the bottom of a sea.’”

My mother, eyes fixed on the stratified layers:

“Sedimentary rock is usually soft-edged.
Those kinds of angles aren’t easily made by nature.
They might be the result of deep fault lines…
Or something else.
Something not yet understood.”

My father, more to himself than to anyone:

“As if something lies beneath that satellites can’t quite detect.
Some say it’s just rare geological shifts.
Others… believe it’s a buried structure, still hidden.”

Then he added, as if speaking about something he knew better than he should:

“Ancient rock doesn’t just conceal…
It chooses when to reveal.
It doesn’t respond to pressure.
It responds to time.”

I listened in silence.
But something within me whispered louder.

A feeling I couldn’t name.

As if the mountain wasn’t showing us its shape…
But what it was still hiding.
What it wanted to keep hidden, until the right moment.

But one detail kept haunting me:

If this mountain was born from the floor of an ancient sea…
How could such a sharp, geometric angle exist within it?
It didn’t belong there.

As if something had been there… before the sea.
Then the sea came.
Then the mountain formed atop it.

And whatever that thing was…
remained deep beneath them all,
silent – waiting to be seen.
Or to awaken.