I didn't remember standing. One moment I was pressed against the wall, shaking with blood in my throat; the next, I was moving.
My steps dragged, uneven, but the silence behind me didn't break. It let me go—or maybe it wanted me to walk deeper. The thought clung to my spine, but I didn't turn back.
The tunnel narrowed, stone slick with damp. I touched it to steady myself, my fingers leaving smears of blood. My palm burned where the glass had torn it open. The smell here was worse—rust and mold, thick enough to taste.
Each breath felt stolen, as if the air didn't belong to me anymore.
I told myself I wasn't running. Not hiding either. I was moving forward because stopping meant folding in on myself, crumbling, giving it what it wanted.
My ears strained for the drip, for the whisper, for claws on stone. Nothing. Only the shuffle of my own feet, the low rasp of my breath.
Then—
"…please…"
My body seized. The sound came soft, cracked, from somewhere ahead. My first thought was that it was mocking me, the thing trying a new trick. My heart lurched into my throat, but then it came again—
"Help… please."
The word was raw. Human.
I swallowed hard. My mouth was dry, my tongue heavy. Every part of me screamed to turn back, but my legs carried me toward it, as if pulled by a thread.
The tunnel opened into a larger space, stone broken by beams and rubble. Shadows clung thick in the corners.
And then I saw them.
At first, I thought they were shapes the dark was twisting, tricks for my failing eyes. But no—the shadows breathed. Shifted. Three figures, bent and thin, pressed against the far wall.
My stomach flipped.
They were alive.
One lifted his head, a boy not much older than me. His eyes were wide, too bright, fever-sharp. Another sat rocking, lips moving fast, whispering something I couldn't catch. The third—an older woman—watched me with hollow suspicion, her hand tight around a length of metal.
The sound that scraped from my throat startled me. "You're… alive."
The boy gave a weak nod. The rocking man didn't stop. The woman's grip on the rebar didn't loosen. Her stare didn't move.
Her voice cut through the space, flat and sharp:
"Not for long if you brought it with you."
The words hit like a blow. I froze, my breath catching. "I—I didn't. I lost it back there."
Her eyes narrowed. "No one loses it."
Something in her tone—low, resigned—made my skin crawl. I glanced around the chamber. It wasn't much of a shelter. Walls cracked, floor slick, air thick with rot. And yet they'd been here long enough to wear grooves into the dirt.
"How long?" I asked.
The boy's answer came barely above a whisper. "Days. Maybe weeks. Time's strange down here."
The rocking man muttered faster, voice trembling. "It listens through the walls. Through the blood. You can't hide from something that knows your name."
The woman hissed, "Quiet."
He obeyed instantly.
Silence fell again, heavy and suffocating. I could hear my own heartbeat, quick and uneven. The smell of rust was stronger now—fresh. I didn't want to look for the source.
The boy spoke again, voice shaking. "If it's following you, we're already dead."
"I told you," I said, my voice sharper than I meant. "I lost it."
"Then why are you bleeding?" the woman asked.
I glanced down at my hands, the dark smears glistening faintly. My throat locked. "It's nothing."
"Nothing doesn't drip like that."
Her words barely left her mouth before something shifted in the distance—a faint echo, too soft to place. All three of them flinched at once.
The rocking man started to sob quietly. The boy pressed himself flat to the wall.
The woman's eyes darted to the tunnel behind me. Then she whispered one word:
"Run."
And before I could breathe, the light died.