Don and the others stood at the edge of the drop and stared.
The orb continued its slow descent, its light spilling outward as it sank, peeling back the dark in widening layers. What it revealed wasn't a floor. It was a structure.
A dome.
Transparent. Slimy. It bulged upward from the abyss like a swollen blister, its surface slick and wet, stretched thin over what lay beneath.
Thick strands of mucus-like material clung to it, trailing down and snapping back as if pulled by unseen currents.
Inside the dome were heads.
Human. Severed clean at the neck.
They were packed together so tightly there was no space between them, faces pressed cheek to cheek, foreheads to chins, covering the entire upper span of the abyss—hundreds of meters across—until the mass stopped cleanly at the dome's edge.
No gaps. No pattern. Just flesh upon flesh, eyes closed, mouths slack.
Below them, the base revealed itself.
