⊱ ────── {⋆❉⋆} ────── ⊰

"Yeah, all right," Steven spoke up once he, Marc and (Y/N) all stepped right back into the white tiled hallway filled with closed doors.

"So how are we supposed to do this?" Marc questioned as he took the lead.

"Not sure," Steven replied back and he increased his speed to catch up with (Y/N) and grabbed her wrist. "You think Layla's all right?"

"Yeah, for now," Marc interrupted before she could even reply to him and calm his nerves.

(Y/N) placed a soft hand on Steven's shoulder, "Knowing her, she'll do something stubborn and go on a suicide mission to stop Harrow herself."

"That means we better hurry, doesn't it?" he responded.

"Know what Layla would be all right with if she were here right now?" Marc told the two.

"Don't. Just don't say it."

"I'm just saying there is one hippo and three of us, and this ship can't be that hard to steer. So, and we don't have to actually — "

"Have to what?" Steven questioned with a hint of annoyance as he peered through the doors in the hallway cautiously. "Kill the goddess Taweret?"

"No, just, you know, find me a rope and — "

"Only you will think of a way of murdering a goddess," (Y/N) rolled her eyes at Marc's determination in his plan. "We can just do as she says, it's that easy."

"We can help each other uncover whatever it is that we're hiding, apparently," Steven added to her point and he stopped by one of the doors and froze when he saw the scene unfold in front of him.

(Y/N) went to see what he was so uncomfortably staring at when she saw with her own eyes. It looked like a public bathroom, and the familiar figure of Marc underneath the white suit of armor was visible from the angle she was peaking through.

"I don't know about you two, but my memories are a fricking mess," Marc tried to reason.

(Y/N) couldn't help but nod too. "Agreed."

"Yeah, me too," Steven answered with his eyes still glued at the scene in front of him.

After that, Steven backed away and focused on another of the doors with another memory playing on the window reflection. The night where Khonshu and Steven manipulated the sky in order to find the coordinates to Ammit's tomb being fresh in (Y/N)'s mind, and Marc say the scene for the first time and stared at it in awe.

"Wow," he breathed out. "That's wild."

(Y/N) hummed a tune under her breath and kept on moving forward down the hallway, eyeing the doors every now and then to spot one that was hers. When one caught her eye, she stopped in her tracks and squinted her eyes to see clearly.

"Huh," she muttered. "I don't remember this."

(Y/N) saw how a feminine silhouette in a pitch dark alley fought hand-to-hand combat against a group of what looked like muggers, twisting a spear in their hands. The scene didn't focus on the features of the person fighting against the bad guys, and (Y/N) couldn't help but allow all conspiracies to flood her head.

Steven continued walking into the hallway and halted his steps when he saw once again a scene he had no memory of. This time, he was able to see how Marc had his face buried in his hair in what seemed to be frustration while a person laid unconscious in a hospital bed.

(Y/N) squinted her eyes at the sight and grew awkward under Marc's gaze, who also looked a but uncomfortable at the remembering of that day.

"Oi. What's this?" Steven frowned.

"Steven, what are we gonna do here? We're gonna revisit every single memory I've ever had?" Marc began to act defensive.

Steve gave him a suspicious look. "Do you. . .do you remember this?"

"Yeah. I don't know, it's just a hospital room, you know," he excused. "How many times have you been in a hospital your whole life?"

(Y/N) gulped down her own nervousness and cleared her throat. "What if we go our separate ways, huh? You guys see each other's memories while I revisit my own?"

(Y/N) didn't want to admit out loud that she was scared. She was terrified or somehow embarrassed of what would happen once Marc and Steven see part of her memories.

Before either one of the boys could interfere with her suggestion, a sudden young cry echoed down the hallway they were in. "Help!"

"Did you hear that?" Steven questioned, before bolting towards the direction of the voice.

Marc hesitated for a moment before following, and (Y/N) still couldn't believe what was going on. She ran right behind Marc in order to see what Steven had discovered in the room he'd walked into when the sight made her stomach twist in disgust and fear.

