The screams continue, echoing throughout the abandoned halls of the asylum as the men's minds scramble for an answer. Even the hippo begins to scream as well.

Then, Marc flashes out, entering a new reality, one where he's back in front of Dr. Harrow and screaming at the top of his lungs. The doctor tries to calm him, to assure him that it's alright.

But perhaps, it's not Marc whose mind is in control of the body. Maybe it's not even Steven, but something else entirely presents itself when he stands up holding a sharp glass pyramid and begins speaking with a New York accent, of which neither Marc nor Steven have. It ends with a needle in his neck, sending the drug coursing through his veins to bring him back to where things left off.

With the hippo.

The screams soon subside, and while Steven stares in awe at the giant animal in front of them, Marc bends over with his eyes wide.

" Wow, these meds are really amazing," He gasps.

" Is he always so... intense?" The hippo asks.

" Him?" Steven asks as he points to the man identical to him, " Yeah, pretty much."

" So, are you two, like, twins?"

" No."

" Well, yeah, sort of."

" Okay, great," The hippo says with artificial reassurance, " That's really cleared this whole situation up for me."

" That makes two of us, cause just a second ago I thought I'd been shot to death," Marc quips.

" Oh, gosh! This will really bake your noodle, but I think you were just taking a little time out," The hippo chuckles, " I'm afraid you're actually quite dead."

Dead?

No... no it can't be.

" I'm sorry, what?" Marc questions, " I'm dead, we're dead?"

" Yes," Steven breathes, eyes wide and body still, " Yes, Marc, I think she's right. I think we died."

The men watch as the hippo pulls a stack of cards out from her pocket and prepares herself to read the words on the page. She takes a deep breath and licks her lips then swings her arm upward to make the greeting all the more dramatic.

" Welcome, gentle traveler... travelers, to the realm of the Duat."

" The Duat? The Egyptian Underworld?" Steven asks excitedly as he begins to put the pieces together, " This is Tarweret, goddess of women and children, and... she's guiding us through our journey to the afterlife. Wow."

But Marc doesn't buy it as he eyes his surroundings skeptically.

" Right, so this is the afterlife? The afterlife?" He jousts.

" An afterlife, not the afterlife," Tarweret corrects, " You'd be surprised how many intersectional planes of untethered consciousness exist," she gasps, " Like the Ancestral Plane. Oh! Just gorgeous. Anyway, I do actually have cards for this," she shuffles through the cards and smiles once she finds the right one, " Okay, so, because the Duat's true nature is impossible for the human mind to comprehend..."

" Right," Steven says as he nods along.

" You may perceive this realm as something more easily recognizable to you," Tarweret adds as she looks around, " A psych ward's a first for me, but, hey, we can roll with it, right?"

And while it makes sense to one, it does not make sense to the other.

" Why would we imagine this realm as a psychiatric hospital?" Steven asks with furrowed brows.

" Because we're insane," Marc answers plainly, then scoffs as he turns his back, " We're insane. This talking hippo, talking dead bird, you're outside of my body now, Cleo's a fucking Goddess, and now the afterlife? This is reality and this..."

" But, Marc, Marc."

" The hospital. That's the imagination," Marc sighs as his head tilts down, " Oh, man, Dr. Harrow's right."

" Dr. Harrow?" Steven asks as his nose scrunches and head tilts to the side, " Is he a doctor now?"

" This is an organizing principle. I'll prove it to you," Marc says as he waves his hands in the air and points at one of the doors, " So, like, through these doors, for example, we go through here, there's gonna be patients, and there's Crawley probably about to yell bingooo-ahh!"

The moment Marc walks through the doors, all of his denials go out the window as he's met with the dark purple sky and sandy sea of the Duat, the Egyptian Underworld. He's soon joined by the hippo and his twin as the smile dawns his face, eyes wide with glee for it confirmed one very important thing.

" I'm not crazy," Marc beams as he turns to face the hippo, " Where did you say we're going?"

" We're sailing to A'aru," Steven answers, " To the Field of Reeds, right, Taweret?"

" Ah, so he's the smart one," Taweret affirms as he points to the Britt, " Well, if your heart's balanced in life, then you will spend eternity in paradise. The Field of Reeds."

