The air inside the cave was suffocating, each breath Ava took seemed to fill her lungs with the weight of ancient, buried sorrows. Her fingers grazed the cold stone walls, tracing the cryptic symbols etched into the rock. They felt familiar, like an echo from a time long forgotten, but their meaning remained just beyond her grasp. The whispers, always the whispers, danced around her mind, twisting and curling like smoke she could never catch. They called her name, each syllable a soft caress and a cruel mockery all at once.
"Ava... Ava... Ava..."
The voices surrounded her, pressing in from the dark crevices of the cave, each whisper clawing at the edges of her sanity. She could feel the Abyss, lurking in the shadows, watching her, waiting. It had been patient, drawing her in slowly, inch by inch, and now she was teetering on the precipice.