More than five bodies were sat still on the chairs of the hospital cafeteria, eyes either closed or milk white, depending on the injuries they wore on their bodies. When (Y/N) flickered over at the other half of the room, she felt her own heart stop in her chest at what she saw.

A man, a woman and a young boy all sat together in one table side by side unlike the other bodies in the room, which sat across from the other. (Y/N) resisted the urge to scream and run away, since she noticed Steven and Marc on either side of her.

"Oh, I feel like I'm gonna throw up," (Y/N) covered her mouth with her hand at the sight of the family by the table. Marc misinterpreted her words and gave her an expression that made him look like a kicked puppy.

"Just a creepy caff filled with dead bodies. That's all it is," Steven's voice cut through the uncomfortable atmosphere like a knife. "No prizes guessing whose room this is. Yours."

"Funny."

Marc carefully walked over at the tables and frowned at the dead bodies, while (Y/N) was trying to maintain her cool and Steven spotted the Scales over in the middle of the cafeteria, slowly loosing speed.

Marc pointed at one of the dead men in a table. "Dubai. Gabon. New York. No way. Oh, man."

"What, do you know these people?" Steven asked doubtfully.

Marc didn't have to say a word. The glance he gave Steven was all he needed for an answer, but that didn't seem to help at all.

"No. Oh no," Steven gasped in realization. "Surely not all of them. You killed all of them?"

"They were criminals. Murderers. Predators. The worst of the worst," Marc explained as he walked through the tables. "Khonshu wanted them punished. It's what he meant by protecting the travelers of the night."

"And you remember each person?" Steven cut in.

Marc spotted the man, woman and boy sat in the other half of the cafeteria and couldn't help but frown in confusion. "Not them, though."

Steven scoffed. "Oh, I'm you don't."

"You try taking a life," Marc snapped. "See how quickly you forget. Kept wishing I'd fail and one of them would kill me instead. The healing ended up being a curse."

(Y/N), who had been quiet through the entire conversation, tried hardly to avoid looking back at the milky eyes of the family of three back at the other side of the room. The silence was eerie, but she could still faintly hear the sounds of that day in her head.

"Marc! (Y/N)!" Steven quickly saw the change in the Scales that stood in the middle of the rim. "Do you see this? The Scales are slowing down. It's working."

"Okay, all right. So then, now what? What do we do? Do you go next?" Marc rambled nervously.

"Maybe we could. . ." Her words dried out when Steven's whole demeanor changed.

"Um. . .who's that?"

Marc followed his line of sight and (Y/N) watched how his face squirmed into one filled with guilt and grief. A little boy, no older than 10 years old stood out from the cafeteria since he was stiffly standing up and stared back at the trio.

Steven couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Why is there a child in a room with people that you've killed?"

Marc immediately panicked and tried to grab onto his sleeve. "Steven, look, don't go near him."

"Hey, little man," Steven ignored him completely and sprinted over to the boy with a wave. "What's your name, there?"

The boy stayed quiet and whirled on his heel with a quick run, an action that caught Steven off guard. "Oh, hold on there. Wait a moment."

Steven didn't hesitate in running after the boy while Marc grabbed onto (Y/N)'s wrist and tugged her along with him as he ran after Steven with everything he had in him.

"Steven. Wait! Wait!" Marc yelled out.

Steven opened the door where the boy had disappeared into and stepped right in, closing the door behind him to avoid Marc pulling him out.

"Come on!" Marc banged on the door while Steven locked it from the inside. "No, wait! Steven! Steven!"

"Steven! Listen to him!" (Y/N) tried to reason, if Marc seemed too defensive in hiding his own memories, then she wouldn't budge and force him out.

"Open the door!" Marc continued. "Open the door! Open the door!"

Steven eyed the door once last time. "Sorry, love."

