In collaboration with(@The Savant) as Scotti
Hearing the echoing weight of steps on metal only gave him the impression that he was caught â looking around and thinking of what to do. Scotti decided to turn off the mobile device's flashlight so Selene couldnât look down into the darkness and see him. Plus, he didnât want to stare at the human or animal remains that were everywhere around him. Then there was a realization of how much it stank around him, dusty, and a putrid aftertaste that crept up from the stilled air.
Covering his mouth with the fabric of his hoodie, he felt like it was better to have some kind of filter in between him and whatever dangers were lurking in the air, and he looked around. Looking up to the place he fell when he heard Seleneâs almost familiar voice. A piece of him argued with himself not to answer but he really did not want to be in this death pit any longer than he was.
Silence.
A minute went by before he sighed out, enough for her to hear him, âYeah, I am down here. What of it?â The sassy coldness of his voice showed that he was disinterested in speaking with her. He didnât want to be in this situation, and he could have honestly started adventuring around, though he was too scared to do so. What if he came across those monsters people talked about? Miners, diggers, and people who worked in Khia always had terrible stories of run-ins with the beasts of the dark. He knew he would have absolutely no chance if he ran into something.
âOh, just wanted to sayâŠ,â Seleneâs voice echoed lazily down the chute, âthat you sure are a fast runner.â
She adjusted her stance, case still cradled under her arm. âGraceful too. Right up until the whole screaming and plummeting to your possible death part. Impressive stuff.â
The sarcasm rolled off her tongue as easily as ever, dry, disinterested, but obvious enough to let him know she hadnât forgotten how theyâd gotten here, to begin with. In an effort to hide his intentions from her, heâd run off and straight into a death trap more convincing than any excuse heâd tried to spit out. Lower-tier gutter rats like Scotti thrived on adrenaline and half-baked lies, but the underbelly of Dominion devoured those who mistook frenzy for skill. Someone had clearly schooled him in the basics of pursuit, or heâd figured it out himself, yet heâd failed to learn the cardinal rule: surviving here required patience, not velocity.
Hearing her voice come down from above caused his face to twist, and he grumbled at the clarity of sarcasm her tone had towards him. Bits and pieces of rebellious nature along with the regular teenage attitude wanted to snappily come out at the woman, though they didnât. There was no point in grabbing the bait and firing back at her, âOh, yeah, thanks,â was stated more sarcastically unappreciative than he meant it to be but it wasnât like they were on nice terms so he couldnât care too much.
She exhaled once, narrowing her eyes toward the hole like she could will the darkness to give her a better angle.
âHow do you wanna do this, kid?â
A shrug with a throw up of his hands couldnât be seen, though the gesture was what counts, right? âI have no clue,â he stated while picking up his mobile device once more. She knew he was here. There was no reason to continue to hide and he turned the flashlight on, âI have about ten more hours of battery and itâll drain with the light constantly on,â he waved the device up at her, shining the phone flashlight, which was not very effective.
Scanning the area again, he was queasy at all the sights, âAlso, I think I fell into something that means I am worse off than dead if I canât get out of here,â he was being honest because he was scared. There was an underlying tone in his voice that showed he was really scared. âI am pretty sure this thing loves eating peopleâŠâ he gently pushed a skull with his foot as it rolled with a rattling echo. He shook his head, and his face showed disgust as he stepped away from the visual bones of people.
Selene didnât respond immediately. The light from his device was weak, barely more than a glint, but it was enough. Enough to see how far heâd fallen. Enough to see what else was down there. Her gaze flicked to the skeletal remains, now half-illuminated for her to take them in. They werenât fresh. That was the first thing she noted. Bone stripped of tissue, some fractured from impact, others clean, brittle. The way the bodies were arrangedâor rather, scatteredâdidnât scream battle. No sign of weapons, either dropped or shattered. Just people who had ended up in the wrong place and never made it out.
And it wasnât just one or two. Her eyes swept over a jagged outline slumped against the far wall, its size too large and its shape too wrong to be human. The bones around it were more fragmented, like theyâd been dragged. Or crushed. Whatever had happened down there hadnât been quick or painless. And now a kid was standing in the middle of this nightmare, waving his flashlight like a goddamn beacon.
With a click of her tongue, Selene set the case down beside her and knelt, eyes scanning the corridor walls for any anchor points, anything load-bearing. âTen hours of battery,â she muttered, more to herself than him. âYouâve got better odds than most.â Her eyes then locked onto a length of piping bolted along the opposite wall, rusted but solid. It looked like it had once housed coolant or low-pressure steam, thick enough to bear weight if she distributed it properly. The bolts were old but hadnât completely given to corrosion, and the pipe itself ran parallel to a steel support beam embedded in the wall. If she could anchor a line to both, it might hold long enough to get in and out. It wasnât ideal, but it was workable.
âSit tight,â she called. âIf I can rig a descent line without snapping my spine in half, Iâll get you out. Just⊠donât wake the locals in the meantime.â Selene didnât wait for a reply. She stood, brushing rust from her gloves, and pivoted back the way sheâd come.
âI donât think my odds are that good,â he continued to scan the room, nothing looked fresh, but there was that underlying stench of rot. Things have died here recently or have at least been dragged into this area to be eaten. The thought made his body ache as he continued to look around the room. It was hard to tell if it was comforting or not â he didnât want to be blind to anything, though he didnât want to see what was going to kill him if it showed up either.
Looking up when she told him to sit tight, his face twisted with a bit of disgust, because he had no idea what her plans were going to be, and he didnât know what her plans were for him. Maybe he should try going down the tunnels, if there were any, and seeing if his chances were better. The young man didnât care to be caught up in her grasp and interrogated â too much of that nonsense today. He muttered to himself as he continued to walk around the stone room. A stone grave. âOh, yes, I will definitely look for the locals and ask them for some lemonade or a cup of tea,â he rolled his eyes.