The Goddess then reaches her large hands forward and plunges them deep within the men's chests in order to pull out their hearts, something she wasn't certain would work. She happily escorts the heats to the center of the boat where a scale stands tall. Annubis holds the scales, and Taweret places both of the hearts on one side of the scale and the feather of truth on the other, thinking that the scales would balance and she could send the men off to paradise for all of eternity, but of course, it's not that simple.

The scales aren't balancing. They're drifting from side to side but unable to truly be read to know the truth.

The hippo removes the hearts from the scales to further examine them and comes to one very unfortunate conclusion.

" It's the hearts. They aren't... full," Taweret announces as she turns to face the men, " And trust me, I'm a goblet half-full kind of gal, but... it's like they each feel incomplete."

" What does that mean?" Marc asks, getting straight to the point with his arms crossed over his chest.

" Without balanced Scales, the Duat will eventually claim your soul."

And Marc and Steven share a look as if to say that's not an option.

" Do you have any other suggestions?" Steven questions as his fingers fixate.

" This boat contains all of a life's memories," Taweret says as she points to the wooden boat riding through a sea of sand, " Now, I don't know what you two guys have been hiding, but my advice, get in there and show each other the truth."

The truth.

What really happened.

Shouldn't be too hard. It should be easy, but the feeling Marc gets once they step back into the asylum is anything but. He doesn't want to face the truth. He wants to hide from it.

And yet, even after learning about his own death, Steven still has other's well beings on his mind.

" You think Cleo's alright?" Steven ponders.

Cleo. Their darling Cleo, one of the few things that bring these two men together.

" Yeah... she's strong," Marc nods as he takes a deep breath, " But she's also stubborn, so most likely she and Layla will stop at nothing to stop Harrow. Suicide mission."

And while it's not an answer Steven likes, it's one he'll have to live with.

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

The men stroll through the bleach white hall, with Steven going from door to door, eyeballing the memories through the glass while Marc stands by and hesitates.

" Steven I don't know about you, but my memories are a fucking mess."

" Yeah... mine too."

The sound of a little boy screaming for help draws their attention elsewhere. Steven's instinct tells him to run toward it, and Marc's tells him to run away. But the moment Steven runs towards the noise and into the cafeteria, Marc has to run after him to make sure he doesn't see something he's not supposed to.

But in the cafeteria sits countless dead bodies, all propped up with the life drained from every single one of them.

" Just a creepy caff filled with dead bodies. That's all it is," Steven quips as he stands in the middle of the room, " No prizes guessing whose room this is. Yours."

" Funny," Marc answers aimlessly as he approaches a table.

There's something about it he just can't shake. It's so familiar, but it doesn't fully click in his mind until he leans down and looks death straight in the eyes.

" Dubai. Gabon. New York... no way," Marc sighs, closing his eyes as the uncomfortable truth begins to tighten its grip around his neck.

" What, do you know these people?" Steven asks, but based on the expressions of the man across the room, Steven begins to draw his own conclusions, " Oh, no, no, no. Surely not... all of them?"

" They were criminals, murderers, predators," Marc explains whilst holding back tears for all the guilt built up inside, " The worst of the worst. Khonshu wanted them punished. It's what he meant by protecting the travelers of the night."

" And you remember each person?"

" You try taking a life. 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."

From Marc's past memories and explanations leaving his lips, the scales begin to slow down, inching towards balance, something Steven excitedly points out. They're getting closer, but far from where they need to be.

A little boy stands in the corner of the room. The corner is dark and unlit, and the boy goes unseen for quite some time until Steven's head turns in his direction and locks eyes as a single question pops up in his mind.

"Marc... why is there a child in a room full of people you've killed?"

A wound opens up for Marc once he sees the boy, and he instantly wants to pull Steven out of there, telling him not to follow the boy, but Steven doesn't listen. The boy runs off, and Steven goes to chase the boy while Marc goes to chase Steven.

But he's just not fast enough.

Steven follows the boy to one of the doors, and Steven enters the memory and locks the door before Marc has a chance to stop him.

Marc slams against the door, desperately trying to keep the truth hidden for just a little while longer. He's not ready for the past to be shown in the spotlight. He's not ready. He doesn't want to relive the traumas he's already endured. He goes into a frenzy, trying to open any door he can as adrenaline floods his veins, but is soon brought to a frozen state once he sees the exact woman that Steven sees in the memory room.

