Night didn't fall—it slid over the land like spilled ink, slow and smothering. Shadows stretched and curled over the hills, swallowing the last light. The mine waited below like an open mouth.
No birds. No wind. Only the low hum of the floodlights buzzing above the entrance, where ten miners stood in silence.
Something felt off.
It wasn't the cold. It wasn't the tired air. It was something beneath their boots. Something in the earth.
Among them stood a newcomer.
His name was Yong. His boots were clean. His gloves stiff. And his breath steamed in short, nervous puffs.
"The name's Yong," he said, trying to sound steady.
A few nods. One handshake. The rest just returned to their gear, their silence thick. No one told him it was going to be okay. No one ever did. In a place like this, you learned by surviving.
From a rusted stairwell, a voice cut through the stillness.
"Hurry it up! We don't got all night!"
The day shift passed them by. Hollow-eyed. Caked in coal dust. They moved like men who had left pieces of themselves behind—deep underground. One brushed past Yong and whispered something that didn't sound like English. Or maybe it wasn't meant for him.
Yong's group filed into the mine. One by one. Lamps on. Lights flickering. Into the black they went.
Three hours disappeared.
Time didn't pass here—it bled. The deeper they went, the heavier everything became. Air like syrup. Dust that clung to your skin like fingers. Walls that sweated. Machines that groaned like they didn't want to keep going.
Nobody talked. Nobody needed to. The mine listened.
At last, Yong collapsed against a wall, soaked through and shivering. His pulse thundered. His limbs shook.
He drank from his canteen like it was his last drop.
"How do you all do this cursed job without going mad?" he whispered.
Zhang, older, stronger, eyes like dead coals, didn't even look up.
"You stop thinking about the surface," he said. "And you stop listening to the things that aren't supposed to be down here."
Then—a voice. Not Zhang's. Not anyone's in the immediate circle.
"Hey! Over here—look at this!"
Metal clanged to the ground. Footsteps echoed. Helmet lights jerked and danced down the shaft.
A man stood at the far end, pointing.
The rock wall had given way.
Behind it: a tunnel. Tight. Rough. Chiseled by no modern tool. Just… there.
"It's not on the map," the man said. "I swear to God, it wasn't here before."
The group closed in, hesitation thick in their throats. Some leaned in. Some stayed back. Even the machines seemed to hush.
The tunnel wasn't just unmarked. It was wrong. The light didn't behave right inside it. It bent. Swallowed whole.
Yong stepped forward. His lamp flickered.
Inside, the dark didn't feel empty. It felt awake.
"Ohh…" someone breathed.
A miner muttered a prayer.
No one said it, but the feeling settled deep in every gut: this tunnel wasn't meant to be found. Not by them. Maybe not by anyone still breathing.
And yet—
they had found it.
And it had opened for them.
"Let's go tell the boss," Yong said suddenly. "Let him know what we found—"
"No," one of the older miners snapped. "Let's just check it out. You know we'll get paid more if we pull in extra. This year's quota's garbage. We bring in more coal—we get that bonus."
A pause.
"Yeah!" someone shouted. Others echoed it. "He's right! We'll get more if we haul more."
Yong's stomach turned.
"I don't think this is a good idea," he muttered. "And it's dark as f—"
"Yong!" Zhang snapped. "Yong, you with us?"
Something pulled at the edge of Yong's thoughts—like a thread coming loose in his mind.
"W-What? What happened?"
"We're going in," Zhang said. "Come on—before we get left behind."
"O-oh… okay—"
They stepped into the mouth of the unknown.
The rock closed around them quickly. Cramped. Uneven. Walls sweating black moisture. No tools had made this place. It felt grown—like the cave had shaped itself for them.
Breath became harder. The tunnel narrowed. Lights flickered like they were being smothered.
Then—the tremble.
At first, it was a distant hum, like the groan of something waking up. But then it surged. The walls shook violently. The air screamed with falling dust and snapping stone.
"It's caving—!"
"Hold on—!"
"Go back!"
But it was too late.
The tunnel collapsed.
The way they came was sealed in a storm of falling rock. The floor cracked beneath their boots and vanished.
Ten miners fell—into the dark.
They didn't hit rock.
They hit something thicker. Heavier. Like water—but wrong.
Black. Cold. Alive. A liquid that swallowed sound. That crawled into your skin and whispered as it did.
Yong gasped—his lungs burned. Around him, the others flailed, shouted, disappeared. No light. No direction. Just down.
And then—a vortex.
A swirling maw in the black depths below. It pulled them in—ten specks in an endless whirlpool.
And then:
nothing.
Three hours later…
The chamber they lay in was wide, half-submerged in black sludge. Ceiling lost to shadow. The walls slick with a film that pulsed like skin. Their helmet lights glowed dimly, flickering.
Yong woke first.
He sat up, soaked and shivering.
Something moved on his arm. A streak of black ooze. It slipped off him—by itself. Back into the stone.
He wasn't alone.
The others were still there. Some coughing. Some unconscious.
And then—
A voice.
Not through the ears. Through the bones. Through the blood.
"You've opened it…"
"…now walk deeper."