Content warnings: uncensored cussing; references to events in both episodes listed; events of Moon Knight S1E1 and corresponding triggers;
Media: Moon Knight S1E1 "The Goldfish Problem"; Primeval S3E1
Word count: 3,401
When Sarah woke up on the morning of Thursday, April 24th, 2025, she had no reason to assume it would be the beginning of a chain of events unlike anything she'd ever lived before, even during her time at the ARC.
She got up, she showered. She made breakfast and ate it in her robe, then got dressed and packed a lunch for herself and Steven. The ride on her bicycle was no shorter or longer than it usually was.
As usual, Steven hadn't gotten there yet when she did. But she checked her watch, and when it said that it was ten past eight, she decided to take a walk to the little girls' room, passing the gift shop on her way. Steven wasn't there- third time this week he'd been late- so Sarah spent a few minutes loitering in the loo before heading back. This time, Steven was there, and Donna was walking away. Before Sarah could reach his kiosk, however, Dylan strolled up and started talking. Sarah was too far away to hear the interaction, but she caught the confused look on Steven's face as she walked away.
Donna sauntered back up just as Sarah reached them. "Stevie, you absolute rascal. I didn't know you'd taken a crack." She remarked.
"I didn't know either." Steven admitted, confusing Sarah.
"Hang on, did she say 'steak'?" Donna had clearly heard more than Sarah. "What in the world's a bloody vegan going to eat in a steakhouse?"
"I don't know, Donna. Salad? Bread?" He replied, the sassiest he could be. Which wasn't much, bless him, but it was nice to see him snarking back at Donna after all the abuse she put him through.
"Yeah, I can see why she went for it. Real catch, you are." Donna sneered back, unimpressed. She departed with the knocking sound of heels, and not for the first time Sarah was reminded of the similarities between her and another high-ranking blonde at a museum who liked to put those under her through pain.
Sarah scowled at her retreating back, but it easily morphed into a genuine smile as she turned to Steven. "Got a date, then?"
He chuckled awkwardly. "Apparently. Dunno how I managed that."
"With your kindness and charm, of course." Sarah replied sincerely. "Let me know how it goes."
"I will." He pledged. "Any tours today?"
"Yeah, one coming in at ten." Sarah replied. She checked her watch, and her mocha eyes widened. "Shit, that's two minutes! I've gotta go."
"Be off with you then." Steven answered jovially. "We'll have lunch after?"
"Of course." Sarah agreed.
The day passed normally, and Steven and Sarah met up again as they left the closing museum. Steven always insisted on walking Sarah to her bike, even though it was unlikely anyone would try to cause trouble at that hour, despite them leaving late than normal because Donna had put Steven on inventory duty and Sarah had insisted on staying to help. As usual, Steven kept up a lively stream of chatter that Sarah honestly enjoyed listening to. "When I was coming in this morning, I saw the banners outside, I noticed something. I'm not trying to slag off marketing, but there's been a major blunder with the Ennead. They put up seven gods on the banners and poster, but the Ennead-"
"-has nine." Sarah completed. "Who's missing?"
Steven smiled. "Why don't I tell you who isn't missing, and you can guess?" Sarah nodded, and he rattled out the list: "Horus, Hathor, Isis, Osiris, Tefnut, Geb, and Shu."
Sarah ran through the list in her head. She had noticed that in this universe, the Ennead's members differed slightly from the one in her universe, so there was a chance she would screw it up. "Atum and… Set?"
Steven shook his head. "So close. Atum and Nut."
"Ah, Nut. Good luck keeping your head if you try to tell Donna, though."
Steven winced. "Already did."
It was Sarah's turn to wince. "Blimey. How'd that go?"
Steven chuckled. "What do you think?"
"Poorly, I'll wager." They reached her bike. "You'll be alright to get home?"
"Yeah, I'm sure I can grab a bus. G'night, Sarah."
"Good night, Steven. See you in the morning."
Friday morning came, but it wasn't like every other Friday morning. Steven never appeared. Donna stormed around, demanding of every employee who interacted with Steven where he was. No one knew. When lunch came and went and there was still no sign of him, worry curled in Sarah's gut, and she began sending texts that weren't answered and placing calls that weren't taken. With every one she grew more and more worried, and it was all she could do to maintain a friendly persona and remember anything at all for her tours.
