The tunnels felt endless.
Twisting. Turning. Leading nowhere and everywhere at once.
Isabelle's lungs burned as she pressed forward, the distant whisper of Vivienne's voice still echoing inside her skull. She glanced back once—Estelle was close behind, her face pale but determined. Every few steps, Isabelle had to brush aside the thin, dangling strips of what looked like old cloth hanging from the low ceilings, swaying like ghosts caught in a breathless draft.
The old cathedral's foundation groaned above them. The music box mantra had finally faded into an eerie, hollow silence, but neither of them dared speak yet. Their footfalls against the damp stone were loud enough; words might shatter the fragile air entirely.
After what felt like an hour but was likely only minutes, they stumbled into a wide underground chamber.
It was different from the others.
This room wasn't barren—it was dressed.
Tattered lace draped the walls like funeral veils, yellowed with age and stained by something darker. Dust floated in thick, choking clouds. Here and there, the lace seemed torn violently, strands dangling like snapped spiderwebs.
In the center of the room stood a low stone pedestal. Upon it: a cracked porcelain bowl filled with scraps of cloth and something black and brittle.
Isabelle approached cautiously, heart hammering against her ribs.
She picked up one of the scraps.
It was lace—delicate, intricate... and smeared with dark fingerprints.
Blood.
Old, dried blood.
And all around them, woven into the tattered cloths, were threads of hair. Blonde, brown, black. Different textures, different lengths.
Souvenirs.
Isabelle dropped the lace, bile rising in her throat.
"This was staged," Estelle whispered, finally finding her voice. "All of it. It's a message."
"But what's it saying?" Isabelle muttered, scanning the walls. She could almost feel unseen eyes watching her, breathing with the shadows.
On one section of the far wall, she noticed something odd—a swath of lace newer than the rest, almost deliberately placed over an archway.
"Help me," Isabelle said, tugging the fabric down.
Together, they ripped it aside—and found a door.
A real one this time. Heavy, metal, secured with a complicated series of bolts and chains.
Fresh.
Someone had sealed it recently.
Estelle's hands trembled as she reached out to touch it. "Maybe Vivienne's behind—"
A sharp click interrupted her.
Both women froze.
From somewhere in the ceiling, hidden speakers crackled to life, hissing with static.
Then a voice—not Vivienne's this time.
Mechanical. Cold.
And yet strangely familiar.
"One of you isn't who you think."
The message ended as abruptly as it began, the static leaving a terrible ringing silence in its wake.
Isabelle's blood went ice cold.
She spun to look at Estelle—her friend, her ally in all of this—and found Estelle staring back at her with the same wild, terrified eyes.
"That's a lie," Estelle said immediately. Too fast. Too sharp.
Isabelle didn't move.
She wanted to believe her.
She needed to believe her.
But in the pit of her stomach, doubt curled and tightened like a living thing.
The voice on the speaker hadn't sounded like a bluff.
It sounded like a certainty.
And somewhere, deeper into the ruined cathedral's roots, she knew more traps waited.
More lies.
More truths.
And Vivienne—if she was even still alive—was running out of time.
"We can't stop," Isabelle said, voice low and firm, more for herself than for Estelle. "We have to keep going."
She knelt at the door, inspecting the locks. Old, but strong. She would need tools. Time.
Both of which they didn't have.
Her mind raced. There had to be another way—some kind of bypass, some weakness in the structure—
Estelle was pacing now, biting her thumbnail, eyes darting around the chamber like a trapped animal.
The way she moved.
The way she avoided the center of the room.
Isabelle narrowed her eyes, mind clicking into place.
The pedestal.
It wasn't just for show.
Something about it—its placement, its deliberate staging—nagged at her instincts.
She crossed the chamber again and leaned in, examining the cracked porcelain bowl.
It wasn't just a bowl. It was part of a mechanism. She could see thin wires hidden beneath the cloth scraps, snaking down into the pedestal's hollow base.
A trap.
Or a key.
Or both.
She stood slowly, turning back to Estelle.
"Help me lift this," she said carefully.
Estelle hesitated. "Isabelle, we don't have time—"
"Help me," Isabelle repeated, sharper.
After a moment's agonized pause, Estelle nodded, stepping forward.
Together, they gripped the sides of the pedestal's top and heaved upward.
With a groan of ancient gears, the pedestal rotated slightly—revealing a recessed panel beneath it, lined with rusted mechanical parts.
And a lever.
Painted a deep, violent red.
Isabelle stared at it.
Red usually meant danger. A warning.
But at this point, everything was dangerous.
Without waiting for Estelle's consent, Isabelle yanked the lever down.
The entire room shook.
Above them, hidden vents opened with a sucking gasp, releasing clouds of fine white powder—salt, maybe, or dust—into the air.
And somewhere behind the sealed door, they heard the click of locks disengaging.
"Go!" Isabelle cried, coughing against the haze.
She sprinted for the door, flinging it open—
—and stumbled into another passage, this one narrower, more organic, carved roughly through the earth.
It sloped downward, deeper into the ground, the walls growing damp and warm with every step.
No lace here.
No relics.
Only darkness.
And in that darkness...
Footsteps.
Soft. Uneven.
Someone was there.
Vivienne?
Another trap?
Isabelle turned to Estelle—and faltered.
In the swirling dust, Estelle's face looked wrong.
Not evil. Not cruel. Just... haunted. As if a mask had cracked and something ancient and sorrowful had slipped free underneath.
Isabelle's heart twisted painfully.
But she didn't speak.
Not yet.
The footsteps ahead quickened, disappearing into the gloom.
Driven by instinct more than certainty, Isabelle pressed onward, feeling the unseen web tighten around her with every step.
They were close now.
Too close.
And whatever waited in the heart of these ruins, it had been waiting a long, long time.
To be continued...