Elara curled into Del’s side, arms winding around his middle as she settled beneath the blankets. Her breath, soft and warm on his skin, carried a whisper of sleep already taking hold. The quiet in the room felt thick and absolute, as though the house itself was holding its breath.

  “Is it my imagination,” she murmured, “or do fun and interesting things seem to happen around you?”

  He glanced down at her, brow lifting. “In what way?”

  “Well,” she said, nestling closer, “I travelled for over three weeks from the Homewood, across the High Hills, before I was caught by those goblins. I never came across anything other than normal plants and animals until then—and your rescue.”

  Del gave a low chuckle. “Maybe it’s just that we’re heading into more travelled regions now. More people, more problems. More weirdness.”

  She tilted her head against his shoulder, thoughtful. “Maybe. But it’s been different. Before you, the journey felt... quiet. Empty, sometimes. Like walking through a painting that never changed.” She paused. “With you, things move. Shift. Even the bad bits mean something’s happening.”

  He smirked faintly. “So, I’m chaos with legs.”

  “You’re something. I’ll give you that.” She traced a slow circle with one finger against his ribs. “It just feels strange. Falling asleep knowing someone’s beside me. Safer, somehow.”

  There was a brief silence between them, but it was a warm one. Shared. Unspoken.

  Del let his hand rest in her hair, fingertips curling loosely into the strands. “Not many people trust me enough to fall asleep beside me.”

  “I trust you more than most,” she murmured, and then, with a crooked smile, “which probably says more about my judgement than your trustworthiness.”

  He huffed a laugh, then turned his head slightly, planting a soft kiss against her temple. “You’ve got decent instincts. You trusted Naomi.”

  Elara’s smile softened into something gentler. “I did. Still do. She’s a strange, luminous little thing. Not quite of this world.”

  They lapsed into silence again. The weight of the day settled around them—memories of the shrine, the fight in the crypt, the statue of Myrrith watching with hollow, broken eyes.

  After a moment, she whispered, “That place... the shrine... did it stay with you?”

  He nodded against her hair. “Yeah. It’s under my skin. Something about it just… lingers.”

  “I think we changed something,” she said. “I don’t mean just the battle or clearing the space. I think we shifted something in the world. Set something back to rights.”

  Del didn’t answer, but his grip around her tightened faintly. He felt it too—the sense of having nudged the scale, even if only a little. For once, not just surviving. Not just killing. Something better.

  “Still makes it fun, travelling with you,” Elara murmured, voice now starting to slip toward drowsiness again. “Never know what might come next.”

  Del smiled at that—small, fond, worn down by the weight of bone-deep exhaustion.

  She gave a little shimmy under the blankets and, within minutes, her breathing deepened into a steady rhythm. The warmth of her body stayed close, grounding. Familiar.

  Del closed his eyes, but sleep came not gently, but like a shadow closing its fist.

  He was in a tunnel.

  Yet somehow, not.

  There was no entry point. No beginning. He simply was—dropped into this place like a discarded thought. It wrapped around him without origin or logic, oppressive and whole.

  ‘Okay, Del. Are you asleep or awake?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know? This is already way off the rails.’

  The floor beneath him was damp and uneven, sucking faintly at the soles of his boots. He couldn’t recall taking a single step, yet somehow he was moving. The air was thick and warm, humid in a way that felt unnatural. It tasted metallic—like a mouthful of coins and rain.

  Each breath snagged in his throat.

  He hated talking to himself. Hated the constant commentary.

  ‘Then stop doing it.’

  ‘Bad habits are the hardest to break.’

  ‘So you’re saying I’m a bad habit?’

  He rolled his eyes. Or tried to. The motion felt slow, warped—like blinking through syrup.

  The tunnel pulsed around him, lightless except for a flickering, dirty glow that didn’t seem to come from anywhere. No flame, no torch, no visible source. Just enough illumination to show the slick walls, the irregular stone, the long, clutching shadows that moved when he didn’t.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  From somewhere ahead came a sound. Skittering.

  High-pitched. Insectile.

  Getting closer.

  A click. Then another. Then silence.

  Del ran.

  His boots slapped against the ground, splashing through shallow puddles that smelled wrong—sweet and fetid. The echoes bounced back too quickly, like the walls were just out of reach, just waiting to close in.

  The tunnel stretched on, twisting beneath his feet. It writhed. Not metaphorically. It moved.

  The stone floor undulated beneath him as if he were running along the back of some great creature. The ceiling sagged in places, studded with things that glistened—teeth or bones or something between. He didn’t look too closely.

  The sound behind him shifted. The skittering grew faster, more erratic. Then—worse.

  A wet dragging noise. Heavy. Organic. Like something slick being hauled over stone.

  Del didn’t look back.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Del. You look, you die.’

  The tunnel lurched sideways. He stumbled, caught himself on a wall that felt too warm, too soft. His fingers sank slightly before finding resistance. He yanked his hand back and gagged.

  A new scent struck him. Beneath the damp and decay—something sharp. Sweet. Familiar.

  Blood.

  Fresh.

  His?

  He kept running, but the air was thickening, resisting him. His limbs grew heavier, each stride a desperate shove against something unseen.

  There was a sound ahead now. Something whispering. Words maybe—but warped. Repeating.

  “Del... Del... Del...” Over and over, like breath pulled through a cracked flute.

  He turned a corner and saw a glimmer—light, white-gold, haloed like hope.