Her boots moved fast but quietly along the grating, the metal groaning beneath her with every step. The corridor hadnât changedâsame steam hissing from overhead, same walls bowed from years of pressureâbut now she was scanning with a purpose in mind: an emergency cabinet. Older sectors of Dominion, especially the pre-expansion ones, had been outfitted with them during early construction runs. Selene remembered seeing one years ago during a drop run with a smuggler who had specialized in salvaging these old tunnels. The cabinets were built into the ductworkâlow-profile and easy to miss unless you knew what you were looking for. Most were stripped or rusted shut by now, but every now and then, one gave up something useful. A cabinet like that could hold the difference between a quick death and a stupid one. Emergency breather masks, old flares, maybe even a climbing line if the coils hadnât frayed to hell. She doubted Dominionâs engineers expected anyone to still be using them this far past inspection cycles, but here she was.
And there, half-obscured beneath peeling conduit insulation, was the edge of a recessed panel. Selene stepped up to it, pried away the brittle sheath of insulation, and felt around the frame. The rust gave easily under her gloved fingers, flaking away in red-brown curls. She braced her boot against the lower edge of the wall and yanked. The latch gave with a groan and a screech that echoed far too loudly through the corridor for her comfort. Inside, most of the contents were ruined. A shattered visor mask. Empty clips for a long-dead flare gun. Cracked casing for a medpatch unit that had long since dried out. But nestled at the bottom, coiled like a snake in a bed of dust and grime, was what she neededâan old emergency descent line, reinforced fiber wrapped around a rusted carabiner.
She tested the line with a tug. Its braided fibres groaned but held.
âGood enough,â she muttered, slamming the cabinet shut. Selene turned and retraced her steps, her boots a little faster now. Time was slipping, and she had a feeling that the kid didnât have the sense to stay still forever. She reached the drop again, crouched by the edge, and began feeding the line through the carabiner, anchoring it to the pipe sheâd scouted earlier. The angle would be awkward, the climb worse, but if it held, this could work.
Selene gave the line one last tug, testing the tension, then leaned over the edge. âYou still alive down there, Curious Boy? Because youâve got about thirty seconds before I make this trip for nothing.â
Hearing everything that she was doing above kept him interested, but it wasnât like he could see much. It was somewhat frustrating to be stuck in such a situation â why couldnât he have told the guy in the trench coat to get lost? Though⊠the man didnât give him much of a choice at all. If he heard her say good enough, he would have been protesting as much as possible, but he wasnât able to hear her from where he was.
âYa! I am still alive down here, and what do you mean make the trip for nothing? Would it be that upsetting if I died so you couldnât bully some teenager for answers?â He might not have got what she said, but he was definitely alive and sassy. Showing the lack of respect he had for others. His attitude expressed that more than his words.
Selene rolled her eyes in answer while placing the black case aside. Then, she gave the line one last tug and swung her legs over the edge without hesitation. The line groaned under her weightânot from weakness, but from age. Every inch of fiber was older than she was, maybe older than the entire sector they stood in. Still, just as before, it held. One gloved hand slid beneath the other as she lowered herself down, boots scraping the wall for grip. The metal wasnât smooth, pitted from decades of corrosion and heat, and flakes of rust fell with every shift. Dust filled her nose. The kind of dust that tasted like dried blood and old wires.
Halfway down, she paused. The light from Scottiâs phone was faint now, bobbing with each nervous shuffle he made below. It barely illuminated the cavern floor, but it was enough to cast long, stretched shadows across the bones. Now that she was closer to them, she couldnât suppress the shudder that ran through her.
âWhy in the world did you have to come here of all places? I couldnât have scared you that much, right?â Selene said, resuming her descent.
The light bopped in a way that showed offense, âDo you think I meant to come down here? No!â He didnât mean to raise his voice in such a way that it echoed through the cavern, and his hand quickly covered his mouth with surprise. âI meant no, I did not mean to come down here,â he hissed his words out softer before going back to what he was doing â examining the bones around him.
Then, somewhere beyond the ring of the flashlightâs glow, came the sound. It wasnât the sharp creak of metal or the hollow groan of settling ductwork. It was softer. Wet. The kind of sound that made the skin tighten behind oneâs ears.
Selene froze, breath suspended. The darkness beyond Scottiâs trembling light seemed to curdle.
Drip. Pause. Scrape.
It didnât repeat, but it didnât need to.
She didnât say a word. She just picked up the pace until her boots hit the floor.
Hearing the sound seemed to make Scotti freeze for a long time, trying his best to listen in, and he turned the flashlight off out of reaction. They were in complete darkness. Nothing more seemed to come from where the noise originated from though he waited a moment before turning on his flashlight again, âWhat was that?â This was more to himself than anyone else.
That was when he shone the flashlight over and jumped out of his skin, he didnât realize Selene was right beside him, âHoâowwâah,â that was when he realized how his one ankle throbbed. It was a decent drop from the old vents onto the bony covered stone floor, and he reached down to touch the ankle out of natural reaction. Lifting his pant leg and pulling down his sock, it was already bruising from being twisted, and most likely happened when the metal panel fell out from under him, and the impact did not do him any good.
âThat hurts like a bitchâ he whined while pressing onto it to make sure it hurt. His face twisted when he touched it, exposing how sensitive it was, and he rolled his sock back up and let his pant leg back down.
Selene didnât flinch when the flashlight caught her face. Sheâd seen the startled twitch coming and half-expected a shriek to follow, but instead he winced and crumpled toward his ankle with a curse. That was enough to pivot her attention. She crouched beside him, scanning the bruise already blooming along the side of his foot. Swollen. Not shattered, but twisted hardâlikely during the drop, maybe when heâd hit uneven ground or clipped a bone on the way down. Her eyes flicked to the rusted edge of the hatch overhead, where a bolt still hung crooked. That thing gave beneath him like a trap door. No warning, no cushion. Just steel, gravity, and impact.
She clicked her tongue once. âSprained. Maybe worse, if you keep putting weight on it.â Selene didnât say idiot, but it hung in the air all the same. Still, she hadnât abandoned him when heâd fallen, and she wasnât about to now, especially not with that sound still lodged in the silence behind them.
He glared at her, âI kind of have to walk,â he grumbled after his words and stared at her as if she was serious at the moment.
Her eyes scanned himâtorn cuff, grimy hoodie, bruised ankle already swelling against the fabric of his sock. He wasnât going to be sprinting any time soon, not through terrain like this. Not without making more noise than whatever had made that wet, scraping sound. She grabbed the line and gave it another sharp tug, testing the tension one more time. Then she turned, crouched beside him, and unclipped the carabiner from the anchor loop at her hip.
