(Location: Beneath the Hollow – Quiet Temple Ruin, outside the Scarab Core)
The thunder had passed. For now.
Mike sat on the edge of the cracked altar, breathing in dust and silence. The mark of the White Lotus pulsed faintly along his skin, no longer glowing… just resting.
Sarah stood nearby, pacing.
Zaki laid at her feet, head on paws, eyes open.
Neither of them spoke.
Not yet.
Finally, Mike said, "He didn't kill us."
Sarah didn't look at him. "No. He just watched. Like a god watching a match burn out."
Mike glanced down at his hands. "Maybe he was waiting to see if I'd light another one."
Silence.
Then Sarah sat beside him. Close. Not touching.
"You remember Paris?" she asked.
"The dig?"
"No. Before that. That little studio apartment, broken heater, tiny balcony."
"You used to read to me at night when we were broke."
Mike laughed softly. "I remember. Mostly Poe. Some Nietzsche. Terrible bedtime choices."
She smiled for the first time in days. "You used to believe in fate back then."
"I believed in you," Mike said quietly.
Another silence. He finally looked at her.
Her eyes were tired. Not scared. Just… worn.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For running. For always choosing myth over moments. For chasing ghosts when I had you."
Sarah's voice cracked:
"And I'm sorry I stopped waiting.
I thought if I became colder, you'd come back to warm me."
They sat in it. No rush. No apologies to fix the years. Just… presence.
She finally asked:
"What's happening to you?"
Mike looked at the pale lotus mark. "I think I'm becoming something that remembers. Not just facts. But choices. Pain. Cycles."
"Can you stop it?"
"No. But maybe I can refuse it."
He turned to her. "And I'm done refusing you."
She took his hand. Finally.
Outside, the Scarab pulsed again, dimly, like a heartbeat buried under centuries.
But in that forgotten temple beneath the world, for the first time since the war began…
Two people remembered what they meant to each other.
And that might be enough.