🇯🇴 Jack and the Echoes of the Hidden City

The team stood at the entrance of Petra, carved into the mountains like a forgotten heartbeat. The narrow Siq canyon wound between towering cliffs, leading them slowly toward the famous façade of the Treasury.

“It’s like a city was sculpted, not built,” Imogen whispered, sketchbook already open.

“That’s because it was,” Bernard said. “And one marble here was sculpted, too — not with hands, but with truth.”

They followed the canyon deeper, where the stone seemed to grow warmer with each step. Tourists wandered the main paths, but Bernard led them down a quiet route, beyond a collapsed column and past an old Nabatean inscription.

They came to a hidden chamber — open to the sky, walls smoothed by centuries of sand and time. At its centre stood a stone bowl surrounded by faded carvings of eyes, stars, and birds.

Jack approached. The bowl flickered with light.

Then words formed in the sandstone beneath their feet:

“When kings are gone and names are dust,
A marble waits for those who trust.
Not every echo speaks your name —
Some call your truth without the fame.”

Jack closed his eyes and listened.

He didn’t need recognition. He didn’t want to be remembered as a legend. He just wanted to finish what they’d started.

The pouch pulsed.

A marble floated upward — deep terracotta red and dusty rose, with golden swirls and chalky lines like wind-carved ridges in stone.

🏺 HALOWEN

Its surface was imperfect, but undeniably beautiful — weathered by time, not tarnished by it.

Bernard nodded solemnly. “Halowen is the marble of ancient strength. She doesn’t shine — she endures. She teaches that being forgotten doesn’t mean being lost.”

Jack placed the marble gently into the bowl.

Pop!
It vanished into the pouch.

Around them, the sandstone glowed faintly — and in the distance, they could hear the sound of wind passing through rock… whispering, remembering.

Lenny looked up. “Only thirty-six left.”

Bernard squinted at the horizon. “And the next takes us across oceans — to the mountains and salt flats of Bolivia, where the sky lives beneath your feet.”