âYouâre going up first,â she said, already looping the old fiber around itself and slipping the carabiner through. âIâll brace the line down here and keep you steady. All you have to do is not kick me in the face on the way.â
Selene glanced up at the drop. It looked steeper from below. Taller, too. Her fingers moved fast, the kind that had done this kind of thing beforeâclipping, pulling, adjusting until the slack gave just enough. Improvised harness? Not ideal. But what other choice did they have?
âReady? When I say go, keep your hands tight on the line and donât fight the pull. Iâll walk you through it.â She paused. No sarcasm this time. Just eyes locked on his.
âAnd whatever happens, donât look behind you.â
Being told to go up first and him looking at the rope, the area where he fell, and back at Selene. He shook his head, âI canât climb that? I didnât even pass that rope test or whatever in school. You think I am going to make it up there?â Scotti was a little baffled that she thought he could do that. A little flattered but more annoyed than anything. Pointing up the string and to the top, âThere is absolutely no way that I am climbing back up there. Iâll get half way up and fall on my ass,â he explained.
âAlso, what do you mean not to look behind me? That advice never does anyone good.â He huffed out, argumentatively, and crossed his arms. With a negative shake of his head, âIâm not strong enough to climb up that rope. Iâm not doing it. I donât want to actually break my leg.â
Selene stared at him.
Not blinked. Not looked. Stared. The kind of look someone might give a half-sunk lifeboat that just refused to float.
ââŠYou followed me through a market full of smugglers and mercs without a second thought,â she said flatly, voice edged with disbelief, âbut now that Iâm trying to get your sorry ass out of an actual death pit, now you donât trust me?â
A twist of his face showed more than he wanted to let on â there were thoughts, pre thoughts, but he had no choice â and he shook his head and stayed quiet. She wouldnât understand. There was no point in trying to talk to her about it or explain the position that he was put in.
She didnât wait for an answer. Instead, she shifted, tugging the rope around herself with practiced hands. The harness she'd meant for her own climb now doubled, twisted and secured with a snap of the carabiner. It wasnât clean. It wasnât pretty. But it would work.
âNew plan, then,â she muttered. âYou donât climb.â
He opened his mouth to protest again, but she was already movingâlooping the line under his arms, ignoring the flinch when the cord scraped against his bruised ankle. Her hands were all business, threading slack through, knotting it fast behind her own hip. A tether, improvised and tight, from her waist to his.
âYou fall, I fall,â she said, adjusting the pull so he leaned into her without toppling. âSo if dying in a ditch is your master plan today, try not to take me with you.â Selene stood, steadying her stance as the rope pulled taut between them. âWe move together. I haul, you hold on. And if you even think about squirming like a caught fish, I swearââ
Her voice caught on the sound again. That same slick scrape echoing somewhere behind them.
Scottiâs head turned, and he seemed to forget everything that the woman had just said to him. âDo you think thatâs one of the beasts of the caves?â He was asking this more in a sense of speaking a thought aloud. His mind was honestly set on that â a beast that everyone warns you about and most could never imagine.
She didnât finish the threat. Instead, she tightened the strap at her hip and stepped toward the wall.
âAnd if I do get us out of this alive,â she added, âyou owe me the truth.â
With one hand braced against the metal and the other gripping the line, she began the climbâone brutal inch at a time, Scotti dragged with her like extra baggage she was too stubborn to leave behind.
Then he rolled his eyes when he heard the last line, âAnd what if I donât want to give the truth, huh?â He knew he was pushing his luck, but it was an honest question. Scotti didnât want to tell her the truth because he didnât know what trouble that would get him into with the man in the trench coat. It was dangerous to cross boundaries on what the man said to him. He didnât want to risk the situation. Although he had already failed, because the man told him not to get caught.
Seleneâs gaze remained fixed on the wall, her fingers gouging grooves into it. She didnât glance back, didnât indulge his hesitation with so much as a twitch of her brow. Her shoulders simply continued to burn, each tendon a fraying cable as she hauled them upward.
Her voice, when it did come, was a serrated whisper.
âThen donât.â
A pause.
âBut donât expect me to climb into a grave for you again.â
When she began to move, Scotti did exactly as he was told â to hang on â and he was silent for the moment. Was his statement upsetting? Her silence got his mind running a million miles per hour on what she was feeling or how she would react. Maybe she would push him back into the hole and leave him for whatever picks him off. âIâm fine with that. I hope I never see you again after this,â he huffed out.
âNot like I wanted to see you in the first place anyway. Wasnât an optional thing.â Scotti didnât think about his words, but it would have proved a lot of her assumptions. He was put to a task to track her, and now she knew it wasnât an optional thing for him. Someone was forcing it.
Selene exhaled, not in anger or shock, but with a marrow-deep weariness that transcended the fire in her shoulders or the rope burns now striping her palms. Each ascent up the shaft felt less like a physical act and more like an exhumation, hauling not just Scottiâs deadweight but the specters of every shitty job, every back alley deal, every time someone had shown up pretending they had a choice only to remind her they didnât. That she didnât.
Sheâd spent years learning how to spot the difference. The difference between someone who chose to be there⊠and someone who got handed a leash and told to smile.
âSeeing me was never optional,â she muttered, almost to herself. âFor a lot of people.â
It wasnât the first time someone had been sent. Probably wouldnât be the last. And somehow, that always made it worseâknowing that even when she wasnât worth chasing for who she was, she was still worth using. Still someoneâs map, someoneâs debt, someoneâs ticket.
This one, thoughâthis twitchy, reckless boy with terror leaching from his poresâhe wasnât afraid of the dark. Or the thing below them, whatever it was. His fear was sharper, more intimate: the dread of a rabbit realizing itâs been flung into a wolfâs den by its very own pack. Seleneâs fingers tightened on the rope. Sheâd seen that look before, in mirrors she happened to glance herself in.
That, more than anything, is why she kept climbing. Her hand finally found the lip of the shaftâcorroded metal biting into her palm as she dug her fingers in. The air up here was just as stale, but it didnât stink of rot and death. That alone was enough to taste like salvation.
