The transition from the violet glare of the apocalypse to the absolute vacuum of the mine is a sensory amputation. For Audiam, the "loudness" of the sky—the pulsing frequencies and the pressure waves of the spire—is suddenly severed by meters of solid rock and earth.
The darkness here isn't just an absence of light; it is a physical weight. It feels thick, like cool velvet pressing against her open eyes. She can't see her hand in front of her face, but she can feel the mountain. The mine is a vast, hollow lung, and it is breathing. She feels the slow, rhythmic oscillation of air moving through the deep shafts—a low-frequency thrum that vibrates in her diaphragm.
Her father's flashlight flickers to life, a weak, yellow spear of light that barely penetrates the heavy gloom. The beam reveals walls of jagged shale and rusted iron support beams, weeping with a black, oily moisture.
"We need to go deeper," her father signs, his hands cast in long, distorted shadows against the rock. "The air at the entrance is still too thin. We need the thermal mass of the lower levels to stay warm."
They begin the descent. The mine is a skeletal maze of "Adits" and "Winzes"—horizontal tunnels and vertical shafts. The floor is a graveyard of rusted ore-car tracks and rotted timber. Audiam moves with hyper-focus, her boots feeling for the tell-tale vibration of loose rock or a hollow floor.
Buddy is a tense shadow at her side. He isn't sniffing the ground; he is tilting his head, his ears swivelling to catch sounds that Audiam can only imagine. Beside him, Paw-paw is silent. The puppy is tucked back into Audiam's sweatshirt, his small body shivering with a feverish intensity. The atmospheric change from the "Other Side" has begun to affect his smaller lungs—a biological tax he isn't built to pay.
As they reach the second level, nearly a hundred feet below the surface, the air changes. The metallic tang of ozone fades, replaced by the smell of ancient damp and pulverized stone. But the vibration changes, too.
Audiam stops. She presses her palm against the cold shale wall.
"Wait," she signs to her father.
She feels a rhythmic, mechanical pulse. It's not the heartbeat of the mountain or the thrum of the spire above. It's a localized, artificial vibration. Chug-thump. Chug-thump.
"Something is running," she signs, her fingers moving with precision. "Below us. Machines."
Her father frowns, looking at the floor. He closes his eyes, trying to sense it through his boots. After a moment, he nods. "The sump pumps. If they're still running, there's a localized power source. A deep-well generator or a battery array."
They follow the pulse. It leads them down a steep, narrow incline toward a massive steel door marked SECTION 4: EMERGENCY DRAINAGE. The door is slightly ajar, and from the gap, a faint, flickering blue light spills out.
It isn't the violet light of the rift. It's the harsh, flickering light of an old-world fluorescent bulb.
They push the door open. Inside is a small, concrete-walled chamber housing a massive, vibrating pump and a rack of heavy-duty lead-acid batteries. And in the corner, huddled on a pile of moldy burlap sacks, is a man.
He is old, his beard a matted thicket of grey, his skin the colour of damp parchment. He doesn't look at them. He is staring at a small, battery-operated radio on the floor. The radio is emitting nothing but a steady, high-pitched whine—the sound of a world that has been overwritten by static.
The man looks up as their flashlight hits him. He doesn't speak. He doesn't move. He simply raises a finger to his lips. Silence.
Audiam's father steps forward, signing slowly. "We are seeking shelter. The Gate... the Watchers... they are in the woods."
The old man doesn't understand the signs. He watches the movement of the hands with a look of profound sorrow. He reaches for a piece of chalk on the floor and writes a single word on the concrete wall in large, jagged letters:
THEY HEAR.
Audiam feels a cold shiver that has nothing to do with the temperature. She looks at her father, then at the dogs.
"The Watchers," she signs. "He thinks they can hear us."
The old man shakes his head violently, pointing to his ears and then to the ceiling. He writes another sentence:
NOT THE EYES. THE ECHO.
Suddenly, the vibration in the room shifts. The steady chug-thump of the pump is joined by a new frequency. It's a high-pitched, crystalline singing—a sound that travels through the metal pipes and the concrete walls. It feels like a thousand tiny needles vibrating against Audiam's skull.
She looks at the sump pump. The black, oily water being pulled from the deep shaft isn't just water anymore. It is shimmering with violet sparks. The silicate "moss" from the forest has reached the groundwater.
The "Other Side" is not just terraforming the surface. It is infiltrating the veins of the planet.
The old man grabs a heavy iron pipe and points toward the back of the chamber, where a ventilation duct disappears into the dark. He writes one last message:
THEY FOLLOW THE PULSE.
As if on cue, the fluorescent light above them flickers and dies. The pump groans, its mechanical rhythm faltering as the violet-tinted water begins to vitrify inside the intake valves.
In the sudden, heavy silence, Audiam feels it.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It's coming from inside the ventilation duct. Not from the outside, but from the deep earth below.
The Watchers didn't just come from the sky. The Gate has opened a two-way door, and the silicate entities are emerging from the very bedrock they are trying to hide in.
Audiam reaches for Buddy's collar, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looks at the blood-stained sleeve of her sweater. The organic "poison" in her veins is her only weapon, but in the absolute dark of the mine, she can't see where to strike.
The old man stands up, his eyes wide with a strange, sacrificial light. He doesn't sign, but his intent is clear. He moves toward the pump, his iron pipe raised.
"Run," her father signs, his flashlight beam catching the first grey, multi-jointed limb as it emerges from the vent.
But the "Other Side" is faster. The Watcher that pulls itself from the duct is different from the ones in the woods. It is smaller, more compact, its silicate body reinforced with the black ore of the mine. It looks like a creature made of living coal and glass.
It doesn't wait. It lunges toward the pump—toward the source of the vibration.
Audiam grabs her mother and the dogs, pulling them back toward the steel door. As she turns to look back, she sees the old man swing the pipe.
The impact creates a shower of white-hot sparks as the metal hits the silicate torso. But the Watcher doesn't shatter. It absorbs the kinetic energy, its body glowing with a dull, violet heat. It reaches out, its fingers touching the man's chest.
There is no scream. Only a soft, dry rustle, like old paper being crushed.
The man is gone. In his place stands a statue of grey ash, already beginning to crumble under the vibration of the failing pump.
Audiam slams the steel door, the vibration of the impact ringing through her arms. They are back in the dark tunnel, the "Safe Zone" compromised, the mountain itself now a hunting ground.
"Down," her father signs, his light failing. "We have to go to the lowest level. The flood tunnels. They're filled with water. They might not be able to vitrify in a high-moisture environment."
It is their last hope. The elixir they lost to the sky might be the only thing that can save them in the deep.