The night pressed in heavy around the watchtower, the kind of darkness that swallowed torchlight and muffled even the sound of breathing. Jonas stood by the narrow window, watching the ruined streets below. The city was still. Too still.
Veyne shifted beside him, fingers restless against her belt. "We shouldn't stay here long."
Jonas nodded. "Agreed. But where else?"
Daric sat slumped against the wall, staring at the floor. "Doesn't matter. Nowhere's safe."
Jonas turned toward him. "You said the city was built on tunnels. What did you mean?"
Daric ran a hand through his unkempt hair. "Old sewers. Catacombs. Buried ruins. The Magi used them. Said they were remnants of something ancient. Some even claimed the tunnels were alive."
Jonas frowned. "Alive?"
Daric exhaled sharply. "Doesn't matter now. What matters is that something down there is moving. And every night, it gets worse."
Veyne glanced toward the barricaded door. "And you stayed here?"
Daric gave a hollow laugh. "It was this or join the dead."
Jonas exchanged a glance with Veyne. He didn't like it, but they needed a plan. The watchtower wouldn't hold forever. If the tunnels offered a way out of the city, they had to take it.
"Where's the entrance?" Jonas asked.
Daric hesitated, then gestured toward the courtyard below. "Old well. Sealed years ago. But I've seen things crawl out of it." His voice dropped. "Things that weren't human."
Jonas' gut twisted. He'd faced the undead, fought bandits, survived sieges. But this was something else.
Still, they had no choice.
"We move at dawn," Jonas said. "Rest while you can."
Dawn came in shades of gray. The air was damp, heavy with the scent of decay. The streets were quieter than they should have been. Jonas didn't like it.
They slipped through the ruined city, staying low, avoiding open ground. The survivors followed in silence. Every step felt like a mistake waiting to happen.
The well stood in the center of a collapsed courtyard, its stone walls cracked, the cover missing. A rusted iron grate had been placed over the opening, but something had torn it free.
Veyne peered down. "Looks deep."
Jonas tested the rope they had brought. It held firm. "Only one way to know."
One by one, they descended. The shaft was tight, the air thick with moisture. The deeper they went, the colder it became.
Then, Jonas' boots hit stone. He stepped forward, torch held high. The tunnel stretched in both directions, its walls slick with moisture, ancient carvings barely visible beneath layers of grime.
Daric landed beside him. "Welcome to the undercity."
Veyne was next, scanning the walls. "This isn't just a sewer."
Jonas agreed. The architecture was wrong. The angles too sharp, the symbols too intricate. Whatever this place was, it wasn't built by the people of Vorelle.
A faint sound echoed down the tunnel.
Jonas lifted a hand, signaling for silence.
The sound came again. A scraping. Slow. Deliberate.
Then a whisper. Low. Hissing. Not in any language Jonas knew.
Veyne gripped her blade. "That's not the dead."
Jonas swallowed. "No. It's something else."
The darkness ahead shifted.
Then, they saw it.
A figure—tall, emaciated, moving with unnatural grace—emerged from the tunnel. Its skin was stretched tight over elongated limbs, its face hidden beneath a smooth, featureless mask. It crawled forward, its fingers too long, too sharp.
Then, behind it, more things stirred in the dark.
Jonas drew his sword. "Run. Now."
Jonas ran first, torch held high, the flickering light bouncing against damp stone walls as they sprinted deeper into the tunnels. The sound of pursuit was a whisper at first, the scrape of elongated limbs dragging over rock. Then came the clicking—sharp, deliberate, hungry.
"Left!" Daric gasped, already veering down a branching corridor.
Jonas didn't hesitate. They followed, twisting and turning, barely keeping ahead of whatever those things were. He risked a glance back—they were faster than the undead. Too fast.
A shadow blurred forward. Something lashed out. Jonas barely managed to throw himself aside as a clawed hand carved through empty air where his head had been.
Veyne spun mid-stride, dagger flashing. She struck out, blade burying itself in the creature's arm—but there was no blood. The thing didn't even react. It twisted toward her, its mask-like face shifting unnaturally.
"MOVE!" Jonas bellowed, yanking her forward.
They stumbled into a wider chamber, the ceiling arching high above them. Carvings covered the walls—ancient, spiraling symbols that seemed to pulse in the torchlight. At the center of the room, a vast chasm yawned open, the air different around it—charged, humming.
Daric fell to his knees, panting. "We can't outrun them forever."
Jonas didn't answer. He was staring at the carvings, something about them gnawing at his mind. They weren't just decorative. They meant something.
Veyne swore under her breath. "They stopped."
Jonas turned sharply. The creatures stood at the chamber's edge, just beyond the archway. They did not enter. Would not enter.
The one in front tilted its head, then retreated.
The silence left behind felt heavier than the chase.
Jonas exchanged a wary glance with Veyne. "Why aren't they coming in?"
Daric wiped sweat from his brow. "The symbols."
Jonas stepped closer to the wall, reaching out—but the moment his fingers brushed against the carvings, the ground shook.
A deep, groaning shudder reverberated through the tunnels. Dust rained from above. The air thickened, and a distant sound—**something vast, something waking—**rumbled up from the chasm.
Daric scrambled backward. "We need to leave. Now."
But Jonas couldn't move. He was staring into the abyss, into the impossible dark, and he swore he saw something staring back.
A voice whispered, not from the tunnels, not from his companions, but from inside his own mind:
"You should not be here."