She couldâve pulled herself up first. Couldâve unhooked the tether and left him to find another wayâslow, painful, maybe even fatal. And maybe a few years ago, she wouldâve.
But not today.
Not after the scrape of bone.
Not after the truth he hadnât meant to say.
Selene shifted her weight, bracing one knee against the wall, and with a grunt, hauled the rope one final timeânot for herself, but for him. Because if no one had ever done that for her⊠someone had to start somewhere.
Getting out of the hole caused him to breathe with relief while he glanced back down, swallowing, and moving a handful of feet away from it. At least as much as the rope allowed him without pulling it tight at all. Scotti began to undo the ties, âThanks,â he muttered out more gratefully than what was probably expected of him.
âIâll tell you the truth,â he added with a glance to Selene. The young boy was beginning to chew the inside of his lip out of anxiety while he untied the rope. âI donât really know how to explain it,â his words continued while he got fully untied and backed up a few more feet, towards the wall, and sat down. His ankle was aching, and it was almost killing him at this point.
Shaking his head, âI donât knowâŠâ Scotti began with almost a bit too much defeat in his voice. âThis weird dude who was overly serious approached me. Told me to follow you into the Grey Market and figure out what you were doing. I didnât really see his face since he was wearing a fedora, and his collar was up high. The fedora was dark brown? And he had a trench coat that was khaki or tan or whatever,â he gestured his hand as if the thought truly didnât matter. âTaller and what I could see of his face, he didnât look half bad, but he is a nasty person.â
Rolling up his pant leg again and pushing his sock down, he was checking on his ankle, which didnât look any better, âHe threatened to skin Marie if I didnât do it. Told me not to get caught either, or there would be consequences. I donât even know how he knows about Marie,â Confessing that cracked his voice and his face twisted to show how upsetting the thought was to him. âI have a handful of brothers and sisters. My mom does what she can for work, and it isnât honorable to most people, but hey. Itâs honorable to me. Sheâs doing what she can for her kids and everything else, and I am doing what I can for my siblings except that bastard threatened to hurt my youngest sister.â Anger flared up in Scotti. His one fist was balling up so tight that his knuckles were turning white.
âYou understand, right?â Scotti sounded embarrassed and a bit guilty. He was hoping that Selene understood why he was following her. That she wasnât going to lash out and do something worse to him, his mom, or one of his siblings.
Selene didn't speak while he rambled through the explanation, not when he stumbled through the strangerâs outfit, not when he cursed, not even when he mentioned his sister. Her face was unreadable, set in that still, watchful expression that felt more like a mask than anything human. Only her fingers moved, slipping the last of the rope loose from her belt. Like she needed something to do with her hands so she didnât clench them into fists.
Of course it was him.
The long-time family dog. The leash-wielder. The kind of man who never needed to say her last name out loud because he knew it was stamped across her back like a serial number.
She didn't say his nameânever had, not even in the privacy of her own mind. Names made people real, and this one was better left hard to hold and harder to track.
âHeâs not one of them,â she said eventually, voice low. âThe clean ones. The ones who smile in Council chambers and sign off on re-education orders like theyâre approving lunch menus. NaaâŠ.heâs the one they send when those smiles donât work.â
Her hands stilled against the rope, finally letting it drop. âHe used to âcheck inâ when I was younger. Never told me his name. Didnât have to. Always came dressed like a detective out of some old pulp serial. Nice shoes. Always smelled kind of funny though.â A small, bitter breath pushed from her nose. âHe liked to ask about my grades. My friends. If I were being âa good investment.ââ
âHeâs not just some creep with a threat fetish. Heâs part of a containment net. My family doesnât like loose ends, and Iâm the worst kind.â Because there were some lines they simply wouldnât cross with family. But for those that werenât? WellâŠthere were reasons why sheâd left that part of her life behind her.
Listening to what Selene had to say about the whole thing didnât comfort him at all, it made it worse in his mind, and he just stared at his feet. Then he rolled up his sock again and put his pant leg down. âSoâŠâ Scottie began while thinking half-heartedly. âHeâs going to hurt my sister, isnât he?â His eyes flickered over to Selene with a hint of fear in them. There was no worry about himself, he always talked himself into believing that no matter what happens to him it's okay, but he couldnât handle the thought of one of his siblings getting in trouble because of the things he did⊠or worse⊠the things he didnât do.
Seleneâs jaw flexed, but she didnât look at him.
She stared at the wall instead. At the rust veins bleeding through the metal. At the way the heat seemed to hang heavier now, like it was listening.
âYeah,â she said quietly, after a beat too long. âHe probably will.â
âHe honestly sounds awful, why would your family hire a man like that!?â Scotti got loud and a little emotional. âSo this dude just goes around threatening people all the time? Because of you? Do you have like fucked up parents or something? I mean⊠my mom has Kritter or Jones or Bark check up on me all the time, nice guys, but like⊠she wouldnât ever have anyone like that keep an eye on me.â The young man was just in disbelief with that. He knew people could be evil but it was a shock to him still.
Seleneâs response to his question about her parents was a dismissive flicker of her eyelids, as though the words were too trivial to warrant the energy of contempt. âYeah. Something like that,â she muttered, the syllables brittle with bitterness. Parents. A word that conjured guardians whoâd curated her existence like a taxidermied trophy, all potential and glass-eyed obedience. Theyâd hoped.
But the words hadnât even finished echoing before the world shifted.
It began deep. A tremor too low to register as anything but unease. Then came the shriek,metal wrenching against metal somewhere above them, followed by a thud that rattled through the soles of her boots.
Seleneâs head snapped up.
ââŠShit,â she breathed.
The corridorâs innards convulsed. Walls rippled, pipes detonating in sprays of scalding steam. Seleneâs instincts outpaced thought. She lunged, tackling Scotti sideways as the ceiling buckled. A seismic crack split the air, and then chaos became geometry: angles of falling rebar, arcs of ruptured wiring, the mosaic of concrete disintegrating. She registered the heat first, a flash of orange, as severed power cables lashed the dark like electrified whips. Then, the deafening thunder of collapse.
When the shaking finally slowed, they were left in a new kind of silence.
