Lucen's feet pounded the fractured floor as he pushed into the side tunnel, breath sharp in his throat but not ragged. He wasn't panicking. Yet. He just didn't like being hunted by something that didn't need to run.
The walls around him began to close in, literally. The tunnel narrowed with every few meters, ancient stone flaring at odd angles, glyph scars etched into corners from gods knew how long ago.
The deeper he ran, the more he felt it: the air itself pressing down. Not from exhaustion, but from proximity.
That thing was still behind him, and it wasn't moving fast, it didn't have to. The weight of its presence felt like it was pouring into the stone, leaking ahead of it like black ink soaking into old paper.
Lucen skidded around a jut of collapsed wall and flung himself sideways behind a tall slab of mineral-veined rubble.
