Back in the chamber, the oppressive air hung thick, and the team remained on edge. The silence following Tommy's departure seemed to deepen the unnatural tension in the cave. No one spoke for several minutes, but Sarah's shaking hands betrayed the fear simmering beneath her composed exterior.
"We should've stopped him," Sarah whispered, her voice tight with guilt.
Marcus shook his head. "He wouldn't have listened. Tommy was terrified. This place is getting to all of us."
Emily, still staring at the archway, clenched her fists. "We can't turn back now. There's something down here, something important. We've barely scratched the surface."
Marcus stepped toward her, his voice low but firm. "Tommy's gone, Emily. And I'm not sticking around to find out what took him. We need to leave—before something worse happens."
Emily spun on him, her eyes wild. "Leave? You don't understand. This is the discovery of a lifetime! I'm not going to abandon it just because things are getting... strange."
Sarah turned away from them, focusing on the carvings, her mind whirling with dread. There was something deeply wrong about the cave, a force that felt ancient and malevolent. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became—the civilization they had uncovered had not worshiped gods in any conventional sense. They had worshipped something far darker, something beyond human comprehension.
And now, they were trapped in its domain.
"We're being watched," Sarah murmured, tracing a finger along one of the carvings. "These beings... they were never meant to be found."
Marcus moved closer to her, glancing at the twisted figures depicted on the walls. "What do you mean?"
Sarah's voice trembled. "The rituals... these people believed that they could communicate with beings from another realm, cosmic entities. But they were also afraid of them. These things—they aren't gods. They're predators. They feed on fear, on souls."
Emily scoffed. "You're just interpreting things based on your own paranoia."
But before Sarah could respond, a loud crash echoed through the chamber. Rocks tumbled from the ceiling as the ground beneath them began to tremble again, shaking violently. Dust filled the air as the cave rumbled, sending the group into a panicked scramble.
"We need to get out of here!" Marcus shouted.
Emily was already backing toward the tunnel, her face pale. "This is just seismic activity! It'll pass!"
But Sarah's eyes widened as she noticed the carvings on the walls shifting, as if the figures were writhing and moving on their own. The very stone seemed to come alive, pulsing like flesh.
"This isn't natural," Sarah whispered. "Something's waking up."