Selene rolled onto her elbows, coughing ash from her lungs. The path behind them no longer existed, only a tomb of mangled metal, its crevices smoldering. The shaft theyâd scaled lay entombed, along with any trace of the thing that had almost pursued them.
Covering his mouth with the fabric of his hoodie, he felt like it was better to have some kind of filter in between him and whatever dangers were lurking in the air, and he looked around. Looking up to the place he fell when he heard Seleneâs almost familiar voice. A piece of him argued with himself not to answer but he really did not want to be in this death pit any longer than he was.
Silence.
A minute went by before he sighed out, enough for her to hear him, âYeah, I am down here. What of it?â The sassy coldness of his voice showed that he was disinterested in speaking with her. He didnât want to be in this situation, and he could have honestly started adventuring around, though he was too scared to do so. What if he came across those monsters people talked about? Miners, diggers, and people who worked in Khia always had terrible stories of run-ins with the beasts of the dark. He knew he would have absolutely no chance if he ran into something.
âOh, just wanted to sayâŠ,â Seleneâs voice echoed lazily down the chute, âthat you sure are a fast runner.â
She adjusted her stance, case still cradled under her arm. âGraceful too. Right up until the whole screaming and plummeting to your possible death part. Impressive stuff.â
The sarcasm rolled off her tongue as easily as ever, dry, disinterested, but obvious enough to let him know she hadnât forgotten how theyâd gotten here, to begin with. In an effort to hide his intentions from her, heâd run off and straight into a death trap more convincing than any excuse heâd tried to spit out. Lower-tier gutter rats like Scotti thrived on adrenaline and half-baked lies, but the underbelly of Dominion devoured those who mistook frenzy for skill. Someone had clearly schooled him in the basics of pursuit, or heâd figured it out himself, yet heâd failed to learn the cardinal rule: surviving here required patience, not velocity.
Hearing her voice come down from above caused his face to twist, and he grumbled at the clarity of sarcasm her tone had towards him. Bits and pieces of rebellious nature along with the regular teenage attitude wanted to snappily come out at the woman, though they didnât. There was no point in grabbing the bait and firing back at her, âOh, yeah, thanks,â was stated more sarcastically unappreciative than he meant it to be but it wasnât like they were on nice terms so he couldnât care too much.
She exhaled once, narrowing her eyes toward the hole like she could will the darkness to give her a better angle.
âHow do you wanna do this, kid?â
A shrug with a throw up of his hands couldnât be seen, though the gesture was what counts, right? âI have no clue,â he stated while picking up his mobile device once more. She knew he was here. There was no reason to continue to hide and he turned the flashlight on, âI have about ten more hours of battery and itâll drain with the light constantly on,â he waved the device up at her, shining the phone flashlight, which was not very effective.
Scanning the area again, he was queasy at all the sights, âAlso, I think I fell into something that means I am worse off than dead if I canât get out of here,â he was being honest because he was scared. There was an underlying tone in his voice that showed he was really scared. âI am pretty sure this thing loves eating peopleâŠâ he gently pushed a skull with his foot as it rolled with a rattling echo. He shook his head, and his face showed disgust as he stepped away from the visual bones of people.
Selene didnât respond immediately. The light from his device was weak, barely more than a glint, but it was enough. Enough to see how far heâd fallen. Enough to see what else was down there. Her gaze flicked to the skeletal remains, now half-illuminated for her to take them in. They werenât fresh. That was the first thing she noted. Bone stripped of tissue, some fractured from impact, others clean, brittle. The way the bodies were arrangedâor rather, scatteredâdidnât scream battle. No sign of weapons, either dropped or shattered. Just people who had ended up in the wrong place and never made it out.
And it wasnât just one or two. Her eyes swept over a jagged outline slumped against the far wall, its size too large and its shape too wrong to be human. The bones around it were more fragmented, like theyâd been dragged. Or crushed. Whatever had happened down there hadnât been quick or painless. And now a kid was standing in the middle of this nightmare, waving his flashlight like a goddamn beacon.
With a click of her tongue, Selene set the case down beside her and knelt, eyes scanning the corridor walls for any anchor points, anything load-bearing. âTen hours of battery,â she muttered, more to herself than him. âYouâve got better odds than most.â Her eyes then locked onto a length of piping bolted along the opposite wall, rusted but solid. It looked like it had once housed coolant or low-pressure steam, thick enough to bear weight if she distributed it properly. The bolts were old but hadnât completely given to corrosion, and the pipe itself ran parallel to a steel support beam embedded in the wall. If she could anchor a line to both, it might hold long enough to get in and out. It wasnât ideal, but it was workable.
âSit tight,â she called. âIf I can rig a descent line without snapping my spine in half, Iâll get you out. Just⊠donât wake the locals in the meantime.â Selene didnât wait for a reply. She stood, brushing rust from her gloves, and pivoted back the way sheâd come.
âI donât think my odds are that good,â he continued to scan the room, nothing looked fresh, but there was that underlying stench of rot. Things have died here recently or have at least been dragged into this area to be eaten. The thought made his body ache as he continued to look around the room. It was hard to tell if it was comforting or not â he didnât want to be blind to anything, though he didnât want to see what was going to kill him if it showed up either.
Looking up when she told him to sit tight, his face twisted with a bit of disgust, because he had no idea what her plans were going to be, and he didnât know what her plans were for him. Maybe he should try going down the tunnels, if there were any, and seeing if his chances were better. The young man didnât care to be caught up in her grasp and interrogated â too much of that nonsense today. He muttered to himself as he continued to walk around the stone room. A stone grave. âOh, yes, I will definitely look for the locals and ask them for some lemonade or a cup of tea,â he rolled his eyes.
Her boots moved fast but quietly along the grating, the metal groaning beneath her with every step. The corridor hadnât changedâsame steam hissing from overhead, same walls bowed from years of pressureâbut now she was scanning with a purpose in mind: an emergency cabinet. Older sectors of Dominion, especially the pre-expansion ones, had been outfitted with them during early construction runs. Selene remembered seeing one years ago during a drop run with a smuggler who had specialized in salvaging these old tunnels. The cabinets were built into the ductworkâlow-profile and easy to miss unless you knew what you were looking for. Most were stripped or rusted shut by now, but every now and then, one gave up something useful. A cabinet like that could hold the difference between a quick death and a stupid one. Emergency breather masks, old flares, maybe even a climbing line if the coils hadnât frayed to hell. She doubted Dominionâs engineers expected anyone to still be using them this far past inspection cycles, but here she was.