After work, she biked to his flat and knocked on the door. There was no response, which led to her outright banging on the door and alternatively demanding and pleading that he come to the door or at least reply to her messages. There was no indication that he was even inside.
Saturday was even more distressing. Dylan blazed up to Sarah pretty much the moment she came in the door, fuming that Steven had stood her up without so much of an apology text. This only further worried Sarah, who knew that Steven wouldn't have stood Dylan up for anything short of being violently ill or having a family emergency, and that he would have contacted her and apologized for an hour straight at minimum. What could've induced him to disappear like that?
Sunday was no better. Again Steven was absent, and again without a single message to anyone- not to Donna, not to Dylan, not to J.B., not to Sarah. It was as if he'd dropped off the face of the Earth.
Sarah thought of the anomalies, and wondered if in a way he had.
Monday morning took Sarah by surprise. Steven was back, but he looked more exhausted than she'd ever seen him, and his entire weary body seemed taut with a stress that was foreign to him. In fact, when she saw him, he was speaking to a man she'd never seen before and looking utterly uncomfortable- as in worried for his safety, not just awkward, judging by how he was backing away from the ever-approaching man. Suspicious, Sarah walked over quietly and paused nearby to eavesdrop, pretending to rummage through her purse.
The man was middle-aged with nearly shoulder-length grey hair, and his matching and uniform clothes gave him a put-together and gentlemanly air. In on hand was a cane, although he didn't seem to really need it. "The justice of Ammit surveys the whole of our lives." He said. It wasn't his American accent that was strange about his voice- it was how calmly he was speaking of frankly absurd things with such a certainty that had Sarah both confused and on edge.
"Got it."
"Past, present, future. She knows what we've done and what we will do."
"Great." Steven said, clearly trying to leave this bizarre conversation. "Okay. Well, the books must have left that part out." He said, turning to go.
However, his path was blocked by the closing of a pair of doors, the security guard whose name she couldn't remember standing in front of them like he was going to throw hands if Steven tried to go through them.
Steven did not, turning again and making to escape in another direction, only to stop short when a random visitor a couple meters away rolled up her sleeve and presented her forearm to him. What on Earth was going on here? Who were these people and why was Steven so terrified of them? Sarah's fingers found the pocketknife Becker had given her, inconspicuously working it up to the top of her purse's contents.
"Consider this." The American continued, closing in on Steven. "Had Ammit been free, she would have prevented Hitler and the destruction he wrought. Nero, the Armenian genocide, Pol Pot."
"Not nice people." Steven agreed.
"But she was betrayed." The strange man pressed.
"Was she?"
"By indolent fellow gods." The man confirmed, although Sarah couldn't tell if he was answering Steven's question or just rambling on heedless of her friend's comments.
"Oof."
"By even her own Avatar.".
"'Avatars'. Blue people. Love that film." Somehow, Sarah had a pretty good idea that that wasn't what this nutter was referring to.
"By 'Avatar', what I mean-"
"-you mean the anime?"
"Steven. Stop it." Wait, they knew each other? This wasn't just a drug trip or a weird attempt at pulling a stranger into what was clearly a cult?
"Are you going to kill me?" Steven's bold question, spoken with fear, hit Sarah like a kick to the chest. Steven had a tendency to think the best of people, so if this bloke who kept going on and on about an Egyptian deity- something Steven would usually be chuffed to discuss- had earned Steven asking to his face if he planned on killing him, he definitely had a good reason to ask that. One-handed, Sarah began opening the knife, careful to be quiet.
The lights flickered above them, momentarily distracting Sarah. There was no abnormal weather today, so what could be causing that?
An anomaly.
She remembered quite clearly how Connor Temple had accidentally locked an anomaly with the electrical current of a lamp on the first day they'd met- a day she remembered every moment of with as vivid a clarity as if it was happening right now- and his subsequent and successful efforts to build a device to lock anomalies for the sake of both time periods and their inhabitants.
Anomalies could be affected by electricity, but could it affect it in turn? That wasn't really her area, but she supposed it would make sense.
