Morgan moved first, emerging from the relative safety of the supermarket like a phantom stepping into a void. Pistol in one hand, dagger gleaming dully in the other, he scanned the impenetrable blackness. Elara followed, knife held low and ready, a silent shadow at his flank. He motioned for the others. Amelia and Victor, clutching the crude spears like lifelines, hesitated for only a second before plunging after them into the oppressive dark.
"Stay tight," Morgan breathed, the command swallowed instantly by the heavy silence. "No noise."
They were outside. The air felt heavy, dead. They hugged the scarred pavement along the side of the road, ghosts in a dead city. Every scuff of a boot sole, every ragged breath, seemed deafeningly loud in the profound stillness. They moved solely by Morgan's unseen guidance, a huddled knot of fear navigating an ocean of black.
Two hours crawled by, each minute an eternity of strained listening and blind movement. Morgan risked a glance at his watch
4:00 AM.
Then, it ripped through the silence.
A high-pitched, chilling giggle echoed from somewhere ahead, seeming to come from everywhere at once. It wasn't human. It scraped against their nerves like jagged glass. Morgan and Elara froze, recognizing the sound that haunted their nightmares.
There was no time for thought, only instinct honed by terror. "RUN!" Morgan roared, the word exploding into the night. "Straight ahead! Don't stop!"
Chaos erupted. Feet pounded against asphalt, lungs burned, panic clawed at their throats. They sprinted blindly into the suffocating darkness, the horrifying laughter multiplying behind them, echoing, seeming to toy with them, chasing them. It was the sound of predatory amusement. Amelia stumbled, Victor yanking her upright without breaking stride. Staying together was their only hope against the unseen pursuit.
Suddenly, Morgan's foot slipped on something slick, metallic. He risked a downward – a manhole cover, right beneath them! "Here! Help me!" he yelled over the cacophony of laughter that was drawing terrifyingly closer. "Give me a spear!"
Victor thrust his spear forward. Morgan jammed the sharpened point into the cover's edge, straining, muscles screaming. "Pry! Now!" Elara threw her weight beside him, Amelia and Victor adding their desperate strength. Metal screeched against concrete. The laughter was almost upon them, accompanied by a wet, slapping sound that suggested unnatural speed.
With a final, agonized groan of metal, the heavy cover tilted open, revealing a blacker abyss below. "GO! MOVE, MOVE!" Morgan bellowed.
Elara practically threw Amelia and Victor into the opening, tumbling in after them. Morgan dove in last, grabbing the heavy cover's edge and slamming it down with a deafening CLANG just as something massive and unseen slammed against the pavement where they'd stood. The mocking laughter was abruptly muffled, sealed away above.
They collapsed in a heap at the bottom, gasping for air, bodies trembling uncontrollably, hearts hammering against ribs. The acrid stench of sewage and decay filled their nostrils. They were alive, but the terror lingered, cold and sharp.
Morgan pushed himself up, ignoring the throbbing pain in his shoulder. He raised his pistol, peering into the subterranean darkness. It was absolute. He thumbed his flashlight – the beam flickered weakly, then died, swallowed instantly by the oppressive gloom. Just like outside how the whole world sun and light covered in darkness.
A cold dread washed over him. "Damn it," he hissed. "This isn't a closed space. The sanctuary rule doesn't apply down here." He scanned the darkness, sensing the vast emptiness around them. "We have to move. Now. They could already be down here, or find another way in. Stay alert."
The others nodded numbly, scrambling to their feet, weapons held tight.
"Morgan," Elara's voice was strained beside him, "do you know where this tunnel leads?"
"No idea," he admitted grimly. "We find another way out, or we make one. Let's go."
They shuffled forward, blind in the stinking darkness, the sound of dripping water echoing ominously around them. Time lost meaning until Morgan checked his watch again: 4:30 AM. Only thirty minutes had passed? It felt like hours.
Then, ahead, the texture of the tunnel seemed to change. The rough brick gave way to something smoother, colder. A structure loomed out of the blackness – a doorway, vast and utterly alien. It wasn't made of any material Morgan recognized, and it was covered in complex, swirling script that seemed to writhe just at the edge of vision, symbols utterly incomprehensible.
Flanking the doorway stood two colossal statues carved from obsidian-like stone. They bore a horrifying resemblance to the Darkness Monsters, but were warped, magnified, infinitely more terrifying. Taller, broader, with extra, multi-jointed limbs fused with bio-mechanical weaponry unlike anything imaginable. Their carved faces were frozen in silent, cosmic snarls, empty sockets somehow radiating pure malevolence, seeming to track their movements despite being lifeless stone. The sheer power emanating from them was suffocating.
"Gods above," Morgan breathed, awe and terror warring within him. "What is this place? Is this... where they come from?"
Elara moved closer, drawn and repelled in equal measure, trying to decipher the impossible script. "Should we...?" she whispered, the question hanging heavy with risk. "Should we open it?"
Morgan stared at the imposing door, then glanced back into the oppressive darkness of the tunnel. No sounds of pursuit, but no sign of an exit either. "It might be the only way out," he reasoned, his voice tight. "And nothing seems to be guarding it right now. We can't stay here." It was a desperate gamble, bordering on madness.
He placed his hands on the strange, cold surface of the door and pushed. It resisted for a moment, then swung inward with a deep, resonant groan, like the sound of shifting continents.
Light exploded outwards. Pure, white, blinding light, more intense than anything they'd witnessed since the apocalypse and sky went dark. It hit them like a physical blow, forcing them to cry out and shield their eyes.
And with the light came sound – from the surface, far above, came a chorus of unearthly screams. High-pitched, agonized shrieks of pain. Morgan recognized it instantly – the sound the monster made when he'd injured it.
"INSIDE! GET INSIDE, NOW!" Morgan roared over the terrifying chorus.
He shoved the others through the doorway, the intense light searing their vision even through closed eyelids. They stumbled into the unknown space as the monstrous screaming from above seemed to intensify, drawing closer to the manhole. Morgan threw his weight against the massive door, forcing it closed with another resonant groan.
Darkness slammed back down, absolute and immediate, stealing their sight once more. Disoriented, they instinctively raised their weapons, bracing for whatever nightmare awaited them in this new blackness.
Silence.
Then, a soft, ethereal green light bloomed in the center of the vast space ahead. It pulsed gently, casting strange, shifting shadows. Drawn towards it as moths to a flame, they cautiously advanced.
The source of the light defied explanation. Floating silently in mid-air was a large, intricate object – a spiraling helix of translucent green crystal or energy, humming with a low, resonant frequency. Its surface was covered in the same impossible, swirling script as the door, but these glyphs glowed with their own inner light. A relic? A key? A power source?
It pulsed, seeming almost alive. Morgan, driven by a compulsion he didn't understand, reached out a trembling hand. His fingers brushed against a series of glowing glyphs on the spiraling surface.
Instantly, the green light flared, intensifying, engulfing them in its radiant ...