Chapter 1
Adventure had always pulsed through her veins like blood, as if she were created to defy the unknown and knock on the doors of danger without fear. Lisa was not just an heiress to one of the wealthiest families in Korea; she was a girl thirsty for life, refusing to be a prisoner of luxury palaces and cars. She preferred forests and campsites over official meetings and loud parties. Her parents, who traveled constantly, thought that money was all she needed, but she knew there was something more precious than that: passion, freedom, and the excitement that ignited her senses whenever her feet stepped onto unknown land.
Her room in the palace was like a museum of adventures, its walls filled with photos of her previous trips, a huge map of South Korea with marks indicating the places she had visited, and a permanently ready backpack stuffed with everything she might need in her adventures. On that night, while she was lying on her wide bed and looking at the decorated ceiling, she felt that mysterious call within her—that feeling she knew well: the desire to explore a new place. She grabbed her phone and began searching for places she hadn't visited yet, until her eyes fell on a forest located in a remote area where people rarely go. That forest was not famous; rather, it was rumored to be desolate, full of secrets, and that there were mysterious caves in its depths that no one had dared to fully explore.
This was enough to spark her curiosity. The next morning, Lisa wore her comfortable clothes: black sports pants, a tight shirt that revealed her physical fitness, and a light jacket to protect her from the morning cold. She tied her sneakers tightly and put her bag on her back, then left the palace without telling anyone. She was used to adventuring alone; the servants and guards were nothing but an obstacle in the face of her rush toward the unknown. She drove her car to the outskirts of the city, where the paved roads shrank and turned into dirt paths surrounded by huge trees swaying with the wind as if they were whispering to one another.
When she reached the entrance of the forest, she stopped the car and got out. She inhaled the fresh air mixed with the scent of damp trees, then advanced with steady steps toward the depths, ignoring the warnings she had read about this area. As she went deeper, it seemed that the forest itself was changing; the trees became denser, and the light filtering through the leaves was strangely faint, as if the forest were trying to hide its secrets. But that did not stop her; rather, it increased her enthusiasm. After hours of walking and exploring, she saw something unusual: a huge stone portal, half covered in moss, its entrance looking like an open mouth swallowing the darkness.
She stopped in front of it and placed her hand on the stone wall. Its texture was unnaturally cold. While she was contemplating that place, she saw a sentence written on the wall above the opening:
**Lisa (reading the sentence):** "Through time and space, return me to where I belong."
After that, she noticed a faint light flowing from the inside, as if it were pulsing like the heart of a living being. She took out her phone, turned on the flashlight, and took her first steps inside. The air inside was different; it was heavy and charged with a strange energy she had never known before. The cave was deeper than it appeared from the outside, and its floor was strangely smooth, as if it were not just rocks but something else—something she could not identify.
The further she went, the light at the end of the cave increased in brightness. Its pulses became faster until it seemed as if it were calling her to come to it. As she approached it, she suddenly felt a strong current pulling her forward, as if the cave had swallowed her completely. She tried to retreat, but her feet did not respond, and she found herself drawn toward the center of the light as if a supernatural power had pulled her into it mercilessly. Suddenly, everything disappeared. She could no longer hear the sound of her breath and could no longer feel her body, as if she were suspended in the void between two worlds. Then, in a fleeting moment, her senses returned, but she was no longer in the cave.
She was standing in intense heat; the sun above her was blazing, and the air carried with it the scent of ancient sands. She opened her eyes slowly to see before her a scene she would not have believed if she had not seen it for herself. She was standing before the pyramids of Egypt, in a time she was never supposed to reach.