And there, half-obscured beneath peeling conduit insulation, was the edge of a recessed panel. Selene stepped up to it, pried away the brittle sheath of insulation, and felt around the frame. The rust gave easily under her gloved fingers, flaking away in red-brown curls. She braced her boot against the lower edge of the wall and yanked. The latch gave with a groan and a screech that echoed far too loudly through the corridor for her comfort. Inside, most of the contents were ruined. A shattered visor mask. Empty clips for a long-dead flare gun. Cracked casing for a medpatch unit that had long since dried out. But nestled at the bottom, coiled like a snake in a bed of dust and grime, was what she neededâan old emergency descent line, reinforced fiber wrapped around a rusted carabiner.
She tested the line with a tug. Its braided fibres groaned but held.
âGood enough,â she muttered, slamming the cabinet shut. Selene turned and retraced her steps, her boots a little faster now. Time was slipping, and she had a feeling that the kid didnât have the sense to stay still forever. She reached the drop again, crouched by the edge, and began feeding the line through the carabiner, anchoring it to the pipe sheâd scouted earlier. The angle would be awkward, the climb worse, but if it held, this could work.
Selene gave the line one last tug, testing the tension, then leaned over the edge. âYou still alive down there, Curious Boy? Because youâve got about thirty seconds before I make this trip for nothing.â
Hearing everything that she was doing above kept him interested, but it wasnât like he could see much. It was somewhat frustrating to be stuck in such a situation â why couldnât he have told the guy in the trench coat to get lost? Though⊠the man didnât give him much of a choice at all. If he heard her say good enough, he would have been protesting as much as possible, but he wasnât able to hear her from where he was.
âYa! I am still alive down here, and what do you mean make the trip for nothing? Would it be that upsetting if I died so you couldnât bully some teenager for answers?â He might not have got what she said, but he was definitely alive and sassy. Showing the lack of respect he had for others. His attitude expressed that more than his words.
Selene rolled her eyes in answer while placing the black case aside. Then, she gave the line one last tug and swung her legs over the edge without hesitation. The line groaned under her weightânot from weakness, but from age. Every inch of fiber was older than she was, maybe older than the entire sector they stood in. Still, just as before, it held. One gloved hand slid beneath the other as she lowered herself down, boots scraping the wall for grip. The metal wasnât smooth, pitted from decades of corrosion and heat, and flakes of rust fell with every shift. Dust filled her nose. The kind of dust that tasted like dried blood and old wires.
Halfway down, she paused. The light from Scottiâs phone was faint now, bobbing with each nervous shuffle he made below. It barely illuminated the cavern floor, but it was enough to cast long, stretched shadows across the bones. Now that she was closer to them, she couldnât suppress the shudder that ran through her.
âWhy in the world did you have to come here of all places? I couldnât have scared you that much, right?â Selene said, resuming her descent.
The light bopped in a way that showed offense, âDo you think I meant to come down here? No!â He didnât mean to raise his voice in such a way that it echoed through the cavern, and his hand quickly covered his mouth with surprise. âI meant no, I did not mean to come down here,â he hissed his words out softer before going back to what he was doing â examining the bones around him.
Then, somewhere beyond the ring of the flashlightâs glow, came the sound. It wasnât the sharp creak of metal or the hollow groan of settling ductwork. It was softer. Wet. The kind of sound that made the skin tighten behind oneâs ears.
Selene froze, breath suspended. The darkness beyond Scottiâs trembling light seemed to curdle.
Drip. Pause. Scrape.
It didnât repeat, but it didnât need to.
She didnât say a word. She just picked up the pace until her boots hit the floor.
Hearing the sound seemed to make Scotti freeze for a long time, trying his best to listen in, and he turned the flashlight off out of reaction. They were in complete darkness. Nothing more seemed to come from where the noise originated from though he waited a moment before turning on his flashlight again, âWhat was that?â This was more to himself than anyone else.
That was when he shone the flashlight over and jumped out of his skin, he didnât realize Selene was right beside him, âHoâowwâah,â that was when he realized how his one ankle throbbed. It was a decent drop from the old vents onto the bony covered stone floor, and he reached down to touch the ankle out of natural reaction. Lifting his pant leg and pulling down his sock, it was already bruising from being twisted, and most likely happened when the metal panel fell out from under him, and the impact did not do him any good.
âThat hurts like a bitchâ he whined while pressing onto it to make sure it hurt. His face twisted when he touched it, exposing how sensitive it was, and he rolled his sock back up and let his pant leg back down.
Selene didnât flinch when the flashlight caught her face. Sheâd seen the startled twitch coming and half-expected a shriek to follow, but instead he winced and crumpled toward his ankle with a curse. That was enough to pivot her attention. She crouched beside him, scanning the bruise already blooming along the side of his foot. Swollen. Not shattered, but twisted hardâlikely during the drop, maybe when heâd hit uneven ground or clipped a bone on the way down. Her eyes flicked to the rusted edge of the hatch overhead, where a bolt still hung crooked. That thing gave beneath him like a trap door. No warning, no cushion. Just steel, gravity, and impact.
She clicked her tongue once. âSprained. Maybe worse, if you keep putting weight on it.â Selene didnât say idiot, but it hung in the air all the same. Still, she hadnât abandoned him when heâd fallen, and she wasnât about to now, especially not with that sound still lodged in the silence behind them.
He glared at her, âI kind of have to walk,â he grumbled after his words and stared at her as if she was serious at the moment.
Her eyes scanned himâtorn cuff, grimy hoodie, bruised ankle already swelling against the fabric of his sock. He wasnât going to be sprinting any time soon, not through terrain like this. Not without making more noise than whatever had made that wet, scraping sound. She grabbed the line and gave it another sharp tug, testing the tension one more time. Then she turned, crouched beside him, and unclipped the carabiner from the anchor loop at her hip.