Mom.

In the memory, Wendy Spector is grilling in her backyard as Elias Spector builds a playhouse for their children. One son is sitting at the wooden picnic table with paper and crayons, while the other stands above him and mocks the drawing.

" Mom, come check out my drawing."

" He drew the fish with only one fin."

" Marc, be nice to your brother."

" I had a brother?" Steven asks as he stares in disbelief at the two little boys.

The boys soon get up from the table and walk towards the gate of the yard, but not before saying goodbye to their mother.

" Laters, gators."

" In a while, crocodile."

Steven can't believe it, despite seeing it with his own eyes. His curiosity gets the best of him. He can't help it. He follows the boys as they walk into the woods, down a path they've walked a hundred times, and listens as they reference their favorite film, assuming the roles of Doctor Grant and Rosser.

" Can you hear that, Doctor Grant?"

" I sure do, Rosser. Sounds to me like danger."

Thunder rumbles through the sky as grey clouds drift above. The younger Spector hesitates but gets pressured by his older brother.

" It'll be fine. Don't be a baby."

Randall stands with the light rain falling down his face, but ends up following his brother toward the cave.

Steven watches them enter the dark and rocky cave as the rain falls down on him, the thunder and growing veracity of the storm increasing his worry. He has to get the boys out. He enters the cave as well, calling out and hoping the boys can hear him, and as the water reaches his knees, he's already lost sight of them.

The sound of heavy rain and thunder echoes in Marc's head, sending him back to that very same day and forcing him to feel the pain it caused. He closes his eyes and focuses on his jagged breath.

" It's just a memory... it's just a memory," He repeats to himself.

" Boys!" Steven yells as he still tries to save them, despite the water being nearly at his chin.

Alas, his efforts were to no avail. He couldn't save them.

As Marc opens his eyes, the door in front of him shows a memory that came soon after the events of the cave, and even though he really doesn't want to, he reaches forward to open the door, but it doesn't become real until the door shuts behind him, the loud and booming smack of metal drawing him further into the memory.

He stands in the middle of his brother's funeral, the mirrors covered in the traditions of his family's Jewish heritage. Everyone dressed in black as a rabbi consoles those who experience loss.

But the mother who lost her son stares off into space, sitting by herself in the middle of the room as the stale tears stain her cheeks as a reminder of her grief.

Marc bites his lip, inhaling deeply through his nose as he watches his father approach his mother, but the sound of water dripping against the dark wooden floor makes him turn his head to find Steven drenched and standing in shock just as his mother speaks.

" I want my RoRo back. I want him... back."

" Steven," Marc says as he takes a step forward, " Let's go."

The young Marc Spector peers out from the stairs, scared to participate in the funeral events, and is unfortunately singled out once his mother's eyes lock on him.

" What are you doing here.... hm? You were supposed to keep him safe! You let him drown... this is all your fault. This is all... your... fault!"

The screams of Wendy Spector send young Marc up the stairs in order to escape, and of course, Steven just has to follow.

" Steven, come here!" Marc exclaims, " Stop, stop! Don't go up there!"

Steven climbs the stairs of the Chicago home and is transported to another memory inside the house, one further down the line, but one equally as painful.

" Wendy? Wendy, come on, please. We're just about to blow out the candles, now."

Elias sighs as he walks back to his son and joins him at the dining room table, all while Steven watches from afar. He sees their party hats, the decorations, the cake, and the coca-cola bottles he remembers having every year on his birthday.

" She's not coming."

" Your mother's not feeling well, Marc. We'll do it just you and I this year."

The young Spector boy blows out the candles on his cake, with no joy or happiness, but rather a dull and glum face. He misses one candle and leaves it to his father to blow out. By the sound of Marc's feet thumping on the stairs below, Steven rushes to the stairs above, climbing the set of stairs to end up exactly where he was, in the dining room, but for another birthday. A birthday less festive, with no decorations and barely any frosting on the cake that Elias brings to the table. The father leaves to fetch some candles as gentle smile dances on the boy's lips, but that smile quickly fades as his mother sits at the table with a handle of whiskey and a glass in her hands.

" You were always jealous of him. Ever since he was born. I... I should've known you would do something like this."

