The air grew colder with every step they took.
Silas led the group through the narrowing tunnel, the beam of his flashlight sweeping across the dust-choked path ahead. The walls felt different here—older, layered with grime and age. What had once been perhaps part of the city's infrastructure now looked untouched for decades, if not longer.
Behind him, Ayla kept a hand close to her coat pocket, where her small pistol rested. Zayn moved with his usual sharp awareness, one hand gripping a short-barreled shotgun, the other trailing across the wall, tracing strange carvings that began appearing along the tunnel's edges. Dimitri brought up the rear, swinging a rusted iron pipe as a torch burned in his other hand, crackling as it fought the damp air.
The deeper they went, the more the city above felt like a dream they'd woken from.
"These symbols..." Zayn muttered under his breath. "They're not just random."
Silas slowed his pace. "Smuggler markings?"
"Maybe," Dimitri said, squinting. "But these—" he ran his hand over one that looked like an eye surrounded by jagged wings—"are much older. Not from any smuggling network I know. More like something... ritualistic."
"No wonder this place was buried," Ayla murmured, her voice hushed.
They pressed on, boots echoing softly in the long-forgotten depths. The walls opened up suddenly into a vast underground chamber, and the four of them stopped in their tracks. The space was enormous—arches of steel and stone stretching into the dark, covered in ivy and rot. Massive pipes jutted out from the walls. An old railway track snaked through the chamber like the fossil of a great beast.
It was like stepping into another world.
Silas approached a crumbled platform, crouching to examine what remained. Broken crates. Decayed metal lockers. Empty shell casings. A few rusted-out drums. He brushed away a layer of dust on a large emblem engraved into the concrete.
It was faint, but unmistakable: a hawk clutching a blade.
Wellington's family crest.
Dimitri exhaled slowly. "I heard rumors... of a facility beneath Valthera. Built during the Silent War. Meant to house things too dangerous for the surface. Weapons. Experiments. Secrets."
"Looks like the rumors were true," Ayla said, stepping carefully over a crumbling support beam.
Zayn pulled open a rusted cabinet, revealing old files, yellowed and fragile. He leafed through them, frowning. "Some of this is encrypted. Others... look like logs. Names. Dates. Test numbers."
"What were they doing down here?" Ayla whispered.
Before anyone could answer, a distant clang echoed from the corridor behind them. Then another.
They froze.
Silas clicked off his flashlight. Dimitri smothered the torch against the damp ground, and the group melted into the shadows behind a collapsed freight car.
Footsteps. Muffled voices.
"They've been here recently," a man's voice said. "Still fresh tracks."
"They can't be far. Fan out."
Ayla's fingers brushed Silas's arm as she leaned close. Her whisper was barely audible. "They followed us."
He gave a nod, silent. His eyes scanned the room. Too much open space. Too few places to hide.
The group moved quietly, staying low, slipping between steel columns and broken machinery. Every sound echoed—every breath a gamble.
They crept into a collapsed hallway, waiting in tense silence as a pair of Wellington's men walked past just meters away, sweeping flashlights over the rubble. The light passed inches from Ayla's boot before disappearing into the dark.
As the danger passed, Ayla noticed a glint on Silas's sleeve. Blood.
"You're hurt," she whispered.
Silas looked down at his forearm. A shallow gash, likely from the sharp steel earlier, had soaked through his jacket.
"It's fine," he muttered.
"It's not." She pulled a strip of cloth from her inner pocket and gently tied it around the wound. Her fingers worked quickly but delicately.
He winced but said nothing.
"You always brush off pain like it's not real," she said softly, eyes still on the bandage.
Silas gave a faint, hollow laugh. "Pain's the only real thing sometimes."
Ayla looked at him. "That's not true."
He met her eyes then. For a moment, his guard dropped.
"There was someone I could've saved," he said. "Years ago. But I hesitated. Thought I was protecting them by keeping my distance. I was wrong."
She didn't press for more. But in the silence, something unspoken passed between them—an understanding, raw and real.
Zayn suddenly waved them over. "Found something."
Behind a partially collapsed panel, an old maintenance shaft led upward. It was narrow, rusted, but climbable. A ladder disappeared into the ceiling.
"This could take us back to the NexaCore service levels," Zayn said. "Or at least closer to the surface."
They prepared to climb—but just before they did, two more voices echoed through the chamber.
"…Wellington said to prep the vault. Everything starts tomorrow."
"What about the anomaly?"
"Sealed for now. But once Project Echelon goes live, it won't matter."
The words sent a chill through them.
Silas turned to the others. "He's not just chasing us. He's preparing to unleash something."
"A weapon?" Ayla asked.
Zayn's jaw tightened. "Or something worse."
They climbed.
The shaft groaned with every step. Rust flaked off the metal as they rose, one after the other. Ayla was halfway up when the ladder jolted beneath her.
A sharp snap echoed.
She slipped—arms flailing—her scream cut short as Silas reached down, barely catching her wrist in time.
"I've got you!" he shouted.
She clung to him, legs swinging over the black void below.
For a moment, all was still—just their breathing, his hand gripping hers.
He pulled her up, muscles trembling, and she collapsed against him when she reached the ledge.
Neither of them spoke, but the fear in her eyes and the look he gave her said enough.
They reached the top of the shaft and emerged into a long-forgotten corridor—metal walls, flickering lights, and the faint hum of old generators.
For now, they were safe.
But something had changed.
They were no longer just running. They were uncovering the edges of a plan far more dangerous than any of them had imagined.
Zayn broke the silence. "Whatever Wellington's doing—it's tied to this place. To what's buried beneath Valthera."
Silas looked back down the shaft, where the darkness still waited.
"We need to find out what it is… before it finds us."