Lyra crawled through the collapsed tunnel, broken and gasping. Every drag of her body across the wet stone sent fire up her ribs and arms. The air was thick with the stink of mold, rot, and old stone. Her hands scraped over rubble, skin tearing as she groped forward, grit biting deep into her palms.
The graveglass shard in her grip was already cold, its light drained, as all magic drained fast in places like this. She didn't dare stop for another. Some glowed too long, like bait. With a grunt of disgust, she hurled it into the rubble. It clattered somewhere out of sight, swallowed by the ruin.
For a breath, she stayed frozen. Then, a faint shimmer caught her eye. Distant, thin, but enough to break the suffocating dark.
Bigger shards, cracked graveglass, half-buried in the ruined walls and floor on the far side of the tunnel flickered weakly, throwing jagged pools of dying light across the wreckage. It wasn't enough to see clearly, but it gave shape to the ruin.
She forced herself forward, crawling faster now, sharp breath stabbing through her side with every move. Behind her, the dry rattle of bone scraping stone echoed through the tunnel. Panic flared up her spine. She scuffled her way forward faster, raked knees and palms raw, driven by the sick certainty that something was dragging itself closer.
The crawl ended abruptly as she spilled into a vast, devastated hall, shards of dim light cutting ragged lines across the ruin and skeletal remains hanging grotesquely from snapped beams.
Lyra didn't slow down.
Just move.
The air hung heavy and sour, clinging to her skin.
The silence crushed in, and a dull throb pulsed behind her eyes where sound should be.
She gritted her teeth, forcing her battered body forward, feeling the walls with numb fingers.
No full light. No clear guide. Only scattered glimmers from half-buried shards, throwing shapes across the ruin.
"Keep moving," she whispered to herself. The sharp click of bone against stone echoed closer, faster. Panic clawed her throat, thick and sharp as wire. "One step. Then another."
The ground sloped beneath her into cracked pockets of dim light. Every crawl forward felt like a blind gamble. Stones shifted. Dust filled her nose and mouth. She pushed herself up, almost falling again, and stood shakily. Around her, flickering graveglass shards set into the ground and walls gave the hall a weak, ghostly light.
She turned, trying to get her bearings.
Above her, rafters lost in blackness sagged like ribs, barely visible in the weak glow.
Towering pillars loomed in the distance. Crushed walls sagged around the edges. The floor was shattered and treacherous. There was no clear path, only wreckage, shadows, and the stale, choking air of a place long buried.
Her skin crawled. Every instinct screamed that eyes were on her, buried in the dark.
Upright but swaying, she reeled forward, every step a battle against pain and exhaustion. Her hands brushed along the stone as she forced herself toward the faint light ahead. Above her, the ceiling vanished into black. From somewhere high and unseen, a thin whisper of laughter trickled down, slithered down the ruin. She clenched her jaw and kept moving, refusing to look up.
Finally, a space. Lyra stumbled into it, half-falling behind a pillar. Gasping for air, she clutched her side where the pain burned hottest. Biting her lip to stay silent, she forced herself to crouch lower. Slowly, trembling, she turned her head back toward the tunnel she had crawled from, pulse pounding. She stared into the light, heart hammering.
Panting, she stayed low, frozen.
Broken columns leaned, ready to fall. Her chest tightened. Above, fallen arches loomed like jaws. The stink of rot thickened, barely visible even to her dark-trained eyes.
And at the mouth of the tunnel behind her, something moved.
She froze, listening.
Not stone shifting. Not rubble settling.
Deliberate. a dry, scuffling sound. Bone against stone.
Lyra sank into the wreckage, making herself as small as possible, blending with the dim light.
Just move.
Stay small. Stay invisible.
Something crawled from the tunnel with a grinding scrape. Its joints cracked like snapped twigs as it stumbled closer, armor fused to yellowed bone.
Lyra flinched, heart slamming against her ribs. Lowering inch by inch, she barely breathed.
It turned its empty sockets slowly, its body pulled by unseen threads, as if some distant force were guiding its limbs toward any hint of life.
