The light faded. At first I thought I'd gone blind.
Then came sound. The soft hiss of falling dust, the groan of metal warping somewhere close.
I tried to breathe, but the air was thick, hot, and filled with dirt that stung my throat. Something heavy pressed against my leg; when I moved, pain shot through me.
System Alert:
You're hurt.
Stay still.
"Clara?" My voice cracked.
No answer. Just more creaking from the pit.
I blinked through the haze. My head throbbed, vision swimming in and out of focus.
The trench was gone; walls collapsed, scaffolding twisted, heaps of rock burying everything we'd built.
The lights overhead were dead. Only a faint blue shimmer leaked through cracks in the stone, painting the dust in cold color.
"Clara!" I tried again, louder.
A cough answered from somewhere nearby.
I pushed the weight off my leg and dragged myself toward the sound. Every movement burned, but stopping wasn't an option.
She was wedged beneath a bent frame, dust caked to her skin. Her chest rose, shallow but steady.
"Hey. I've got you," I said, forcing my hands under the metal.
She stirred. "Terry…?"
"Yeah. Don't move."
I heaved. The beam held. My shoulder screamed.
System Notice:
Muscle strain.
Hold steady.
Heat built under my skin. The hum inside me rose until it drowned everything else. With a final shove, the frame shifted.
"Go!" I grunted.
Clara crawled free as the metal crashed beside us.
We both fell back, coughing.
For a moment neither of us spoke. Our breaths came ragged, the only sound left in the hollow dark. The silence pressed on my skull until I started hearing my own pulse. That's when it hit me; how quiet it really was.
No engines. No shouting. Just us.
She looked at me through the haze. "How did you…"
I shook my head. "Don't ask."
The hum in my chest hadn't stopped. It was stronger now, matching the slow rhythm under our feet.
System Alert:
Ground movement detected.
Something below is moving.
Clara grabbed my arm. "We have to find Mason."
I nodded and looked around. The tunnel ahead was half-collapsed, jagged with rock and rebar.
—————
We limped deeper through the wreckage, each step stirring another puff of dust. A broken helmet lamp flickered weakly where it lay. I smacked it once, and it blinked to life, a narrow beam cutting through the gray.
"Stay close," I said.
"Like I'd get lost down here?" she muttered, though her voice shook.
We moved single-file through a passage no wider than our shoulders. The walls were damp and slick where groundwater had forced its way through the cracks. The air smelled metallic, sharp, almost like rain on rust.
A low groan rolled through the stone above us. Dust sifted from the ceiling, and somewhere behind, rock shifted with a heavy crack. The tremor was brief but deep enough to make the tunnel feel alive beneath our feet.
Chunks of gravel clattered down the slope we'd just climbed. A dull roar followed, muffled by distance but close enough to shake my ribs.
System Notice:
Air quality low.
Surface route—blocked.
The vibration faded, leaving only the echo of falling debris.
The air burned going in, heavy and sour. Even without the System's warning, it was obvious.
"Figures," Clara said, waving dust from her face. Her breath made small clouds in the beam of light.
Every sound felt too loud. The scrape of our boots, the clink of metal shifting somewhere behind us. Somewhere far off, water dripped in a slow, steady rhythm.
We reached a fork where the tunnel split. The left side sloped upward but was crushed halfway by fallen stone. The right side dropped lower, where the faint blue glow pulsed like a heartbeat.
Clara hesitated. "Please tell me we're not going that way."
I looked at the collapsed route. No way through. "We don't have a choice."
She sighed, tightening the torn bandage around her leg. "You always say that."
We descended. The ground changed under our boots; softer, coated in fine silt instead of gravel. The blue veins in the rock grew thicker, running like living roots. Every few yards, one of them gave off a low hum I could feel in my bones.
"It's brighter down here," she whispered.
I wasn't sure if "brighter" was the right word. The glow wasn't light; it was movement. The stone itself pulsed, slow and steady, like it was remembering how to breathe.
System Notice:
Source nearby.
Distance unknown.
The tunnel opened into a cavern. A rough bubble carved by the collapse. Shards of equipment were scattered everywhere: broken shovels, a cracked crate, the twisted frame of one of the site's lifts.
We crossed carefully. Every step sent echoes chasing into the dark.
Clara stopped and tilted her head. "Do you hear that?"
At first, I thought it was the hum again. But no, it was deeper. A dragging sound, slow and deliberate, followed by a faint rush of air.
Something was moving far below.
"What is that?" she whispered.
I didn't answer. My chest tightened, the hum under my ribs answering in perfect rhythm.
System Alert:
Pressure shift.
Leave area.
"Yeah, I noticed," I muttered.
The cavern tilted downward into another tunnel, half flooded with silty water that rippled from the vibrations. We followed its curve, the lamp's beam trembling across wet stone.
Every few steps, the light caught signs of what used to be our world: twisted ladders, a rusted bucket, the tattered corner of someone's tarp. All buried. All forgotten.
Clara kept glancing back. "You think anyone else made it?"
I didn't answer. If I said no, it would make it real.
She looked ahead again, jaw tight. "Then it's just us."
The tunnel widened suddenly, and I stopped short. At the far end, where the glow bled through broken stone, lay a mound of rubble and a shape half-buried beneath it.
"Mason!"
I ran, sliding down the slope, the lamp jerking wildly.
He was sprawled near the edge of a sinkhole torn straight through the quarry floor, one arm twisted under rock. Blood pooled dark beneath him.
Clara dropped beside him, pressing a hand to his throat. "He's alive, but barely."
I knelt opposite, brushing grit from his face. His eyes fluttered open.
"Terry…?"
"Yeah, I'm here."
He tried to smile. "You look worse than me."
"Shut up." I pressed harder on the wound.
System Alert:
Critical injury.
Life signs failing.
"No," I said. "Not him."
The hum in my chest turned sharp, burning hot. The blue veins in the rock pulsed brighter, responding, either to me or to him.
System Notice:
It hears you.
I froze. "What?"
The message blinked once and vanished.
Another tremor rolled through the ground. Pebbles rattled; dust fell in thin streams.
Mason groaned, weaker now. "Cold…"
Clara's voice broke. "We need to move him!"
"There's nowhere to go!" I snapped, then caught myself.
She looked at me, eyes wide with fear and disbelief.
The hum grew louder, crawling up my spine until it sat behind my eyes.
The earth was answering my heartbeat.
Whatever was down there; it knew I was here.
And it wasn't done waking up.