The crate groaned louder than he did.
Kalem's shoulder screamed with every tug on the frayed cable. The ground beneath him no longer felt like stone. It shifted with each step—pliant, soft in places, too firm in others. Veins throbbed beneath a translucent skin stretched tight over alien muscle, as though the Abyss had grown tired of pretending to be earth.
A sound followed him. Not an echo. Something deeper. Like breathing—slow, massive, patient. He couldn't tell if it came from the terrain or from something inside it.
He pressed forward.
The tunnel narrowed. Once a corridor of jagged rock and occasional outcroppings, it now folded in upon itself, forming natural arches of bone-like ivory and fleshy ridges that pulsed faintly. He had to crouch in places. Once, he had to crawl—dragging the crate behind him like an anchor bound to his survival.
Sweat beaded, froze, then steamed again. The temperature flipped wildly: one minute a humid haze, the next a dry, biting chill that cracked his lips and numbed his fingers.
His breath fogged and dispersed in odd ways. It clung to the ceiling like steam, then flowed downward, reversing natural law.
Kalem stopped for a moment, resting his back against a warm patch of wall. It felt… like breath. A pulse. Not sound, but rhythm. He tried not to gag as he realized he could feel it humming through his bones.
His vision swam.
A flicker.
Suddenly—light ahead.
Familiar. Warm. Golden.
Onyx?
He saw it, for just a second. A figure. Four legs. Thick neck. Gleaming bracers and a saddleplate half-shattered by debris. It stood there, staring at him through the haze, breathing heavily.
Kalem surged forward.
He dropped the cable and limped toward it, stumbling, half-running.
"Onyx!" he called. "Onyx—"
The light twisted.
The figure reared back—not a bull.
Not anything alive.
Just a tangle of limbs and bones, rising, unfolding. Like a memory pressed into something else. Antlers made of broken ribs. A mouth where the neck should've been. It screamed in four voices, none of them real.
Kalem fell back, skidding across the slick ground. His fire blade flared to life.
He slashed, wide and wild.
Nothing.
It was gone.
The corridor was empty again.
His breath heaved in his chest.
Then a voice—his voice, from behind him: "Getting worse, isn't it?"
Kalem turned sharply.
No one.
Just the crate.
He stared at it for too long. Then forced himself to kneel and grab the cable again. The metal chafed his hands, but he pulled anyway. Step by step.
The hallucinations didn't stop.
Shadows shifted in the corners. He heard footsteps—his own, echoing back late. Saw things watching from the ceiling. A smile carved into the rock. A figure standing ahead, unmoving, arms out like it waited for an embrace.
Kalem passed through them all.
He muttered now. Not words. Just syllables. Rasping sounds to push his mind forward, to keep thoughts from folding in on themselves.
The voice listened.
"You should've left the crate," it said. "Let it go."
Kalem didn't answer.
"You know that weight's not just steel anymore."
He pressed on.
"Look at yourself."
He didn't want to.
But the walls did it for him.
He passed a patch of mirrored stone, slick and gleaming. It reflected poorly, distorted—but he saw enough. The sunken cheeks. The wild eyes. The grime and dried blood crusted down one side of his neck. One arm trembling from nerve pain. His armor was mostly gone, his boots wrapped in scraps of cloth.
He looked like someone who had lost.
"You still think you're climbing out of this," the voice said, softly now. "But you're not going up anymore. You're just crawling deeper. Like the rest of them."
Kalem stopped dragging.
He let go.
His knees buckled. The crate clanged against the tunnel floor. His hand hit something wet—he didn't care.
He rolled to his side.
Breath came shallow.
"Just for a minute," he muttered.
"You're going to die here," said the voice. Not mocking. Not even triumphant. Just true.
Kalem lay there, chest rising in jagged rhythms, sweat stinging his eyes.
He blinked—and the world shimmered.
He saw the sky.
Real sky. Cloud-smeared blue. A golden field stretching forever. Wind brushing tall grass, the smell of clover and dust.
And hoofbeats.
Steady. Familiar.
He reached for it with shaking fingers.
Then pain lanced through his shoulder, and it was gone.
Kalem groaned.
He was back in the tunnel. The ceiling seemed lower now. The crate felt heavier, even though he hadn't touched it.
The ground beneath him shivered.
Not from movement.
From breath.
A long, low exhale that seemed to come from below him.
Kalem forced himself to sit upright.
The voice said nothing now.
Even it seemed to be watching.
He pulled the crate cable over his shoulder again. Tightened it. Staggered to his feet.
One foot in front of the other.
The crawl would continue.
He was still breathing.
And that was enough.
For now.