And from her harsh words, young Marc storms off. He throws his napkin down on the ground and runs up the stairs to hide in his room as Steven doesn't believe what he sees.

No, this is all wrong.

That's not what his mother was like.

She would never say these terrible things.

Steven follows the young boy up to the closed bedroom door, but as soon as he reaches for the handle, he gets grabbed and thrown back, the stumble causing both Steven and Marc to be transported to another memory.

" What happened in that room, Marc?" Steven questions as the two men wrestle.

" That's it, Steven, that's it," Marc grunts as he pushes the man away with all his strength.

" Alright!" Steven exclaims as he pulls away with red cheeks and a heaving chest, " Why are you remembering her like that? That's not what she was like," and yet, he tries to crawl back to the room once more, only to be captured by his twin, " No, let me go. Let me back in there. What are you hiding?"

" Marc, son. Please come inside. She will get help."

The voice of his father fills Steven with enough determination to get himself out of Marc's grasp and sprint towards the memory of his father with Marc in his teenage years.

" We'll fix this."

" You're supposed to fix this. I mean... why haven't you?"

" I cannot lose another son."

And despite the heartbreaking words of Elias Spector, teen Marc Spector pulls away while adult Marc Spector charges towards Steven, knocking them into yet another memory so they don't have to linger in this one.

But in this memory, they're surrounded by sand. The sky is dark and grey with hot smoke rising from a burning car tilted on its side with multiple bodies starting to become one with the ground, and Marc quickly figures out what memory this is.

" Where the hell are we now?" Steven questions as he stands up and brushes the sand off his pants then eyes the dead bodies scattered about, " Oh, God. Harrow said you were a mercenary. That you killed hostages."

" And you believe that?" Marc asks with a straight face.

" Wouldn't put it past you, " Steven scoffs as he walks around the dead bodies.

" Turns out going AWOL in a fuge state gets you discharged from the military," Marc sighs, " Didn't have a ton of options after that, so I went work for hire for my old CO Bushman. The job was to raid an Egyptian tomb. But Bushman changed the plan, called for no witnesses, and I couldn't live with that."

" Is that Doctor El-Faouly?" Steven asks as he comes across a body with a handmade fuchsia scarf, " Layla's dad?"

It haunts him. It fills him with guilt. With shame. Regret that he couldn't safe her father.

" I tried to get them all away," Marc answers softly, " But we didn't make it. Clearly."

" What happened to you?" Steven asks.

Marc responds with a point of his finger, and at the end of it stands a grand tomb in the middle of the Egyptian desert, partially buried by sand. The men follow the foot prints in the sand and enter the large tomb, then begin following a trail of blood all the way to a slightly younger Marc with bullet holes in his stomach inching towards the steps of the tomb until he can lean back. He pulls out his gun and breathes heavily as he places the barrel under his chin. He holds his breath, closing his eyes as he prepares to pull the trigger... but he never does, for an ethereal sigh stops him.

" WHAT A WASTE."

" Huh?"

" I FEEL THE PAIN INSIDE YOU."

" What the hell are you?"

" I AM THE GOD, KHONSHU, IN SEARCH OF A WARRIOR."

" Good luck with that."

" TO BE MY HANDS, MY EYES, MY FIST OF VENGEANCE. TO BE MY FINAL WORD AGAINST THE EVILDOERS. TO BIND YOUR EVERY BEING TO ME AND ERADICATE ONLY THE WORST, THOSE WHO DESERVE IT. DO YOU WANT DEATH? OR DO YOU WANT LIFE?"

" I don't know..."

" YOUR MIND, I FEEL IT. FRACTURED. BROKEN. MOST FASCINATING. YOU ARE A WORTHY CANDIDATE TO SERVE ME DURING THIS TIME. IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR LIFE, DO YOU SWEAR TO PROTECT THE TRAVELERS OF THE NIGHT AND BRING MY VENGEANCE TO THOSE WHO WOULD DO THEM HARM?"

" That sneaky old vulture. He was manipulating you from the start," Steven observes with soft eyes.

" Yeah, well, it kept us alive," Marc sighs.

" Marc... he was taking advantage of you," Steven claims as he steps forward.

" Or it was just a way for me to keep being what I've always been," Marc protests, " A killer."