Abruptly, the power stopped flickering, and the strange man spoke again. "It's maddening, isn't it- the voice in your head?" He nearly whispered. "Relentless, forever unsatisfied. No matter how hard you try to please, it devours you until there's nothing left but a hollow shell." He continued, and the bad feeling in Sarah's gut worsened. He rolled up his sleeve as he talked, but Sarah couldn't see his forearm clearly from her angle and distance. "And the more you ask for help, the more you begin to sound like the boy who cried 'wolf'." He took hold of both of Steven's hands, and Sarah took three quiet steps forward, mentally preparing herself to wield her blade against this creep. It was not lost on her that he had not, in fact, told Steven that he wasn't going to kill him.
"I can't help you." Steven told the wacko, breathing labored with anxiety and fear.
"I am trying to help you." He returned, but those words brought no comfort to Sarah, and didn't appear to bring any to Steven.
"I saw you kill that woman in the Alps." Steven blurted out, his voice still low enough that no bystanders but Sarah and the rest of this guy's apparent cult could hear. Dread coiled in her stomach at that proclamation, and her heartbeat kicked up a notch. This man was a killer- a murderer, if his suspicious behavior and Steven's terror were anything to go by- and he had his hands on her best friend. Sarah shifted the handles of her purse to the other hand, freeing her entire arm to stab him if need be.
She had been powerless to save Professor Cutter from his mad (ex-?) wife.
She would not fail to save Steven if this madman tried to kill him.
The man brought their collective four hands close together and put the head of his cane between them. "I only told her what millions more will soon learn." He responded calmly. "Do you wanna know the truth?"
Sarah adjusted her trajectory, advancing on them still but in a bit of an arc- no pun intended- to get a better look at whatever he was doing. She could see now that Steven's forearms were touching, palms facing upward as the man held the bottoms of his wrists. The double-sided handle of the cane rested across the tops of Steven's wrists, and without either man moving the cane began to swing back and forth, pivoting on its handle. Steven and the man stared down at the latter's exposed forearm intently, and when she squinted Sarah could just barely make out something moving on it- something like a tattoo, if tattoos could move like they were alive.
A moment later, the man raised his head, an expression she couldn't read on his face. "There's chaos in you." He uttered.
"There's what?"
A moment later, the double doors Steven had meant to flee through opened noisily, tourists passing through it and startling everyone. The man dropped Steven's arms and her friend wasted no time moving away from the creep and walking quickly toward the doors, breaking into a literal run a moment later. "Let him go!" The man instructed his comrades (minions?) in a raised voice.
Sarah adjusted her bag to look casual and headed for the door at a fast clip. She needed to catch up to Steven and find out just what the hell was going on.
Despite her friend's hurried pace as he fled, Sarah's determined strides carried her to him within a minute. "Steven, what the hell was that?" She demanded. "Who was that and what was he talking about?"
Steven stopped and turned to Sarah, and the fear in his eyes disquieted her. "His name is Arthur Harrow. Something's happened, and… Sarah, I think I'm going mad. I've got to be."
Sarah's first instinct was to chuckle and quip that everyone does at some point, then berate him for disappearing off the face of the earth for three days, but the absolute raw terror in his voice gave her pause. If someone was mad, it was that creep that had just had his hands all over Steven, not Steven himself. Even so, Steven was quite brilliant (contradictorily to popular opinion), and this wasn't a conclusion he would've come to offhandedly.
"Why do you think that, Steven?" Sarah asked softly.
Steven took a deep breath and launched into a tale that had Sarah covering her mouth in equal parts nausea and horror by the end. He told her about waking up in the Alps and being attacked by strangers, having a series of blackouts with progressively worse situations every time he woke, a booming voice in his head, an apparently very important scarab, and worst of all, Arthur Harrow, self-appointed executioner of those a tattoo on his arm and a cane supposedly powered by Ammit.
Apparently when he woke up things didn't get any clearer. Apparently on Sunday night he'd woken up in his flat and thought that the debacle in the Alps was just a horrid dream and that it was Friday afternoon. After discovering that Gus had apparently been replaced with a two-finned version, he had rushed to the steakhouse for his date with Dylan. "Had a steak. Middle or center or something, well done." He told her.
