Chapter Seven: The Guardians of Asiria

The wall was not the end.
Nor was the hand clutching the inverted pyramid anything more than the first sign of something we had yet to comprehend.

From that moment on, time inside me became disoriented – as if the passage we entered was not just beneath the mountain…
but beneath the skin.

Gerges stood still before the wall, saying nothing.
Yet something in his smile… in the steadiness of his gaze… spoke more than a thousand words.

My mother’s expression collapsed in an instant – as though something inside her had cracked the moment she realized that Gerges wasn’t just a hotel driver…
he knew us.

She looked at me with eyes where fear and betrayal crossed paths,
then seized my hand with sudden violence –
not as a mother… but as someone saving the last remaining piece of her world.

Then, with a trembling voice that barely qualified as a whisper, she said:
“Get out of here… now… quickly.”

She pulled me along, grabbed my sister’s hand, and charged back through the same corridor we had entered,
feeling her way as if fleeing from something unseen –
but breathing on our necks.

My sister stuttered, glancing at me with wide, terrified eyes, asking silently: What’s happening?
I had no answer – only my legs obeyed, running with hers.

“Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Just run! Hold on to me and don’t look back!”

My father called after us:
“What are you doing?!”

But he followed.
And behind him… came Gerges.

We ran through the narrow passages, the air around us growing heavier –
as if the mountain behind us was shrinking, sealing its paths shut, slowly.

The shadows stretched longer than they should have,
creeping behind our feet in a silent, watchful slither.

When we finally reached the stone opening and felt a breath of fresh air on our faces – one we hadn’t tasted since entering –
we stopped.

Not because we were tired…
but because something was already waiting there at the threshold,
standing in a stillness that wasn’t casual –
a presence that felt as though it had been there from the very first moment… watching.
As if it hadn’t been following our steps, but rather anticipating –
eagerly awaiting the outcome of a test we had just unknowingly taken.

There, directly in front of us at the cave’s mouth,
stood a man.
Not a stranger to us.
It was him – the old man we’d seen at Ramses Station.
Exactly the same.
The same strange staff in his hand, etched with the same symbols we had just seen carved into the stone within the tunnels.

My mother froze where she stood.
Her grip tightened on my hand, then with a sharp motion, she pushed me behind her –
like a creature moved by instinct, not reason.
Like a she-wolf in whom the sense of danger had awakened,
separating me from the world the way a body shields its heart when it senses a wound.

For a moment, I thought I heard a faint growl escaping her chest –
a primal sound, not quite human, but something older… deeper…
A reflex that doesn’t think –
it comes before thought.
A buried instinct, rising on its own the moment it’s touched by the right kind of threat.
As if it were programmed to awaken only when danger exceeds what words can contain.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want from us?”

Then I heard my father’s breathing behind us – heavy, tense –
as though something unfamiliar inside him had awakened too,
something that didn’t ask for permission to act.

I turned and saw Gerges standing directly behind him –
still, like a shadow untouched by light.

My father reached into his bag and pulled out a small, rusted knife.
One he’d carried since we’d arrived in Egypt –
the kind of blade archaeologists carry by habit, not necessity,
as if it were part of the role he had chosen to inhabit.

Then, in one swift motion, he turned –
and clamped his hand around Gerges’ neck.

For a moment, it seemed as though something wild had awakened inside him –
not to attack, but to defend…
to draw a line between himself and whatever threatened his world.
An instinct that doesn’t negotiate – only warns.

“If you don’t explain what’s going on right now,” he said, his voice sharp, trembling,
“I swear – I will kill you.”

Then he turned to my mother, his voice carrying a sharpness I’d never heard before:
“Get to the car. Start the engine. Take the kids with you. If I’m not with you in a few minutes… don’t wait. Drive. Don’t look back.”

The old man didn’t move –
he stood utterly still, as if time itself no longer applied to him.
Only his eyes shifted, carrying a cold, disdainful stare…
and a faint, unfinished smile.