" DO YOU SWEAR TO PROTECT THE TRAVELERS OF THE NIGHT AND BRING MY VENGEANCE TO THOSE WHO WOULD DO THEM HARM?"

" YES."

" THEN RISE. RISE AND LIVE AGAIN. AS MY FIST OF VENGEANCE. AS MY... MOON KNIGHT."

The image of the first time Marc became Moon Knight stands before both men as the ceremonial suit dawns on the broken and bloody body with the God standing just behind him.

They're so close, they've nearly done it. The scales are so close to balancing, and yet, not quite there, for it seems there's something wrong.

Baboobs chirp through the temple, and both Steven and Marc sprint towards them to follow, only to end up back on the boat with Taweret shooing them off as purple souls shine through the sky of the Duat.

" Taweret, what's going on?" Steven asks as they approach the hippo.

" Fear is spreading in the upper world. Unbalanced souls are being judged or condemned to the sands before their time," She responds as she watches the purple souls splat down to the cold sand, " Oh, this is bad. This is evil."

" Harrow," Marc states.

" You see why we have to go back?" Steven asks.

" Even if I could send you back up there, you'd just be returning to a body with a bullet in it," Tarweret explains with sorrow, " You wouldn't be able to heal."

" Can you help us send word to Cleo? Or Layla? Please, help us free Khonshu," Steven pleads, earning a confused look from his twin and the hippo.

" Khonshu?" She asks, " Are you sure you want to be with Khonshu again? Seems like you really want to get away from him."

And the Goddess is right. They want nothing to do with Khonshu. Steven never swore an oath to begin with, and Marc knows deep down that so long as he is enslaved by the God, he can never be happy with the woman his mind can't stop thinking about. Neither men can have their happy ending while being a servant of Khonshu... but they have no choice.

" I did," Marc affirms, " But this is our only shot. It's the way it's gotta be."

" Please, Taweret. You have to help us," Steven pleads, " Please."

And somehow, the Goddess agrees. She approaches the stick that steers the boat and uses all her strength to push it to one side to turn the boat towards the Gate of Osiris.

" Get back inside! You don't have long," She strains as she holds the rather large stick.

And the men don't need to be told twice, for they instantly run through the doors to get back into the white hallway with fluorescent light.

" Back in the house, there was that bedroom that you didn't want me to go into. That's it, that's where we'll go," Steven concludes.

But Marc won't have it. He goes into denial. He begins to bargain.

" Just a second!" He exclaims as he stands in front of Steven, " Just wait a second, wait, just give me a second here, okay? Um, look. We don't have to go back through it all again. We can just talk. Let's just talk. Right here, right now. I'll tell you... I'll tell you everything... okay? I'm just begging you, don't make us go there again. It's not worth it."

" Not worth it?" Steven repeats softly, " Not worth it? Marc, you're about to lose everything. Do you understand? If we don't get back, and Harrow succeeds, and all those people die... if Cleo dies... that's on your head. It'll be all your fault."

And his words bring Marc to his breaking point, for soon enough he's screaming at the top of his lungs in the hall, closing his eyes and smacking his head over and over and over again.

" No, no, no! You can't! I won't do it! You can't make me! You can't make me!"

But the person to bring him back down and ground him is not Steven, it's Dr.Harrow. When Marc's eyes open, he's back in the office and stares at the doctor in disbelief and he brings his hand up to his neck.

" Did you inject me with something?" He questions.

" You watch too many movies, alright," Dr. Harrow chuckles as he stands up to pour a glass of water, " We can't involuntarily sedate patients. Not these days. I mean, not unless absolutely necessary. Oh, Marc, what you've been doing is so difficult. I'm so proud of you. Reliving these kinds of traumatic memories can be so painful. They look and feel so real, and you have been at it for hours. Great work," he approaches his patient to hand him a glass of water, then leans against the glass desk, " It's really... you've been peering inward, looking deeply into all the moments that make you, you. I'm so proud of you, Marc. Now, just stay with me for one second, okay? I want you to consider this. Do you think you created Steven to hide from all the awful things you feel you've done in your life, or do you think Steven created Marc to punish the world for what your mother did to you? Do you know? Can you remember? There's only one way to know. You're gonna have to open up to Steven."

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[ more trauma coming up 🥲 all will make sense soon ]