They pressed forward more cautiously now, their footsteps muffled, torches kept low.
The floor grew uneven, cracked in places where tree roots had broken through from above.
Once, Ashen's foot slipped in a narrow crevice, and his pulse spiked at the thought of something reaching from below.
Finally, the tunnel widened.
A dull, artificial glow seeped in from ahead, orange and sickly, like light filtered through smoke.
The passage sloped upward slightly before opening into a vast, hollow space—an abandoned underground parking garage.
Rows of rusted, dust-caked cars sat like corpses under sheets.
Concrete pillars rose at regular intervals, many fractured or chipped, their rebar guts showing through.
The air smelled faintly of oil and burnt plastic.
Ashen stepped forward, scanning the far side for an exit—and found it.
The ramp leading upward was choked with a mountain of collapsed concrete, steel beams twisted into jagged angles.
There was no way through.
Max swore under his breath. "Looks like we're still trapped."
The garage swallowed them whole.
It wasn't the kind of dark you could simply squint through—this was the weighty, damp kind, the kind that pressed down against your eyes until shapes blurred into formless shadows.
The air was heavy with the stale scent of rusted steel, oil, and something faintly sweet, like meat left too long in a warm place.
The only light came from a scattering of broken overhead strips.
Most were dead.
A few flickered irregularly, casting long, stuttering shadows across the rows of abandoned cars. It made the space feel alive, as though the darkness itself shifted when they weren't looking.
Their boots echoed too loudly, every step betraying their position.
Max lifted a hand, signaling his men to fan out.
The faint click of safety catches being switched off was sharp against the stillness.
Somewhere deeper in the garage, something moved.
A scraping sound.
Not hurried—slow.
Deliberate.
Metal against concrete, as though something heavy was dragging itself forward.
It stopped. Then shifted again, but from a different direction.
Ashen's fingers tightened around his rifle. "'It's circling us,'" he whispered, though the words felt pointless—he wasn't sure if sound traveled the same way in here.
A low growl rolled through the air, so deep it seemed to vibrate in his chest.
It came from nowhere and everywhere at once, bouncing off the pillars until direction became meaningless.
Rill glanced upward, scanning the ceiling. "'It's big… whatever it is.'"
The growl tapered into silence.
For a long, breathless moment, nothing happened. Then—
Metal shrieked.
An old sedan at the far end of the row lurched violently to one side, skidding several feet before toppling onto its flank with a deafening crash.
The headlights shattered, scattering jagged glass across the floor in a glinting halo.
Something emerged from behind it.
It was tall enough that its hunched back still grazed the ceiling pipes, its long limbs folding and unfolding with a wrongness that made Ashen's skin crawl.
Patches of greasy fur clung to its body in uneven clumps, stretched thin over ridged bone. The head was too narrow, its jaw lined with teeth that glistened wetly in the erratic light.
And its eyes—yellow, fixed, unblinking—stared with the unsettling focus of something that understood.
Everyone froze, as they stared at the abomination in awe.
Max's voice cut the tension like a whip. "'Light it up!'"
Gunfire immediately erupted, the muzzle flashes slicing brief windows into the dark.
But the beast, despite its size, moved with astonishing speed, vanishing from their line of sight.
For seconds at a time, Ashen caught flickers of the beast—darting behind a pillar, scaling halfway up a wall before vanishing behind a truck, moving impossibly fast for its size.
Sparks bloomed where bullets hit steel.
Concrete chipped away in pale bursts.
They fired rounds continuously until their magazines were empty.
Then everywhere went silent again.
Everyone struggled to hold their breath as they surveyed the area, trying to figure out where the beast had run off to.
A sharp, abrupt scream shattered the stillness.
One of Max's men was yanked backward into the dark, his cry cutting off before the others could turn their rifles toward him.
The sound of tearing followed immediately after.
"'Two o'clock!'" Max shouted, but even as they swung their aim, the beast was gone.
"'Quick, form a circle!'" Max cried, but they were too slow.
A second man crumpled immediately later, his body thrown against a pillar with such force the concrete fractured.
His weapon skidded across the floor, clattering to a stop near Ashen's feet.
Everywhere went silent again as they struggled to pinpoint where the beast was this time.
Ashen suddenly felt a large shadow sweep past him.
He quickly turned around, already aiming his gun, but was met with a clenching sight.
"'Shit—Rill!'"
She'd stumbled, pistol slipping from her grip as she pressed a hand to her side.
Blood seeped between her fingers, dark against her uniform.
Ashen was already moving, sliding in beside her and hauling her behind the skeletal frame of a rusted van.
The van shuddered violently as the beast slammed into it from the other side, the force denting the metal inward like tin.
The growl was closer now—low, steady, patient.
"'We're boxed in,'" Max said from behind a nearby SUV, his eyes darting between the rubble that sealed the main exit and the darkness beyond.
His voice was low, but there was an edge to it Ashen hadn't heard before. "'We can't get out until it's dead.'"
Ashen's breath came sharp and uneven.
He could feel the sweat running cold down his neck despite the stagnant air.