The coin in my palm felt wrong — too cold, too heavy, like it had been sitting in ice for centuries. My fingers wanted to drop it, but something told me not to.
Footsteps echoed down the stairwell I'd just descended. Too many. Too fast.
I ran.
The subway tunnels were half-flooded, ankle-deep in black water that smelled of oil. Old advertisements peeled from the walls. The lights hummed overhead, flickering, as if the electricity was afraid of what was coming.
That's when I heard it — not footsteps this time, but skittering. Like nails on metal, multiplied a hundredfold.
I turned a corner and froze.
They were on the ceiling.
Long, jointed limbs, pale as bone, ending in hooked claws that bit into the metal beams. Bodies thin to the point of breaking, mouths stretching too wide, lined with teeth so fine they looked like silver dust. Their eyes glowed faintly — not human eyes, but tiny mirrors, each reflecting me back at myself.
One hissed, and the sound was like metal being scraped.
I bolted.
They moved faster.
A claw swiped down, nearly tearing my backpack open. Another missed my head by inches, sending a shower of sparks from a cable it shredded. My lungs were already screaming when I saw it — the sign the woman had spoken of.
A painted symbol on the tunnel wall. The same one etched into the coin.
Without thinking, I slammed the coin into the center of the mark.
The world buckled.
The tunnel vanished. The claws, the water, the smell — gone. I was standing in a vast, dimly lit hall, stone pillars stretching into the dark. My breath came in ragged gasps, and the coin was gone.
A voice drifted from the shadows.
"Congratulations, mortal. You just bought yourself a few more minutes of life."
The silver-eyed man stepped forward again, but this time he wasn't alone. Two more figures flanked him — one in black armor, the other draped in blood-red silk, their faces hidden.
The man's smile was small, almost genuine. "Let's see what you do with them."