Something was wrong with the mountain.
Eron Vale stopped on the trail, water bottle halfway to his lips. He didn't drink. The wind had stopped. No birds. No rustling leaves. Nothing.
In eight years of hiking this path, he had never heard it this quiet. The air pressed against his chest, thick and heavy. His footsteps on the gravel sounded too loud. Everything looked the same: the trees, the rocks, the dirt path, but the silence made it all feel wrong.
He frowned. Why does it feel different today?
This trail was practically muscle memory at this point. He had walked it so many times he could do it in the dark. These hikes always cleared his mind after long weeks at the surveying company. The mountain was supposed to be reliable. But not today. Something felt off.
His boots crunched on the rocky ground as he kept moving. Each step echoed sharper than usual. Past the old oak split by lightning, the large boulder near the bend, the narrow path beside the cliff. All familiar. Yet the silence still weighed on him.
His phone buzzed. A message from Sarah appeared: "How's the hike? Don't get eaten by bears, lol."
That would have made him smile any other day. Today, it only made the silence heavier. He typed back: "Weird day up here. Too quiet."
The message didn't send. He stared at the screen.
"Strange. There's usually signal here."
He pocketed the phone and kept walking.
---
Twenty minutes later, he reached his usual rest spot, the one where he would normally sit, eat lunch, and watch the valley below. But his eyes barely lingered. The forest looked distant. Lifeless.
He shook his head, adjusted his pack, and turned to leave. Then he stopped.
To his left, about fifty feet away behind some rocks and vines, was a dark opening in the mountain wall. A cave. Narrow and sharp-edged.
Eron froze. No. That can't be right.
He had surveyed this entire slope three years ago. Every square foot. Marked boundaries, logged coordinates. There had never been a cave. Not even a crack. Yet now he was staring at one.
"He pulled out his phone again, but the map showed solid rock. He switched to satellite view and found nothing."
Caves don't just appear. They take thousands of years to form. And this one looked old.
Moss covered the edges. Water streaked down the stone. Ivy crawled across the surface. Cold sweat ran down his back.
I didn't miss this. I know I didn't.
Logic said to report it. But no one would believe him. They would say he was seeing things. The silence pressed harder. The cave seemed to pull at him.
"Just a quick look," he muttered.
---
Stepping off the trail, the ground shifted under his boots. Loose gravel rolled away. A root caught his heel and he stumbled, grabbing the nearest tree.
"Damn… almost fell."
He brushed off the dirt and kept going.
The air changed as he got closer. The temperature dropped fast. The afternoon warmth vanished. His breath turned visible. Damp air clung to his face and hands. He zipped his jacket higher, but it didn't help.
A faint breeze drifted from the opening, carrying a damp, rusty smell mixed with something else he couldn't identify.
He covered his nose. "What's that smell?"
At the cave mouth, he stopped and dug through his bag for his flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness, revealing rough stone walls stretching deeper inside. Water dripped from the ceiling in slow, steady ticks that echoed softly.
The smell was gone now, replaced by cool air brushing his skin.
He hesitated. This is stupid. Caves like this kill people. If I fall or get trapped, no one's finding me.
He should turn back. But curiosity won.
Eron stepped inside.
---
It was colder now. His breath misted thicker. The tunnel went farther than expected, walls narrowing as it curved inward. Pale roots hung from the cracks above. Puddles dotted the ground, and his boots splashed through them.
Every step echoed too loud in the empty space.
Then he saw the walls. Symbols.
Not random scratches, but deliberate carvings. Spirals, jagged lines, star shapes. Patterns cut deep into stone. Moss filled some grooves, but the markings were still clear.
He raised the flashlight closer. The carvings stretched across the wall in long, uneven lines. His throat went dry.
"What is this?" His voice came out hoarse.
He leaned in. The stone was smooth, but not ancient. Not forgotten.
"This doesn't make sense," he whispered. "If something like this existed here, archaeologists would be all over it."
He pulled out his phone for a photo. The screen stayed black. The power button did nothing. It had been at seventy-five percent earlier. Now dead.
"That's weird… it was working a minute ago."
He pocketed it again. Moving deeper, his flashlight swept across more carvings. Some lines connected to others like a diagram he couldn't read.
His arm tensed. Something about these markings felt wrong. Like they were waiting.
---
The cave shook.
A deep rumble rolled through the stone. Dust rained down. Small rocks tumbled loose. He grabbed the wall, cold and vibrating under his palm.
"Earthquake. Damn it. If the ceiling drops, I'm done."
His chest tightened. Breathing quickened. He didn't think. He just ran.
The flashlight swung wildly in his hand. Boots pounded stone. Passed the same crack in the wall, the same hanging root, but no exit.
"Where is it? Why can't I see the way out?"
Light flared behind him.
The carvings were glowing. Faint at first, then brighter. One symbol lit up, then another. Soon the walls blazed with pulsing light in green and blue.
He stopped, shielding his eyes. Heart racing. Forced himself to move. Pushed harder. Lungs burned. Air thickened, every breath dragging like stone. The glow chased him, pulsing with his heartbeat.
"Get me out... please, get me out."
Panic flooded through him. Legs trembling. He tried to keep running, but they gave out.
He fell to his knees. Pain shot through both kneecaps. The flashlight slipped from his hand, rolled across the floor, and vanished into the dark.
Surrounded now.
Every wall burned brighter, pulsing slow and steady. Pale green and blue light bathed the tunnel. His shadow stretched long behind him, twisting with each pulse.
"Where's the way out?"
His voice broke. The echo came back flat and empty. No answer. Just silence and that steady, heartbeat glow.
Eron Vale knelt on cold stone, trapped in a place that shouldn't exist. Symbols burned around him, breathing in the dark.
His hands trembled. Breath came short and shallow. The air grew too heavy, too close, like the cave itself was watching.
Deeper in the tunnel, something stirred.