The Red Ascent

I come back to myself with my cheek pressed into stone that feels older than anything I can name.

It isn’t just cold. It’s kept cold—like it has been holding that temperature for years, sealed away from anything warm or living, and now it’s deciding how much of it to give to me. The chill sinks into my skin in layers, first the surface, then deeper, until it settles somewhere behind my jaw and refuses to leave.

My breath ghosts against the floor and disappears immediately. No curl. No drift. Just gone, as if the air takes it and keeps it.

My head throbs.

Not sharp. Not sudden. A slow, relentless pressure that pulses behind my eyes and down into the base of my skull, like something inside me is trying to remember and failing hard enough to hurt. I swallow and the dryness in my throat catches, the air scraping faintly on the way down. It tastes like dust that’s been filtered and recirculated too many times.

I don’t move at first.

Because the moment I do, I have to accept this is real.

My fingers flex against the floor.

The marble answers immediately.

Smooth—but not perfect. There are shallow undulations beneath the polish, faint rises and dips that my fingertips map out without asking. It’s like touching water that forgot how to move. My skin drags slightly across it, catching just enough that I feel resistance, then release. There’s a thin layer of cool humidity sitting on the surface, not visible, but present enough that when I press down, my palm sticks for half a second before peeling away with a soft, almost inaudible pull.

Bare feet.

I feel them before I consciously register them. My toes shift, spreading slightly against the stone, and the cold there is sharper, more immediate. It presses up into the bones of my feet, into my arches, into my ankles, like the floor is grounding me whether I want it to or not. There’s a faint tack to it, not wet, but not dry—just enough that every movement leaves an impression I can feel but not see.

I push up slowly.

My hand is the last thing to leave the floor, and when it does, the absence of that cold feels wrong. Like I’ve let go of something I wasn’t supposed to.

I sit back on my heels.

Then I stand.

The shift in height changes everything.

The air settles around me in a way that makes the space feel… contained.

It’s quiet, but not empty. Not peaceful. The kind of quiet that belongs to places designed to hold things still. My breathing feels too loud, too present, like it doesn’t belong here. When I inhale, I can hear it. When I exhale, I can feel the air leave me—but it doesn’t go anywhere. It just… stops.

A museum.

The certainty lands without hesitation.

It’s in the way the air is stale but controlled. In the faint dryness that lingers in the back of my throat. In the subtle, almost imperceptible circulation that brushes against my skin every so often, like vents hidden somewhere far above are exhaling just enough to keep the room from suffocating.

I’ve been in places like this before.

That realization hits deeper than anything else.

Not this exact room—but this feeling.

This stillness.

This preservation.

I look down at myself, grounding in something that should make sense.

Black shirt. Soft cotton, worn enough that it moves easily when I shift. There’s a faint crease across my stomach where I must’ve been lying. Blue jeans, slightly faded along the thighs, the fabric heavier where it bunches at my knees. My hands—broad enough, fingers slightly rough, calluses built along the pads and near the base of my fingers like I use them for more than typing or idle things.

I know this body.

Male. Average build. Nothing remarkable.

I fit inside it without question.

Which makes everything else feel like it shouldn’t.

I lift my head.

And the room reveals itself slowly, like it’s letting me see it instead of just existing.

The walls are stone, sand-colored but aged, the tone uneven in a way that suggests time rather than design. Carvings run across them in long, horizontal bands, each one filled with figures and symbols etched deep into the surface. The cuts are deliberate, precise—lines that were meant to last.

My eyes move across them instinctively.

Following.

Trying to read.

And something in me leans forward.

I know these.

Not vaguely. Not academically.

I know them.

Or I should.

The meaning hovers just beneath comprehension, like it’s there, right there, waiting for me to grasp it—but every time I reach, it slips away. My mind pushes harder, trying to force it, trying to pull understanding out of shapes that refuse to give it.

Frustration tightens in my chest, sharp and immediate.

Why can’t I read this?

Because I should.