âYouâre going up first,â she said, already looping the old fiber around itself and slipping the carabiner through. âIâll brace the line down here and keep you steady. All you have to do is not kick me in the face on the way.â
Selene glanced up at the drop. It looked steeper from below. Taller, too. Her fingers moved fast, the kind that had done this kind of thing beforeâclipping, pulling, adjusting until the slack gave just enough. Improvised harness? Not ideal. But what other choice did they have?
âReady? When I say go, keep your hands tight on the line and donât fight the pull. Iâll walk you through it.â She paused. No sarcasm this time. Just eyes locked on his.
âAnd whatever happens, donât look behind you.â
Being told to go up first and him looking at the rope, the area where he fell, and back at Selene. He shook his head, âI canât climb that? I didnât even pass that rope test or whatever in school. You think I am going to make it up there?â Scotti was a little baffled that she thought he could do that. A little flattered but more annoyed than anything. Pointing up the string and to the top, âThere is absolutely no way that I am climbing back up there. Iâll get half way up and fall on my ass,â he explained.
âAlso, what do you mean not to look behind me? That advice never does anyone good.â He huffed out, argumentatively, and crossed his arms. With a negative shake of his head, âIâm not strong enough to climb up that rope. Iâm not doing it. I donât want to actually break my leg.â
Selene stared at him.
Not blinked. Not looked. Stared. The kind of look someone might give a half-sunk lifeboat that just refused to float.
ââŠYou followed me through a market full of smugglers and mercs without a second thought,â she said flatly, voice edged with disbelief, âbut now that Iâm trying to get your sorry ass out of an actual death pit, now you donât trust me?â
A twist of his face showed more than he wanted to let on â there were thoughts, pre thoughts, but he had no choice â and he shook his head and stayed quiet. She wouldnât understand. There was no point in trying to talk to her about it or explain the position that he was put in.
She didnât wait for an answer. Instead, she shifted, tugging the rope around herself with practiced hands. The harness she'd meant for her own climb now doubled, twisted and secured with a snap of the carabiner. It wasnât clean. It wasnât pretty. But it would work.
âNew plan, then,â she muttered. âYou donât climb.â
He opened his mouth to protest again, but she was already movingâlooping the line under his arms, ignoring the flinch when the cord scraped against his bruised ankle. Her hands were all business, threading slack through, knotting it fast behind her own hip. A tether, improvised and tight, from her waist to his.
âYou fall, I fall,â she said, adjusting the pull so he leaned into her without toppling. âSo if dying in a ditch is your master plan today, try not to take me with you.â Selene stood, steadying her stance as the rope pulled taut between them. âWe move together. I haul, you hold on. And if you even think about squirming like a caught fish, I swearââ
Her voice caught on the sound again. That same slick scrape echoing somewhere behind them.
Scottiâs head turned, and he seemed to forget everything that the woman had just said to him. âDo you think thatâs one of the beasts of the caves?â He was asking this more in a sense of speaking a thought aloud. His mind was honestly set on that â a beast that everyone warns you about and most could never imagine.
She didnât finish the threat. Instead, she tightened the strap at her hip and stepped toward the wall.
âAnd if I do get us out of this alive,â she added, âyou owe me the truth.â
With one hand braced against the metal and the other gripping the line, she began the climbâone brutal inch at a time, Scotti dragged with her like extra baggage she was too stubborn to leave behind.
Then he rolled his eyes when he heard the last line, âAnd what if I donât want to give the truth, huh?â He knew he was pushing his luck, but it was an honest question. Scotti didnât want to tell her the truth because he didnât know what trouble that would get him into with the man in the trench coat. It was dangerous to cross boundaries on what the man said to him. He didnât want to risk the situation. Although he had already failed, because the man told him not to get caught.
Seleneâs gaze remained fixed on the wall, her fingers gouging grooves into it. She didnât glance back, didnât indulge his hesitation with so much as a twitch of her brow. Her shoulders simply continued to burn, each tendon a fraying cable as she hauled them upward.
Her voice, when it did come, was a serrated whisper.
âThen donât.â
A pause.
âBut donât expect me to climb into a grave for you again.â
When she began to move, Scotti did exactly as he was told â to hang on â and he was silent for the moment. Was his statement upsetting? Her silence got his mind running a million miles per hour on what she was feeling or how she would react. Maybe she would push him back into the hole and leave him for whatever picks him off. âIâm fine with that. I hope I never see you again after this,â he huffed out.
âNot like I wanted to see you in the first place anyway. Wasnât an optional thing.â Scotti didnât think about his words, but it would have proved a lot of her assumptions. He was put to a task to track her, and now she knew it wasnât an optional thing for him. Someone was forcing it.
Selene exhaled, not in anger or shock, but with a marrow-deep weariness that transcended the fire in her shoulders or the rope burns now striping her palms. Each ascent up the shaft felt less like a physical act and more like an exhumation, hauling not just Scottiâs deadweight but the specters of every shitty job, every back alley deal, every time someone had shown up pretending they had a choice only to remind her they didnât. That she didnât.
Sheâd spent years learning how to spot the difference. The difference between someone who chose to be there⊠and someone who got handed a leash and told to smile.
âSeeing me was never optional,â she muttered, almost to herself. âFor a lot of people.â
It wasnât the first time someone had been sent. Probably wouldnât be the last. And somehow, that always made it worseâknowing that even when she wasnât worth chasing for who she was, she was still worth using. Still someoneâs map, someoneâs debt, someoneâs ticket.
This one, thoughâthis twitchy, reckless boy with terror leaching from his poresâhe wasnât afraid of the dark. Or the thing below them, whatever it was. His fear was sharper, more intimate: the dread of a rabbit realizing itâs been flung into a wolfâs den by its very own pack. Seleneâs fingers tightened on the rope. Sheâd seen that look before, in mirrors she happened to glance herself in.
That, more than anything, is why she kept climbing. Her hand finally found the lip of the shaftâcorroded metal biting into her palm as she dug her fingers in. The air up here was just as stale, but it didnât stink of rot and death. That alone was enough to taste like salvation.
She couldâve pulled herself up first. Couldâve unhooked the tether and left him to find another wayâslow, painful, maybe even fatal. And maybe a few years ago, she wouldâve.
But not today.