While they still attempted in getting Steven to open the door, Marc slumped down and pressed his forehead against the door.

(Y/N) grabbed him delicately by the shoulder. "Come on, we'll find another way in."

⊱ ────── {⋆❉⋆} ────── ⊰

When Steven whirled back to stare and absorb the scene in front of him, he couldn't believe his eyes. He stood in what seemed to be the backyard of a home, covered in different bushes and trees, the aroma of a family home filling his nostrils.

The person that stood out from the memory made his eyes widen. "Mom?"

Wendy Spector didn't even look back at the call of her name but focused on emptying the food from the grill into a ceramic plate.

"Food's ready," she called out. "Who's hungry? RoRo?"

"Mom, come check out my drawing," the boy, RoRo or Randall, called out from the picnic table with his colors in his hands.

A young Marc came into Steven's sight and he heard him laugh at the drawing. "He drew the fish with only one fin."

"Marc, be nice to your little brother," Wendy scolded with a look back at her son.

Steven peered down at the two young boys with an incredulous look. "I had a brother?"

Marc nodded at his mother's words and then leaned down to whisper in his brother's ear. "I'm not hungry. Want to go to the cave?"

Randall nodded and stood up from the table, both boys beginning to walk away from the backyard with a quiet mumble of Marc's voice.

"We'll eat later."

Elias Spector, who'd been busy in fixing a wooden house for his sons, called out before they left. "Boys? Don't be gone too long."

Marc and Randall nodded at the instruction when Wendy came back and pressed her hands down her knees.

"Hey, hey, hey, Marc. What do you do?" she questioned. "Keep an eye on your brother. Okay?"

"Laters, gators," Marc grinned at his mom.

Wendy grinned. "In a while, crocodile."

Steven rushed behind the two boys that he'd followed over the small forest in their way to the cave they were talking about earlier. Steven pushed back some tree branches and plants in order to keep an eye on them and not lose whatever was going to happen.

"Okay. Okay, okay, fine, but. . ." Randall murieses to his older brother. "I'll be Rosser, though."

He then proceeded to mímico a British accent. "Can you hear that, Dr. Grant?"

"I sure do, Rosser," Marc responded in the same British accent, similar to the one Steven had. "Sounds to me like danger."

"Dr. Grant?" Steven's eyebrows furrowed.

Thunder rumbled in the sky, and drops of rain began to cascade down into the ground in a quick motion, something that made Randall hesitate once they reached the entrance to the cave.

"Mom said not to go when it's raining," Randall remembered.

"It'll be fine," Marc shrugged. "Don't be a baby."

Steven stayed put by the entrance of the cave as the droplets of water stained his blue shirt, until he noticed the water from the rain beginning to fill down the cave.

Fear washed over him. "Oh, God. Oh no."

"Lads?" Steven called out with a panicked tone, entering the cave as the water continued to pour in and cover the majority of it with it.

Steven kept calling their names in order to help them out, even though a part of him knew it was useless. He crawled deeper into the cave with the water still running down, his shoes getting soaked. The place was growing narrower, a small part for Steven to fit through and keep going.

Steven thought he'd finally reached them when all of the sudden he realized that the cave had lead to somewhere else that wasn't the place he'd just been in. He found another door waiting patiently to be opened, urging him to walk forward and twist the handle, yet a part of him begged him not to.

Meanwhile, Marc and (Y/N) kept trying to find their way inside the memory Steven had walked into and drag him out, running desperately through the white hallway in search for another door when (Y/N) halted in her step.

A ghost of a laugh. One she'd never hear ever again echoed through her ears, and it looked like she was the only one that could.

Marc eyed her carefully and noticed how that same wave of emotion he'd had before washed over her in the exact same way.

"It's just a memory. It's just a memory," Marc reminded her, but it was far from that. It was her truth.

it might get a bit confusing but i want to mix both marc's and (y/n)'s stories in this parts of the book. some answers may be told and more questions will rise, but who knows?

-see you soon, bex