The darkness swallowed him whole.

  Renji hit the uneven ground hard, the air knocked out of his lungs by the impact.

  Limbs tangled with his, a sharp knee digging into his ribs, a hand grabbing his ankle in a panicked reflex.

  The air was instantly colder here, heavier, saturated with that sickening smell of damp earth and reptilian musk.

  Get off! Move!

  He thought furiously, trying to push away the bodies pressing against him.

  He heard a rough curse near his ear. Kenta, undoubtedly one of the other two he had fallen with. The third person let out a small whimper of pain.

  Behind them, the rest of the group poured into the narrow passage in a chaos of muffled cries and stumbles.

  “Don’t push, damn it!”

  “I can’t see anything!”

  “Watch your step!”

  The passage was barely wide enough for two people abreast.

  The walls, which he brushed against as he struggled to get up, were icy and covered in an unpleasant slimy film. The ground beneath his hands was uneven, muddy in places, slippery.

  He finally managed to stand, jostling Kenta as the other man also got up, cursing.

  The third person who had fallen with them was Aiko, grimacing as she held her wrist.

  “Are you okay?”

  Renji asked reflexively, his voice low in the tumult.

  “I… I think so.”

  She replied, her voice strained.

  “Just twisted it a bit.”

  The only illumination came from the faint spectral glow of the marks on their left hands, casting insufficient, dancing shadows. They could barely make out the tightly packed silhouettes.

  The advancing wall must have stopped at the threshold, but no one dared to look back.

  The fear of what they might see, or not see, and the constant pressure from those still entering pushed them inexorably forward, into the unknown depths of the tunnel.

  They shuffled forward blindly, a panicked herd. Hands brushed against the slimy walls, feet searched for purchase on the treacherous ground.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Stop pushing!”

  Goro growled from somewhere near the back, his powerful voice cutting through the other whispers.

  “Then move faster, idiot!”

  Kenta retorted sharply, already annoyed by the forced slowness.

  “You two, shut up!”

  Intervened Junichi’s calm, weary voice.

  “Noise might attract worse things than darkness. Silence and move carefully. Stay together.”

  Despite the warning, the tension was palpable. Every accidental touch in the dark caused a flinch, a spark of suspicion. Someone stumbled, eliciting a muffled curse. A woman, perhaps Misaki, let out a small cry when her hand slipped on something particularly cold and bumpy on the wall.

  How long is this tunnel?

  Renji tried to stay calm, to analyze even in the darkness. The air seemed slightly more mobile now. A very faint draft came from ahead.

  That’s when they heard it, a new sound, distinct from their own hesitant footsteps and muffled breaths. It was a faint, dry rustling, like shifting sand or dead leaves skittering in a non-existent breeze.

  But interwoven with the sound, just at the edge of hearing, were fragmented syllables, nonsensical whispers that seemed to scrape directly against the inside of their skulls. It wasn’t loud, but it was deeply unsettling, creating a powerful sense of auditory and mental discomfort.

  The whispering sound, whatever it was, sent a fresh wave of uneasy murmurs through the group.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “What was that noise?”

  “Shh! Listen!”

  They almost froze, straining their ears in the oppressive darkness. The whispering repeated, seeming to come from further ahead, the direction they were heading.

  The fear of the unknown ahead now battled with the residual fear of the wall behind. Driven by renewed apprehension, they resumed their hesitant progress, perhaps a little faster, a little more desperately now.

  Renji felt the texture of the wall change slightly under his probing fingers. The slimy film seemed thicker here, and embedded within it, at irregular intervals, were small, hard, rounded bumps. Smooth and cold.

  He instinctively tried to pull his hand away, but curiosity, or perhaps a subconscious need for information, made him hesitate. Risking a brief glow from his Mark, aimed downward so as not to blind anyone, he looked closer at the wall where his hand rested.

  His breath caught in his throat.

  The bumps weren't mineral deposits. They were smooth, dark spheres, perfectly round, embedded in the slime. And as the faint light from his mark swept over them, they seemed to… move. Just slightly. Rotating, almost imperceptibly, as if tracking the movement of his hand.

  He snatched his hand back as if burned, a wave of revulsion and terror washing over him.

  The walls are watching.

  He didn’t dare voice his discovery, the implication too horrifying, the potential panic too dangerous in this confined space. He just frantically wiped his slimy hand on his pants, his heart pounding against his ribs.

  The draft from ahead strengthened slightly, and the sickening smell of damp earth and reptile intensified with it. But now there was another note beneath it, something almost fresh, vegetal.

  Moss? Dead leaves?

  And then, they saw it.

  Far ahead, so faint it could have been an optical illusion born of prolonged darkness. A glow. Not the clear light of day, nor even the faint glow of their marks. It was a diffuse, grayish luminescence, steady and unwavering.

  A collective murmur, a mixture of hope and dread, rippled through the group.

  The end of the tunnel? Or the entrance to something worse?

  Whatever it was, it was a direction, a visible goal in this blind nothingness.

  Their pace quickened instinctively, drawn towards that uncertain promise of light at the end of the suffocating darkness.