  ‘Elara?’

  He pushed toward it, lungs burning, chest tearing open with each breath.

  The light flickered.

  It wasn’t her.

  It wasn’t anything.

  The glow collapsed into shadow as something tall and spindly stepped into the path and grinned without a mouth. No face. Just teeth, suspended in nothing.

  Del recoiled, turned, bolted.

  The tunnel seemed to laugh. Not a sound. A sensation. Something vast and amused, just beneath the skin of the world.

  Then the sound changed again.

  Chittering. Then hissing. Then silence.

  He froze.

  The silence wasn’t still. It had weight. Texture. It pressed against him like water waiting to rise.

  The tunnel inhaled.

  Not air—him.

  The pressure hit his chest. His ribs ached. His eyes watered. His knees buckled. Something clicked.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Right behind him.

  He ran. Again.

  The tunnel was collapsing—not crumbling, but closing. Spatially. Each footstep pulled the walls in tighter, as though it fed on his movement. His shoulder scraped against something slick. His hip caught on a jagged outcrop. Still he pushed forward, half-crawling, half-sprinting.

  His own voice whispered in his ears: “I don’t belong here.”

  Another voice answered, not his: “Then why did you come?”

  He turned a corner and found a door.

  A door from Earth.

  Frosted glass. A brass handle. A sign painted in black block letters:

  St. Margaret’s – Oncology Ward – Quiet, Please.

  He stared at it. His legs shook.

  It had no business being here. This was where…

  He reached for the handle.

  “No; I didn’t mean it”

  It dissolved beneath his hand like mist, vanishing into the wall. The door, the frame, the memory—gone.

  The tunnel pulsed again.

  He heard a faint voice. A woman’s.

  “It’s okay. Let go. It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”

  He didn’t know whose voice it was.

  He ran.

  A figure, black cloak and glowing eyes stood ahead, a staff clutched in it’s hand, a severed head gripped in the other, dripping black blood that smelled like crisping bacon.

  He spun, he needed to escape

  He couldn’t remember why.

  Or how.

  The path dipped. Too steep.

  His feet slipped. There was no traction.

  He tumbled, twisted, slammed down a short incline into darkness, limbs tangled, throat raw from a scream he didn’t remember making.

  He landed hard—spine to earth, knees to stone.

  Something soft caught his head.

  Wet.

  Alive.

  He jerked upright—arms flailing, chest heaving.

  A hand was on his face.

  “Del. Hush, Del.”

  The voice cut through the panic—soft, coaxing. Familiar.

  He gasped, breath ragged, chest rising too fast. The tunnel, the pressure, the sound of clicking—gone.

  Only the warmth of hands now. A lap beneath his head. The scent of flour and woodsmoke. A thumb brushing his cheek, slow and steady.

  His eyes blinked open to a blur of green and gold—Elara’s face above him, her hair a tousled halo in the dim light. She looked down with a furrowed brow and that expression she wore when concern threatened to become frustration.

  She was sitting up, cradling him. His legs were tangled in the sheets like he’d been fighting something that hadn’t wanted to let go.

  “It’s alright,” she whispered. “It was just a dream.”

  Del didn’t answer straight away. His lungs ached. His pulse beat too hard in his ears. He tried to breathe—really breathe—but it came in shuddering pulls, like surfacing from too deep, too fast.

  “Gods,” he muttered finally, rubbing both hands down his face. “That was one bitch of a bad dream.”

  “You were thrashing,” she said gently, fingers sliding through his sweat-damp hair. “Muttering something. ‘Behind me’... I think.”

  He winced. “I don’t remember saying anything.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He stared at the ceiling, following the faint shadows etched across the old beams. Familiar shapes. Nothing hidden. Nothing waiting.

  “I... can’t remember,” he said, and hated how hollow it sounded. “I had it. I felt it. And now it’s gone. Just... darkness. And fear.”

  Elara didn’t press. She just kept stroking his hair, slow and rhythmical. Grounding.

  “It felt real,” he added, barely above a whisper. “Too real. Like I wasn’t dreaming. Like something else was happening. Watching.”

  Her fingers paused a moment, then resumed. “You’re safe now,” she murmured. “You’re not alone.”

  He didn’t reply. Didn’t quite believe it.

  There was a long pause. Her heartbeat thrummed beneath him, steady. His own began to follow its rhythm, falling into line.

  Eventually, the tightness in his chest began to ease. The panic dimmed, bit by bit. His limbs stopped twitching with ghost-memories of running.

  “I hate this part,” he said quietly.

  “What part?”

  “The moment after. When you know it’s over, but it still feels like it’s waiting.”

  Elara shifted slightly and leaned down until her forehead touched his. “Then don’t face it alone.”

  He closed his eyes. Let out a long breath.

  He shifted off her lap, grunting softly as he sat up to straighten the blankets. His hands were still trembling.

  “There’s still a bit of night left,” he said, voice low. “Let’s try to get some more sleep.”

  “Alright,” she said, already lying back. She reached for him as he turned, pulling him in close again without hesitation.

  He let himself be held, just for a moment. Her warmth bled into him. Real. Tangible. He buried his face against her collarbone and let his eyes slip shut.

  But the dream clung like smoke to his thoughts—formless, sour, and thick with things left unsaid.

  And somewhere in the dark behind his eyes, something clicked.

  Once.

  Then silence.