Talia forced her breathing to slow, one inhale at a time, until the roar in her ears dropped to something that sounded vaguely human. She planted the butt of her spear in the dirt beside her and just… listened.
Nothing. Just silence
"Alright," she murmured. "Let's see what I'm dealing with before I panic."
She moved around the edge of the ranger hut's clearing, spear in hand, boots careful on the grass. At first glance everything looked normal. The cabin stood where she'd left it. The trees still ringed the clearing. The sky above was a dull, cloud-filtered blue.
Then she looked down.
The ground wasn't smooth. Small bulges rose where earth should've been flat. Thin ridges of lifted soil traced looping, intersecting lines around the cabin, like someone had drawn a messy spiderweb just beneath the grass.
Her brows pulled tight.
"Burrowers."
She stepped off the worn path and into the grass, crouching beside a hole no wider than her fist. The soil was fresh and dark, still damp with the memory of being disturbed. As she leaned closer, the earth under her boot sagged.
The surface collapsed into a second tunnel just beneath.
She jerked back onto solid ground, heart spiking.
"How many holes are there…?"
She straightened carefully and scanned the clearing with new eyes.
There were dozens.
No—more. Little slumps, hairline cracks, slight colour changes in the grass. Once she saw one, she couldn't stop seeing them.
A minefield. Right in front of her door. Hidden in plain sight.
She backed up slowly until her heel found a patch of packed dirt near the treeline. Her mind clicked through scenarios. How deep the tunnels ran. How far they spread. Whether they'd already undermined the hut.
Something rustled behind her.
She spun.
Three moles burst from the ground, soil spraying up around them. Their bodies were low and thick, claws long, teeth already bared.
Talia didn't think. She stabbed the first mid-air, pivoted on her back foot, and slashed the second across the belly. The third latched onto her boot, tiny claws scrabbling for purchase.
"Off," she snapped, and kicked hard.
It flew back, hit the dirt, and she pinned it with one thrust through the skull. All three dissolved into ash almost as soon as they died.
"Okay," she exhaled. "Individually? Weak. Collectively? Horrible little land piranhas."
She turned back toward the hut.
The wood panelling along the base had… changed. It bulged outward in uneven patches, swelling and relaxing in a slow, wrong rhythm, like the walls were breathing. Scratching echoed from inside, skittering and relentless. Something heavy slammed against a support beam with a dull, meaty thud.
"Did you dig into my cabin?" Talia whispered. "Rude."
She didn't go near the door.
Instead, she widened her circle, spear raised, counting the moving bulges along the base, trying to guess how many bodies were between the outer tunnels and the hut's floor.
That was when the world went still.
Not quiet.
Still.
The breeze vanished. Bird calls cut off mid-note. Even the trees seemed to lock in place. A suffocating, predatory stillness settled over the clearing, pressing against her skin.
Her pulse ticked loud in the silence.
This is wrong.
She reached into her space, pulled out a fist-sized rock, and weighed it once.
"Animal science," she said under her breath, and flicked it toward the cabin.
The rock hit the dirt under the far window.
The earth exploded.
Two burrowers erupted upward like bullets. One slammed halfway through the window frame, claws gouging the wood. The other launched toward where she had been standing a second before. Four more burst from the ground behind her, soil raining down in all directions.
They formed a neat ring.
A perfect, circular ambush.
Every single one turned to face her.
"Well," Talia muttered, "sound isn't the trigger. Good to know. Terrifying way to find out."
She lunged sideways, trying to break through the thinnest section of the ring, but the moment she moved, a second ring surfaced, cutting her off. The creatures surged in unison, herding her back toward the exact centre of the clearing.
They wanted her contained.
The air tightened again. The scratching under the hut paused. A false kind of peace settled at the edges of the formation, like the calm in the centre of a storm cell.
They were waiting.
"They're… holding formation. That's not animal behaviour. That's leader behaviour. Is there a leader?" Her stomach knotted and mind raced searching for more information.
She adjusted her grip on the spear.
Attack before they do. Keep your feet. Don't step in the wrong place or you'll die tired.
She exhaled hard and charged the outer line.
Her spear flashed in vicious arcs—stab, twist, rip free. She spun, ducked, and drove the butt of the spear into the jaw of whatever got too close. These burrowers were small, their flesh soft, their bones fragile. One clean hit sent them flying.
But as soon as one dissolved, another dug up under her boots to replace it.
She cut down a set.
Another climbed out.
She killed them.
More emerged.
A sickening rhythm formed. She was the bead in the centre of their circle, and they were spinning the string around her.
She tried to break sideways again. The tunnel under her foot sagged; she aborted the step before the ground could give way and retreated back toward the patch they seemed so keen on keeping her over.
No matter where she moved, they steered her back.
Her eyes widened.
"They're not stopping me," she panted. "They're… shepherding me."
The thought finished just as her footing vanished.
The earth dropped out from under her.
She fell like a stone.
Cold air slammed past her face. She was falling—fast. The shaft wasn't wide enough to maneuver, so instinct snapped her spear sideways, ramming the haft between the tunnel walls.
The impact hit like a car crash.
Her body jerked sharply—
A ripping heat tore through her right shoulder—
Not a full dislocation, but close enough to taste it.
A strangled cry ripped from her throat.
Claws skittered up the shaft below..
"Move," she hissed.
She forced her hand to tighten on the spear. Shifted her weight. Spread the strain across both arms. Braced her boots against the wall. Her knife scraped for purchase.
A burrower latched onto her thigh. Its claws punched through already-abused fabric and into flesh.
White-hot pain raced up her leg. She bit down on the scream—she couldn't draw any more beasts toward her. Her free hand stabbed downward, blindly. Wet warmth—her blood—soaked through her pants, sticky and hot.
Another shape wriggled upward beneath her.
Two more burst from the dirt beside her shoulder, claws reaching for her face.
"This is bad," she breathed.
Her mind iced over. Emotion shut down. Logic surged.
A plan formed in a single, sharp line:
Clear the immediate threat.
Anchor herself.
Detonate.
Escape the shaft.
Finish the colony.
Her knife flicked out in tight, economical jabs. One. Two. Three. The closest burrowers fell away in pieces, tumbling into the dark below.
She shoved the spear deeper into the packed dirt to anchor more securely. Her shoulder and thigh screamed with every shift of weight, but she ignored both.
From her space, she pulled a small fertilizer bag and dropped it. It vanished into the darkness with a soft thud.
Eighty metres down. A mess of burrows beneath the clearing. The underground structure was already unstable.
The plan could work.
If she climbed fast enough, she'd survive.
Too slow, and she'd be buried with them.
Next, a glass bottle sloshing with petrol and oil-soaked cloth at the neck—one of the Molotovs she'd prepared while clearing the ranger tower. Holding it between her knees, she fished out her lighter.
I love my space pocket, echoed mindlessly through her head.
"Hope you enjoy the bonfire."
A spark. The cloth caught—fwoom.
She tossed it after the fertilizer and began climbing frantically.
Knife into the wall—jam.
Hatchet into the dirt—jam.
Pull. Drag. Climb.
Her shoulder burned like fire.
Her leg barely helped, a dead weight behind her.
She hauled herself upward anyway, teeth gritted, vision pulsing with every heartbeat.
She stored the spear mid-climb and scrambled faster.
Four metres to go.
A muffled boom echoed from the bottom of the shaft.
She was a metre from the top when the real rumble hit.
A deep, suffocating thunder rolled beneath the clearing.
The earth shuddered.
Dirt rained over her head.
Air blasted up the shaft like a breath from the underworld.
Somewhere below, the burrow network collapsed like a rotten lung.