Anthony opened his eyes. Darkness pressed against him. His body ached. Every muscle screamed. His clothes were torn, damp with sweat and dirt. He touched his throat. No slice. No hole. Only soreness. Breathing was shallow and uneven.
He forced himself upright. Step by step, careful. His arm throbbed; purple and numb, useless for now. Hunger clawed, sharp and insistent. He moved anyway.
Time stretched. Hours passed. His stomach twisted. He pressed forward, keeping low, hands brushing walls for support. Every stone and surface beneath him felt alive, shifting slightly under his weight.
Mark's burnt body came to mind. How could a corpse be freshly burned, so deep in the cave, with no trail outside? He didn't linger. He swallowed the thought and kept moving.
After more movement, he saw another figure. Human-shaped, twisted. Eyes wide, trembling. Mouth incapable of words. Movements jerky, unpredictable, almost puppet-like.
Anthony tried to communicate. Nothing.
The figure lunged. Anthony reacted. Knife to the head. Again. And again. Until it ceased moving.
He worked methodically. Bones stripped. Skin removed. Flesh taken for later. Every piece counted. Hunger, survival, necessity.
He moved on. Hours passed. Footsteps echoed faintly in the stone. The cave changed subtly:
Walls widened and twisted, angles sharp, folding in impossible ways. Shadows pooled, stretched, and twisted.
The floor rippled like flowing rock, slick in places, glimmering faintly. Small rivulets of dark liquid traced along channels in stone.
Green growth clung to walls and ceiling, some filament-thin, others thick and bulbous, swaying faintly. Shapes inside it twitched and writhed.
Bones embedded in walls leaned like supports, or lay scattered across the floor. Some half-buried in soft sediment.
Torchlight caught on crystalline shards jutting from floors and ceilings, fracturing the glow into dozens of moving shadows.
Small forms skittered across walls and floors, disappearing into corners or merging into the green growth.
Larger, slow shapes lingered in the distance, partly hidden, deliberate, somewhere between organic and mechanical.
Clusters of pale, soft material grew along walls, damp, glistening. Fingers or tendrils pushed outward, then recoiled.
Cracks revealed hollow tubes in the stone, pulsing faintly. Shadows thickened as he passed.
Anthony moved carefully, pressing himself low, using torchlight to navigate. Hours blurred. His body screamed with exhaustion. His hands raw, muscles strained. Every shadow, every flicker of movement kept him alert.
He reached chambers that stretched impossibly wide. Ceilings collapsed into floors, walls folded into themselves. Shadows layered, shapes repeated, twisted, interweaving with green growth and crystalline spikes.
Occasionally, small, weak forms darted through the lattices. Some collided with stone and vanished. Some disappeared into filaments and did not reappear. Anthony killed a few when they approached too closely, moving swiftly, silently, methodically.
He scavenged carefully, checking for anything useful. Bones, fragments of teeth, pieces of skin, anything that could be shaped into tools. He kept what he could eat for now. Hunger drove him further.
Hours stretched. Torch flickered, shadows stretching and contracting. His eyes adjusted slowly. Floors bent, ceilings collapsed and opened unexpectedly. Walls curved in ways that made orientation difficult.
Deeper in, the cave shifted again. Angles grew grotesque, chaotic. Filaments and growths wove together with crystalline spikes into lattice-like patterns. Small forms moved constantly. Some collided. Some merged. Constant movement, silent, mechanical yet organic.
Anthony moved carefully. Every step deliberate. Every shadow, every twitching form counted. He pressed onward, deeper, further from the entrance, deeper into the strange patterns.
Time passed. He ate when necessary. He scavenged silently. He observed, memorized. He survived. Primal, human, aware.
Hours, maybe days. The cave stretched endlessly. Every corner, every shift, every movement embedded itself in his awareness.
Anthony kept moving, deeper and deeper, silent, alert, alive.