That certainty is worse than not knowing.

It’s familiar.

Everything about this place is familiar.

Not comfortable.

Not safe.

But known.

And I don’t know why.

I take a step forward.

The marble answers again, cool and slightly resistant under my foot. I feel the shift of my weight in detail—heel, arch, toes—each part of my foot adjusting to the surface as if the ground is something I have to negotiate with.

The air moves.

Just enough.

A faint displacement that brushes along my arms, raising goosebumps instantly. It doesn’t feel like wind. It feels like something far away shifted, and this is what reached me from it.

I stop.

Listen.

Nothing.

Then I see them.

Two statues.

They don’t dominate the room.

They don’t need to.

They stand at the far end, positioned with intention on either side of a recessed section of the wall. About my height, maybe slightly taller, their forms solid and unmoving, carved from a darker stone that seems to swallow the light instead of reflecting it.

I move toward them slowly.

Each step measured.

Each sound contained.

My hand lifts before I decide to let it.

I touch the statue.

The texture is immediate.

Rough—not jagged, but granular. Like concrete that’s been shaped and set, the tiny grains embedded in its surface catching faintly against my skin. My fingertips drag across it and I feel every uneven point, every subtle ridge where time hasn’t smoothed it away. It’s not polished. Not meant to be.

It feels grounded.

Real in a way the rest of the room almost isn’t.

I trace upward.

The body is human. Strong lines, upright posture, stillness built into the shape.

The head—

A jackal.

Long snout. Upright ears. Eyes that don’t look at me but feel like they should.

The name comes without effort.

Anubis

“I know you,” I murmur, and the words vanish the moment they exist.

The space between the statues draws my attention next.

A low altar sits there, carved from pale stone, its surface worn in a way that suggests repetition. Hands. Offerings. Something placed and taken again and again until the edges softened under contact.

It’s empty now.

That feels wrong.

Like something is missing.

Or waiting.

And then—

the tapestry.

It hangs behind the altar, heavy and still, a deep, saturated red that seems to absorb the light around it. The folds are thick, layered, the fabric dense enough that it doesn’t shift even when the faint movement of air brushes through the room.

Symbols cover it.

Rows of them.

Hieroglyphics.

I step closer.

The familiarity spikes.

I know these.

I know them.

My eyes move across the symbols, trying to follow them, trying to read, trying to pull meaning out of shapes that feel like they should unfold into language—

Nothing.

It’s like something has been taken out of me.

“I should be able to read this,” I say, quieter now, the frustration sitting heavier.

Why can’t I read this?

The air shifts again.

Cool against the back of my neck.

Down my arms.

Goosebumps rise instantly.

The tapestry doesn’t move.

But something behind it—

Something is there.

Not imagined.

Not guessed.

Known.

I turn away from it, needing space, needing to breathe.

I walk the perimeter of the room slowly, barefoot on marble, every step grounding me deeper into something I don’t understand. The carvings follow me, stretching endlessly, always just out of reach of comprehension. That same familiarity gnaws at me, constant, irritating, like I’m circling something obvious and missing it every time.

I’ve been here before.

I know I have.

I reach the far wall.

And stop.

There’s a door.

It blends into the stone so completely I almost miss it. Same color. Same texture. The carvings run right up to it, nearly over it, like it doesn’t want to be separate from the wall at all.

I step closer.

Lean in.

There’s no handle.

No hinge.

No visible mechanism.

Just the faintest outline if the light hits it at the right angle.

I press my hand against it.

Cold.

Solid.

Unmoving.

It’s a door.

I know it is.

But there is no way to open it.

The silence presses in harder now.

Heavier.

I turn.

Slowly.

Back toward the statues.

The altar.

The red tapestry.

The only place in the room that feels like it leads anywhere.

And standing there, feeling the cold marble under my feet, the stale air in my lungs, the weight of something familiar pressing into my chest—

I understand something I can’t explain.

I didn’t come here to leave.

I came here for what’s behind that curtain.