Episode 51 – Faultlines (Part 2)

  Kade hit the ground hard, rolling with the impact. Pain flared through his shoulder, but he forced himself to move. Dust filled his lungs, making him cough as he tried to get his bearings.

  Somewhere to his left, Naomi groaned. Mason cursed. A few feet away, Owen let out a shaky breath. They had all fallen—dragged into the darkness below.

  The air was thick with dust and something else. Something wrong.

  Kade pushed himself up, heart pounding. His flashlight had been torn from his vest in the fall, but his sidearm was still strapped to his thigh. He reached for it, instincts on high alert.

  “Sound off,” he rasped.

  “Alive,” Naomi coughed. “Mostly.”

  “Still breathing,” Mason muttered. “Barely.”

  Owen groaned. “I hate this.”

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  Kade forced himself to focus. His eyes were adjusting now. Dim emergency lights from their gear cast faint beams through the dust cloud, revealing their surroundings.

  They were in a tunnel. Not a sewer, not a subway. Something older. The walls were rough stone, layered with thick, black growths that pulsed faintly, like breathing veins. The air was damp, heavy with an unnatural heat.

  Naomi scanned the walls with her flashlight. “This isn’t man-made.”

  Mason took a slow step forward, gun raised. “Then what the hell is it?”

  Owen was still staring at the black veins lining the walls. “I think… we’re inside something.”

  Kade didn’t like that answer. Not at all.

  The tunnel stretched in two directions—one leading into deeper darkness, the other toward a faint, flickering glow. Neither felt safe.

  Naomi checked her rifle. “We need to move.”

  Kade nodded. “Stay sharp. We don’t know what’s down here with us.”

  They started forward, following the faint glow. Every step felt wrong—like they were walking into the belly of something waiting to wake up.

  And then, the whispering started.

  Faint at first. A chorus of layered voices, speaking in tones just below understanding. The words were twisted, warped by the air itself.

  Owen stiffened. “Tell me you hear that.”

  Mason gritted his teeth. “Yeah. And I don’t like it.”

  Kade’s fingers tightened on his weapon. He didn’t believe in ghosts. But this? This was something worse.

  The glow ahead of them brightened. And then, as they stepped closer, the tunnel ended.

  Or rather, it opened.

  They stood at the edge of a vast underground chasm, stretching into darkness. The walls pulsed with the same black veins, converging toward a structure in the distance—a towering, monolithic shape, half-buried in the stone.

  Owen exhaled sharply. “That’s a building.”

  Naomi stared. “Buried under the earth. How the hell—”

  Mason shook his head. “No. Not buried. Grown here.”

  Kade took a step forward. The structure was massive—impossibly ancient, yet somehow alive. Faint lights flickered deep within it, like it was breathing.

  Then the whispers stopped.

  A deep thunk echoed from below them.

  And the entire cavern began to move.

  End of Episode 51.