I turned slowly, scanning space around me. My eyes strained, catching on the faintest flicker, an orange-tinted glow trembling faintly ahead. Like a moth drawn to a spellbinding lamp, I felt myself pulled toward it, unable to resist the beacon of light in the suffocating blackness.
Behind me, high above the jagged slope I had fallen, the wind still keened like a banshee. I knew that there was no way, I could claw my way back up that murderous incline.
So I pressed forward.
The glow brightened with every step until the source revealed itself, a narrow crack in a rock face. Through that crack, the light pulsed. I pressed closer, peering through the opening, and the sight on the other side was like a horror movie.
It was a town, burning.
Houses of stone and timber smoldered, some collapsing in on themselves. The sounds of crackling bounced around the cavern walls. Ash drifted through the air, glowing like fireflies before dimming to gray sooth. The ceiling of the underground cavern arched impossibly high, blackened with soot and trailing threads of smoke that curled upward.
Most of the buildings were little more than skeletons now, charred beams standing like ribs, embers glowing faintly along their edges. The streets were lined with rubble and twisted fragments of what once might have been carts or stalls. It wasn't just a burned town, it was a graveyard.
The crevice before me was barely wide enough for a human body. Twelve inches at its widest point. I pressed my palm against the cold rock and kissed my teeth. It would be a tight squeeze.
"Lets do this Mia!" my voice echoed off the walls in front of my.
I stripped the knapsack from my back and unclipped the bundle tied to it, cradling one bag in each hand. I turned sideways, easing myself into the gap.
"Ughhh–" I groaned softly as my elbow scraped raw against the rock. I had to twist and wriggle like a worm, forcing my body through the narrow crevice. Every inch forward came with the sound of fabric scraping.
At last, after two meters that felt like two miles, I burst free of the chokehold. I dropped my bags to the ground, as I stumbled out of the crevice I bent over, panting.
I hadn't realized how I had been holding my breath. A wash of sweat broke across my back in cold rivulets, crawling down my spine, not from heat, but from raw, clammy fear. My stomach twisted. Am I claustrophobic? The thought came suddenly. Perhaps I was. The sensation of rock pressing in, of air shrinking, had nearly unraveled me.
I shook it off with effort and pushed forward.
The streets of the cavern town lay before me, painted in orange and red. My footsteps crunched over brittle debris. My eyes darted to the figures that littered the ground.
Corpses.
They crouched, sprawled and curled, frozen in their final moments. Some were little more than charred silhouettes, limbs fused to the earth. Others smoldered faintly, thin tendrils of smoke still whispering from their remains.
"Hello!" I called out, my voice rough.
"Is anyone here?"
I waited. The only response was the crack of a beam collapsing somewhere close by and the faint whoosh of flame feeding on itself.
"Anyone!" My voice cracked on the word, and I hated the desperation that clung to it. I called out again and again as I walked, my feet carrying me from one end of the cavern to the other.
Nothing.
The place felt less like a town and more like a furnace for the dead.
Finally, I sank down beside what appeared to be a well at the edge of a small square. Its stone rim was blackened, soot streaked across its surface. I leaned my back against it and let my bags rest heavily on either side of me. The stone was warm to the touch, absorbing the heat from the inferno all around.
I stared out at the ruins and wondered what could have caused such devastation. My mind churned with grim possibilities until it snagged on a memory, the flaming hyena. My blood chilled.
What if that beast hadn't been alone? What if, like the lizards that had poured out of the cracked ground back in my city, there were packs of such creatures roaming this world? If a horde of flaming hyenas descended on a town like this, the result would be nothing less than pandemonium. People would scream, scatter, and burn. Chaos would rule, and in minutes, nothing but ash would remain. Just as I had nearly been reduced to a meal before the pillar of light had swallowed me.
That thought tugged me into another. That light. The way it had consumed me, saved me, deposited me here. What was it? A trap? A gift? A cruel joke?
My jaw tightened. I could gnaw on these questions forever, but answers would never fall from the sky. There was no magical database to plug my queries into, no benevolent guide waiting in the wings with explanations. Only time could unravel this mystery, and time was in no rush to speak.
I exhaled heavily, letting my head tilt back against the well rim. My eyelids sagged—
"Hhickk… sniffle… hhickk."
The sound cut through my haze like a blade. I froze. My hands pressed against the ground as I dropped low, one knee bent, body coiled. My ears strained.
There it was again—faint, trembling. Sniffle. Hhhickk… hhick.
I spun, eyes scanning behind the well. The shadows danced in response, but nothing moved. My gaze swept left, right, back, but the alleys were empty, lined only with blackened corpses.
Still, the sound persisted.
"Sniffle… hhick… hhick."
My eyes narrowed, snapping toward the mouth of the well itself. Slowly, cautiously, I rose and leaned over the edge. My breath caught.
Down below, the darkness stirred.
I squinted, straining my eyes, and at last I saw it—a twitching huddle in one corner of the dry well. Small. Fragile. Shaking with sobs.
Children, two of them.