Her limbs refused to move. She stared, unbelieving, breath caught somewhere deep where panic buried it.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
Lyra's mind screamed to run, to flee into the dim-lit ruin, but her body refused. Shaking, paralyzed by fear, she tried to step back and her foot, slick with dust and blood, slipped against a loose stone.
The scuff echoed sharp through the stillness, louder than breath.
The skeleton didn't stop, bone fingers clawing the floor. It lurched forward, claws scratching stone in slow rhythm.
Twisting aside, she felt the rush of air as a jagged shard of bone clawed past her shoulder.
Breathless, she ducked around a fallen pillar, boots slipping in the muck. She needed a weapon—anything.
Ahead, near the entrance of the hall, a skeleton slumped motionless against the rubble. Its bones were brittle and still, but clutched in one hand was a rusty sword, and a dented shield lay by its side. The metal was battered and corroded, but in Lyra's desperate mind, they looked like salvation.
She moved.
The skeleton scrambled after her, limbs cracking with every desperate step.
She dove low, dodging a clumsy swipe, and in a single brutal motion, yanked the rusty sword free from the motionless skeleton's grasp. It wrenched loose with a screech of old metal, almost too heavy for her battered arms.
The rusty blade weighed heavy in her hand. Lifeless. Cold. Just a shard of old iron. No magic. No flicker. Barely sharp enough to cut but better than nothing.
Skeleton lunged.
Lyra slashed, pure instinct. The rusty sword bit into bone with a sickening crunch, splintering brittle ribs and sending fragments skittering across the floor.
The skeleton collapsed into a pile of brittle shards at her feet. She staggered back, staring.
It didn't cut it broke. Like everything else down here. Whatever foul strength had held the thing together gave out with a final, sick crack. Lyra lurched back a step, gasping once, every instinct screaming: move.
Movement stirred in the dark. She dropped the sword too slow, too heavy. It would only slow her now.
The world tilted. Her knees buckled. The ground reeled beneath her.
"What... what was that?" she whispered, not sure if she wanted an answer. They were too many. Her legs folded beneath her, trembling.
Then, a low sound echoed through the hall.
Not from the thing she had just shattered.
The air above pressed down. Something waited perched high, unseen in the beams.
Dust drifted from the rafters, stirred by a breath she couldn't hear.
Laughter drifted again but this time from directly above.
Lyra froze. Slowly, terrified, she lifted her head.
Barely visible in the faint flicker of dying glass, two big red eyes glowed back down at her from the rafters.
But the sound woke the others.
From the cracks in the walls, bone fingers twitched. From the rafters came a brittle creak—not wood. The ruin woke with dry breath and the rasp of shifting joints.
She didn't wait.
The hall blurred past rows of shattered pews, jagged ribs of collapsed stone. No way back.
She ran. Breaths tore through her. Wrecked pews flashed past as claws scraped closer, echoing off the walls.
She vaulted the arch and stumbled through wreckage, instinct pushing her faster than pain could pull her down. Behind her, the lifeless scraped closer, slow but relentless.
Her boots slammed stone, echoing like gunfire. A clawed hand raked past her shoulder, she spun away just in time.
She couldn't fight them all.
A doorway loomed ahead, half-buried in debris, but open.
She hurled herself toward it, shoving through fallen stone with bruised shoulders.
More shapes stirred in the black, too many.
Lyra slammed into the chamber beyond the door, shouldering it closed with a grunt of pain. Broken rubble jammed into the frame as she collapsed against it, gasping.
Bone fingers scuffled at the other side.
The dead battered against the door. Miraculously, it held, for now.
A voice drifted from the dark, a low, almost gentle whisper. "There's no need to hide. I see you now."
Lyra flinched, heart hammering. Her jaw clenched. Her throat burned.
Her back hit the wall and she slid down, lungs straining. Her vision swam in and out as she fought for breath.
Something dropped from the rafters with a hollow thud. Two red eyes blinked open high above. Watching. Waiting. It moved with a slow, jerking shuffle, the sound of brittle joints grinding with each step.
Her fingers locked on the stone. No strength. No breath. The chill bit into her skin like teeth. The air soured, clotted with bone-dust and old death. Flight surged in her chest. She wanted to scream. But her body wasn't hers anymore, not under that stare.