The fall felt endless.
Kael struck the wall once, hard enough to spin him sideways. Jagged stone tore across his jacket as gravity dragged him deeper into the collapsing shaft.
He tried to grab something.
Anything.
But the rock crumbled beneath his fingers.
Then the ground rose up to meet him.
The impact drove every ounce of air from his lungs.
Pain exploded through his ribs as he slammed onto the cavern floor. His vision flashed white, then black.
For several seconds Kael couldn't breathe.
He lay sprawled on the cold stone, mouth open, chest heaving uselessly while his lungs struggled to remember how to work.
Dust poured down from above, filling the cavern in a choking cloud.
Come on… breathe…
His chest convulsed.
Finally air rushed back into his lungs in a ragged gasp.
Kael rolled onto his side, coughing violently as dust scraped the back of his throat.
Every rib felt like it had been hammered.
He pressed a hand against his chest and waited for the pain to settle into something manageable.
Small stones continued to tumble down from above.
When the dust finally began to clear, Kael forced himself upright.
His head swam.
Above him, a jagged circle of pale daylight marked the sinkhole opening.
But something was wrong.
The shaft wasn't open anymore.
Huge slabs of broken rock had collapsed inward, forming a rough choke point halfway down the hole. The passage narrowed to a mess of tilted stone and packed rubble.
No rope was getting through that.
A voice echoed faintly from above.
"Kael!"
His father.
Kael tilted his head back toward the distant light.
"I'm here!" he shouted.
The echo bounced around the cavern walls.
"Are you hurt?" Garrick Holt called down.
Kael tested his arms and legs carefully.
Pain flared through his ribs again.
But nothing felt broken.
"I'm alright!" he shouted back. "Just bruised!"
There was a pause.
Then more voices joined his father's above.
Kael heard the sound of boots shifting against loose stone.
"Hold tight," Garrick called down. "The collapse filled the shaft. We'll have to clear it first."
Kael squinted upward.
From his angle he could see the blockage clearly now.
Massive boulders wedged across the shaft walls. Some were larger than the mining rigs themselves.
That was going to take time.
"I'll be here!" Kael shouted.
"Stay put!" Garrick replied.
The voices above faded as the miners began organizing equipment.
Kael leaned against the cavern wall and exhaled slowly.
Well.
That could have gone worse.
He reached for the lamp clipped to his belt and flicked the switch.
The beam flickered once, twice, then stabilized.
Light spilled across the cavern.
The space around him was enormous.
Stone pillars rose from the floor like frozen waves. The cavern stretched far beyond the reach of his lamp, fading into thick darkness.
Kael slowly pushed himself to his feet.
His ribs protested immediately.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Definitely feeling that tomorrow."
He swept the light across the walls.
Something about them felt strange.
Parts of the rock were smooth.
Too smooth.
Almost like the stone had been carved.
He took a cautious step forward.
Loose gravel shifted beneath his boots.
The sound echoed farther than expected.
Kael frowned.
This cavern was huge.
Then he heard it.
A faint scraping sound.
He froze.
The lamp beam swung toward the nearest tunnel opening.
Nothing moved.
Kael held his breath.
Silence.
Maybe rocks settling after the collapse.
He exhaled slowly.
Then the sound came again.
Scrape.
Followed by a quick scurrying noise deeper in the darkness.
Kael's grip tightened on the lamp.
That definitely wasn't falling stone.
He slowly turned in a circle, scanning the cavern.
The beam caught several narrow tunnels branching away from the main chamber.
The scraping sound came again.
Closer this time.
Kael glanced back toward the blocked shaft.
The miners were already working above, but with that much rock in the way it could take hours before they reached him.
Another scrape echoed behind him.
Kael spun around.
Nothing.
But the feeling of being watched crept slowly up his spine.
He swallowed.
Waiting alone in a dark cavern suddenly seemed like a very bad idea.
"Alright," he muttered quietly.
"Not staying here."
Holding the lamp out in front of him, Kael moved toward the nearest tunnel.
The beam cut a narrow path through the darkness as he stepped inside.
Behind him, the great cavern fell silent again.
But somewhere deeper in the tunnels…
Something had already begun following the vibrations of his footsteps.