Then, words slipped from his lips –
not as if they belonged to this moment,
but as if they had preceded it by centuries:
“You’re about to get them all killed…
just as your father got himself killed.”

My father froze.

The sky above us dimmed,
not into darkness,
but into a colorless void.

The old man spoke again, his voice carrying the weight of an old scar –
a tone that summoned something heavier than memory:
“What happened inside that cave…
the Keepers of Asiria haven’t witnessed anything like it –
not since the first time.
When your father entered.”

He paused, then continued –
“It’s happening again.
Right before my eyes.
Remarkable.”

My father stepped forward –
his grip on Gerges’ neck still tight,
as if the instinct that had awakened inside him wouldn’t let go just yet.

His eyes wavered between suspicion and rage as he stared at the old man.
His voice broke the silence like a blade:
“What are you talking about?
What’s going on?
Explain yourself!”

He said it like someone who hadn’t heard the most important word in all that had just been said –
“Asiria.”

But I…
I heard it.

I heard it clearly.
And it bounced around inside my skull like an echo from some place I couldn’t name.
Not a strange word…
but a familiar one.
Unsettling in how familiar it felt.
As if it belonged to a memory that wasn’t mine –
yet lived inside me.

The old man interrupted that echo with a sudden question:
“Which one of you…
has seen this place in a memory that isn’t his?”

My mother stepped forward, shielding me with her body before her words –
protecting me with a lie,
trying to drive the truth away before it could reach me.

Then, with a trembling voice, she cried:
“I… I saw it! It was me!”

The old man laughed –
not mockingly,
but with a certainty that needed no proof.

“Impossible.
It must be one of his children.”

He nodded toward my father –
a motion that included me and my sister,
but not my mother.
As though something in our bloodline carried a secret that couldn’t be inherited through marriage –
only through birth.

From Gerges’ lips came a few broken words,
fractured by shallow breaths –
just before my father tightened his grip and pressed the blade harder against his skin.

A thin line of blood slid down his neck,
yet the words escaped –
fighting their way out:

“He… the boy…
he said it… himself… the cave… ‘I saw it… in a dream’…”

And then –
his voice collapsed.
The silence dropped like a door slamming shut.

I took a step forward.
And, unusually…
I wasn’t afraid.

Something inside me – still and certain – was whispering that panic wasn’t needed here.

It felt as though my body remembered something
it had never told me.

“What do you want from us?” I asked.

The old man stared at me for a long moment.
“That makes sense. You have your grandfather’s eyes.”

Then he turned to my mother.
“It cannot be you. Being the mother doesn’t grant you their genes… or their memories.”

He turned to my father then, his voice softer now, as if trying to draw the venom out of the air.
“As you can see… I’m just an old man.”
Then, with a trace of a distant recollection, he added:
“But I was once like you – British.”

His eyes dropped to my father’s hand still clutching Gerges’ throat.
“There’s no need to harm my son any further. If we intended to hurt you, we would have done it differently.”

My mother slowly raised her eyes toward him, as if something in his words shattered the frame she had built.
She looked at Gerges, then at the old man, then back at my father –
and for a moment, her features froze, as though trying to reorganize a world she no longer understood.
Gerges? His son?
She didn’t speak, but the shock etched itself into her face like a silent slap.

And my father… stopped.
He glanced around, as if seeing the place for the first time through the eyes of instinct,
not the logic and fear of the unknown.

There was no one else around. No ambush. No weapons. No easy way out if things turned dire.

Everything around him whispered the truth he had been resisting:
If they wanted to hurt us… they would’ve done so the moment we arrived.

He slowly released Gerges’s throat,
as if letting go of something far larger than a man…
letting go of a possibility he wasn’t ready to face.

The tension broke.
A strange calm seeped into the atmosphere –
as if everyone silently realized this was not a battlefield.

My father looked the old man straight in the eye, as if his patience had run dry.
“No more riddles. Say everything. All of it – at once.”

