"Li Chen, stop going off on your own already. This pyramid is unstable."
Li Chen adjusted the underwater lamp attached to his suit and raised his voice through the comms.
"I am not wandering. I am examining inscriptions that have never been recorded in any scientific archive. This is important work."
"That is not your job. You were hired as an assistant diver."
"I am also a licensed archaeologist with two degrees, Wang Tao,"
Li Chen replied, sliding his gloved fingers across the wall's carvings.
"And these markings are definitely older than anything we found outside."
"You are also a dentist," Wang Tao shot back. "Try not to drill holes into ancient history."
Li Chen laughed under his breath while brushing away silt from the strange symbols.
Their shapes were unfamiliar, sharp, and impossibly precise, more like something engraved by technology than chiseled by hand.
He leaned closer.
"This language… I have never seen anything like it."
"Do not touch it."
"…About that."
Before Wang Tao could finish shouting, a deep cracking sound echoed through the submerged tunnel.
The ceiling above Li Chen collapsed in a single violent impact that sent him spinning backward.
"Li Chen! Li Chen! Respond!"
"I am here," Li Chen said, but the words barely left his mouth before a flood of water surged into the chamber.
The force tore him off balance and carried him down the sloping floor.
He reached out to grab something, anything, but his hand only found smooth stone.
The ground beneath him gave way completely as he fell through an opening that had not existed a moment ago.
The tunnel was impossibly long; its walls curved and rippled as if he were sliding through the inside of a colossal hourglass.
"Where… where am I…?"
His rotation slowed, and he realized he was no longer falling in the traditional sense.
He was drifting downward through the space.
A circular platform soon appeared beneath him.
He landed on it with surprising gentleness, as if invisible hands had guided him down.
Li Chen pushed himself upright and raised his lamp out of habit, only to realize it had stopped functioning entirely.
The chamber around him glowed on its own, tall pillars reaching up into shadows that seemed endless.
The walls were covered in carvings similar to the ones in the pyramid but far sharper, almost metallic.
"This is impossible. This entire structure is underwater. There should not be air, light, or… whatever this place is."
In the center of the chamber stood a massive stone mural of an eye.
It was at least three meters tall, carved with such precise detail that Li Chen felt a prickling sensation on his skin, as if the eye truly focused on him.
The pupil was a deep hollow, crafted so perfectly it created the illusion of depth far beyond the wall's thickness.
Li Chen approached slowly.
"I must be hallucinating from pressure, or maybe I lost consciousness during the fall."
Even as he said it, he did not believe it.
He lifted his hand, hesitated, and finally touched the carved pupil.
Unexpectedly, the mural responded instantly, and a black light erupted from its center, engulfing Li Chen's entire chest.
He did not have time to form a scream as his body dissolved instantly, muscles, skin, and bone all disintegrating until nothing solid remained.
Only his soul remained, drifting above the cracked stone floor like a dim spark.
"W—What… is happening…"
He had no time to process anything as the eye on the wall began pulling him in, its force shredding the edges of his soul.
He felt strands of his essence being ripped away, and for a moment, he was certain this was the end.
And that was when he laughed.
"I was just having fun… Just spending my two free days doing some archaeology instead of sitting at home…"
His memories slid through his fading mind.
Four days a week fixing teeth, dealing with nervous patients, measuring root canals, convincing people to floss.
Two days chasing ancient mysteries, diving into ruins, brushing sand from old stone, taking photos of broken artifacts like they were treasures.
Six months ago, his team detected an underwater anomaly in the Mediterranean Sea, close to the coast.
A pyramid hidden beneath the seabed.
A dream discovery.
He joined the dive team because he wanted a break from dental drills and fluorescent clinic lights, not because he expected anything supernatural.
And now here he was—a floating soul with nothing left of his body except the faint outline of who he used to be.
"Great job, Li Chen… You finally found a real lost pyramid and it killed you. Amazing career move."
The pull from the stone eye intensified until Li Chen felt as if his soul was being peeled apart layer by layer.
Instinctively, he tried to pull back even though he had no muscles or body anymore, struggling mentally against the suction tearing at him.
"I really should have stayed home this weekend, I had streaming plans and some leftovers. I had an actual life… sort of."
The eye continued dragging him in, its hollow pupil widening slightly with every passing second.
Li Chen felt himself stretching thin, as if every memory and every emotion were being separated and examined.
Just when he thought he would be completely consumed, a faint glimmer appeared within the dust that used to be his physical body.
The dim light pulsed once, then again, growing brighter and steadier.
Li Chen recognized it instantly.
It was his jade pendant.
The same pendant his grandmother insisted he carry everywhere, the one she claimed had been in the family for "longer than history remembers."
He had always assumed she meant a few centuries.
Apparently, she had meant something else entirely.
The jade pendant trembled, and then with a sharp, crystalline crack, it shattered.
Fragments of pale green jade scattered into the air, but instead of falling, they dissolved into streams of radiant light.
From those fragments, intricate golden runes erupted outward.
They spun around Li Chen's soul like a protective array, each rune blazing with ancient authority as they formed a luminous barrier.
The runes pulsed in unison, releasing waves of golden light that resisted the pulling force of the stone eye.
Where the black force touched them, it recoiled violently, as if burned by something it could not withstand.
The chamber trembled as the clash of forces intensified.
The air distorted, and cracks began forming in the space above, splitting open like torn fabric.
The tear widened quickly into a swirling vortex, devouring loose stones as it grew.
The pull was so strong that even the enormous stone pillars bent slightly toward it.
The stone eye resisted at first, continuing to drag Li Chen toward itself.
But the golden runes surged brighter, shielding his soul and pushing back against the pull.
Soon, the new force overwhelmed both of them.
Li Chen felt the direction of the suction shift, dragging him away from the mural and toward the vortex.
"Of course," Li Chen muttered helplessly. "If something strange appears, I go straight into it. Story of my life."
He had no time to say anything else.
The vortex seized him instantly, pulling him in without giving him even a moment to resist.
The golden runes wrapped tightly around his soul like a cocoon as he was dragged into the swirling void.
Behind him, the massive stone eye was torn from the wall, dragged helplessly into the vortex as well.
The entire temple began to tremble violently as ancient stone cracked and collapsed.
In the next heartbeat, everything was swallowed by the spiraling tear.
The hall vanished into its depths, and soon, nothing remained at all.