Not after the scrape of bone.
Not after the truth he hadnât meant to say.
Selene shifted her weight, bracing one knee against the wall, and with a grunt, hauled the rope one final timeânot for herself, but for him. Because if no one had ever done that for her⊠someone had to start somewhere.
Getting out of the hole caused him to breathe with relief while he glanced back down, swallowing, and moving a handful of feet away from it. At least as much as the rope allowed him without pulling it tight at all. Scotti began to undo the ties, âThanks,â he muttered out more gratefully than what was probably expected of him.
âIâll tell you the truth,â he added with a glance to Selene. The young boy was beginning to chew the inside of his lip out of anxiety while he untied the rope. âI donât really know how to explain it,â his words continued while he got fully untied and backed up a few more feet, towards the wall, and sat down. His ankle was aching, and it was almost killing him at this point.
Shaking his head, âI donât knowâŠâ Scotti began with almost a bit too much defeat in his voice. âThis weird dude who was overly serious approached me. Told me to follow you into the Grey Market and figure out what you were doing. I didnât really see his face since he was wearing a fedora, and his collar was up high. The fedora was dark brown? And he had a trench coat that was khaki or tan or whatever,â he gestured his hand as if the thought truly didnât matter. âTaller and what I could see of his face, he didnât look half bad, but he is a nasty person.â
Rolling up his pant leg again and pushing his sock down, he was checking on his ankle, which didnât look any better, âHe threatened to skin Marie if I didnât do it. Told me not to get caught either, or there would be consequences. I donât even know how he knows about Marie,â Confessing that cracked his voice and his face twisted to show how upsetting the thought was to him. âI have a handful of brothers and sisters. My mom does what she can for work, and it isnât honorable to most people, but hey. Itâs honorable to me. Sheâs doing what she can for her kids and everything else, and I am doing what I can for my siblings except that bastard threatened to hurt my youngest sister.â Anger flared up in Scotti. His one fist was balling up so tight that his knuckles were turning white.
âYou understand, right?â Scotti sounded embarrassed and a bit guilty. He was hoping that Selene understood why he was following her. That she wasnât going to lash out and do something worse to him, his mom, or one of his siblings.
Selene didn't speak while he rambled through the explanation, not when he stumbled through the strangerâs outfit, not when he cursed, not even when he mentioned his sister. Her face was unreadable, set in that still, watchful expression that felt more like a mask than anything human. Only her fingers moved, slipping the last of the rope loose from her belt. Like she needed something to do with her hands so she didnât clench them into fists.
Of course it was him.
The long-time family dog. The leash-wielder. The kind of man who never needed to say her last name out loud because he knew it was stamped across her back like a serial number.
She didn't say his nameânever had, not even in the privacy of her own mind. Names made people real, and this one was better left hard to hold and harder to track.
âHeâs not one of them,â she said eventually, voice low. âThe clean ones. The ones who smile in Council chambers and sign off on re-education orders like theyâre approving lunch menus. NaaâŠ.heâs the one they send when those smiles donât work.â
Her hands stilled against the rope, finally letting it drop. âHe used to âcheck inâ when I was younger. Never told me his name. Didnât have to. Always came dressed like a detective out of some old pulp serial. Nice shoes. Always smelled kind of funny though.â A small, bitter breath pushed from her nose. âHe liked to ask about my grades. My friends. If I were being âa good investment.ââ
âHeâs not just some creep with a threat fetish. Heâs part of a containment net. My family doesnât like loose ends, and Iâm the worst kind.â Because there were some lines they simply wouldnât cross with family. But for those that werenât? WellâŠthere were reasons why sheâd left that part of her life behind her.
Listening to what Selene had to say about the whole thing didnât comfort him at all, it made it worse in his mind, and he just stared at his feet. Then he rolled up his sock again and put his pant leg down. âSoâŠâ Scottie began while thinking half-heartedly. âHeâs going to hurt my sister, isnât he?â His eyes flickered over to Selene with a hint of fear in them. There was no worry about himself, he always talked himself into believing that no matter what happens to him it's okay, but he couldnât handle the thought of one of his siblings getting in trouble because of the things he did⊠or worse⊠the things he didnât do.
Seleneâs jaw flexed, but she didnât look at him.
She stared at the wall instead. At the rust veins bleeding through the metal. At the way the heat seemed to hang heavier now, like it was listening.
âYeah,â she said quietly, after a beat too long. âHe probably will.â
âHe honestly sounds awful, why would your family hire a man like that!?â Scotti got loud and a little emotional. âSo this dude just goes around threatening people all the time? Because of you? Do you have like fucked up parents or something? I mean⊠my mom has Kritter or Jones or Bark check up on me all the time, nice guys, but like⊠she wouldnât ever have anyone like that keep an eye on me.â The young man was just in disbelief with that. He knew people could be evil but it was a shock to him still.
Seleneâs response to his question about her parents was a dismissive flicker of her eyelids, as though the words were too trivial to warrant the energy of contempt. âYeah. Something like that,â she muttered, the syllables brittle with bitterness. Parents. A word that conjured guardians whoâd curated her existence like a taxidermied trophy, all potential and glass-eyed obedience. Theyâd hoped.
But the words hadnât even finished echoing before the world shifted.
It began deep. A tremor too low to register as anything but unease. Then came the shriek,metal wrenching against metal somewhere above them, followed by a thud that rattled through the soles of her boots.
Seleneâs head snapped up.
ââŠShit,â she breathed.
The corridorâs innards convulsed. Walls rippled, pipes detonating in sprays of scalding steam. Seleneâs instincts outpaced thought. She lunged, tackling Scotti sideways as the ceiling buckled. A seismic crack split the air, and then chaos became geometry: angles of falling rebar, arcs of ruptured wiring, the mosaic of concrete disintegrating. She registered the heat first, a flash of orange, as severed power cables lashed the dark like electrified whips. Then, the deafening thunder of collapse.
When the shaking finally slowed, they were left in a new kind of silence.
Selene rolled onto her elbows, coughing ash from her lungs. The path behind them no longer existed, only a tomb of mangled metal, its crevices smoldering. The shaft theyâd scaled lay entombed, along with any trace of the thing that had almost pursued them.
1x Thank