The old man lifted his eyes slowly,
and in them, a glint of quiet admiration.
Then he spoke with a half-smile:
“Just like your father…
He faced truth head-on.
Never liked it served in pieces.
He wanted it all – at once.
As if it were a wall to be broken down…
not a tangled web of threads that required time,
and much patience.”

The old man inhaled slowly,
and then began to explain – without pause:

“This place… others found it before your father.
Scientists, explorers, archaeologists.
They passed by it like one passes a seashell in the sand.
But your father…
he was the only one who truly delved into it.
The only one who interacted with it in a way I’ve never seen.
He wasn’t exploring it…
He was remembering it.”

Then he turned to me, his tone gentler:
“Just as you did.”

He paused briefly, letting the words settle, then said firmly:
“And that is why… they won’t leave you alone.
No matter what happens.”

My father’s head lifted abruptly –
as if, for the first time, he had registered the name the old man had spoken earlier:
“The Keepers of Asiria.”

He stared at him, his voice steadier but shadowed with unease:
“Who are they? Who do you mean?”

The old man replied in a tone that left no room for ambiguity:
“The Keepers of Asiria…
a secret order.
They have no faces.
They do not speak names.
They’ve existed for centuries – perhaps far longer.
Their only purpose:
to guard the secrets of the ancient civilization…
of Asiria.”

He said it calmly, eyes fixed on something between us,
as if seeing what none of us could.

“They don’t understand what they protect.
They don’t even know why they protect it.
They inherited the task – like a child inherits a lock without the key.”

His voice dropped, quieter, more reluctant:
“They follow signs, not meaning.
They guard the sites described to them –
without concern for understanding what lies beneath.”

He glanced briefly at the stone wall behind us,
as if the stone itself were speaking now:
“And when anyone comes too close…
they are removed.”

His gaze returned to my father.
“Your father?
He wasn’t the first to come close…
but he was the only one who truly connected with the place.
He didn’t just study the wall –
he felt it.”

The old man paused, as if reliving the moment –
then continued:
“He ran his fingers across the carvings as though his skin remembered them.
He saw… not with his eyes,
but with something else living inside him.”

He turned sharply toward me,
as if speaking about my grandfather,
but looking directly into me.

“The more he approached,
the more his body responded.
Senses awakened within him –
senses unlike those of ordinary people.
Sharper. Purer.
He heard whispers in the stone…
and stayed silent,
because he understood.”

Then, with his eyes still on me, he added:
“Just like what happened to you –
when you saw the carvings on my staff back in Ramses Station.
You might not have noticed them.
But the memory you never lived… did.
Some senses can’t be summoned.
They awaken –
when something finally whispers back.”

He turned his eyes toward the far horizon,
and in a voice like a closing door, he said:
“When they realized the place had responded to him…
they decided to eliminate him.
As humans always do –
they fear what they can’t explain,
attack what doesn’t resemble them.
Fear moves faster than wisdom.
And the choice was made:
to silence the light before it could expose the dark.”

He breathed slowly,
his voice sinking heavier with each word:

“They didn’t kill him here.
They lured him to Rome.
They wouldn’t risk the scandal of a British researcher murdered on Egyptian soil.
They are far too clever for that –
a group that has inherited centuries of precision.
They move silently…
and leave behind nothing but quiet.”

Then, his voice grew even deeper:
“His death didn’t end it.
That was when it began.
Strange things started happening –
in different sites across the world.
As if an ancient prophecy had awakened.”

He looked at my father,
then at my mother,
and finally at me.

“That’s when I knew I had to bring you here.
Not to reveal anything.
But to protect you.
And maybe… to help you protect yourselves.”

The old man fell silent.
A heavy silence followed –
but it wasn’t the silence of endings.
It was the silence before revelation.

As for me…
what stirred inside wasn’t fear.

It was something stranger –
a sensation that something in my blood had awakened.
Something I didn’t know…
but that knew me.

For the first time,
I felt I wasn’t here to understand –
but to remember what I had never lived.

Something deep within had started to move…
a sense I never learned –
but had been born with.

And I knew,
though I could not say why –
that nothing would save us today…
except the memories I never lived.