When he went home, it got worse. "And now I've gone and found a secret compartment in my flat! Literally, in the wall like I'm a bloody spy or something! There's a box I found in there, with keys to a storage facility and a mobile that's not mine. I went on the mobile and I found a bunch of missed calls from somebody called 'Layla', and when I rang her she kept talking like she knew me. She called me 'Marc' and then hanged up on me and I started hearing this voice."
"The same one you heard in the Alps?" Sarah questioned.
Steven shook his head. "No, this one was different. He was American, and he knew my name. I thought it was coming from my loo but no one was there, and then it was like he was my reflection, talking to me out of the mirror. Then my flat started shaking like it was a bloody earthquake and the lights were all flickery like a horror film, and I tried to get out through the lift but it wasn't working. And there was this- thing- coming toward me on the second floor, but then it turned out to just be a little old lady. But then it was right behind me in the lift, and I saw a face, and next thing I know I'm on the bus on my way to work. But I saw 'im in the street as I went, and then I got off and I saw bloody Arthur Harrow on the bus and I think he's following me."
Sarah drew in a deep breath and put her hands on Steven's shoulders. "You're not mad, Steven, not even close. I can't explain these voices you're hearing, or your blackouts, or the thing you saw in the lift. I can't tell you what the scarab is or why it's so important. But I can tell you that you're not going mad. Something is going on, and my gut tells me it's much, much bigger than we can imagine."
He nodded, his eyes still teary but his overall demeanor a bit calmer. "What about Harrow? I don't watch the news much; is he like a political figure or something?"
She shook her head. "If he is, I haven't heard of him. All I can imagine is that he's a cult leader. There's religion, and then there's cults. This is the latter. And I don't think it's stereotypical of me to say that cults are always bad news. And even if it wasn't a cult, I don't think anyone who seems to exclusively worship and revere the Ancient Egyptian soul-eating demon goddess of the underworld and kills in her name should be trusted. You saw him kill that woman for something she might not have even done, and when you asked him if he was going to kill you, he didn't say that he wouldn't." Sarah swallowed, her anger morphing for a moment into fear and grief as she remembered the moment she watched Connor Temple emerge from the smoky remains of the ARC, their dear friend dead in his arms. And then Danny, Connor, and Abby had disappeared to hunt down his killer, though for a different reason… she couldn't lose anyone else. Especially not to a lunatic who thought they were justified in their atrocities.
Blinking away tears even as they formed, she swallowed and drew in a breath. "Before I started working here, the place I worked at before… there was this woman, this mad, horrible woman, who killed a friend of mine. We later realized that she had even worse plans- genocidal plans- and three of my friends left to try to stop her. I never saw them again after that, but I know that they succeeded in taking her down, or we'd all have died." She cleared her throat, but it did nothing for the tightness strangling her. "Anyway, I got ahold of her journal, and I read every line of it ten times over. I could probably recite bits of it to you. The way she talked… that creep Harrow sounded just like her. Not what he was saying, but how he said it, that… that certainty that doing something horrible was the right path to take…." She shook her head and finally met Steven's eyes, watching her with concern and sympathy. "I'm staying here with you until your shift ends."
"Donna's got me on inventory again." He admitted.
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Witch. Well, I can help you with it, get us out of here sooner. I don't think he'll try anything if there's a lot of people here, so if we can finish and get home before the museum's entirely empty, we should be fine. He left earlier when the tour group came in, so something tells me that he doesn't want witnesses. Or interference."
Steven smiled at her with watery eyes. "You're a good friend, Sarah. I don't deserve you."
She wrapped her arms around him. "No, Steven, you deserve better. I think the best thing I ever did was be friends with you."
"I think it's the best thing I've ever done too."
The MCU's version of the Ennead is slightly inaccurate, which I mentioned in a roundabout sort of way. I found the seven on the poster on Reddit, as well as the potential candidates for the missing ones. The two I picked to be mentioned (Sarah's guess and the correct answer) were no coincidence. Set was known for the desert, storms, and violence; Nut was known for the stars, the sky, and the universe.