The cavern glittered with veins of gold, slick as they were from the damp. Mara’s breath curled in the frigid air as she chipped greedily at the walls, her lantern throwing twitching shadows. The map she bought had been vague, scrawled with cryptic symbols she’d dismissed as local superstition. Still, she’d traced the largest spiral with a finger and felt an unnatural hum in her marrow—like a heartbeat beneath the rock.
She struck again, harder. The chime of her pick reverberated too long, a sound that dripped unease, but the gold glinted, justifying the risk. Through the silence came a faint whisper. A chill bloomed down her spine, though she told herself it was only wind threading through unseen cracks. “Don’t stop now,” she muttered, her voice hoarse, brittle, and lonely in the suffocating black.
Her greed was the only light here. Even as the whisper thickened into a symphony of hisses and low groans, she struck one more time. Her lantern flickered.
Then, quiet. Smothering.
A low sighing sound rose—sinuous, wet, and close. From the cavern walls leached translucent shapes, their features melted, their eyes sunken voids. Fingers like wet roots touched her cheek, beckoning.
Mara screamed, her breath tasting of decay.
The light went out.
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