Ren flinched at the voice. His eyes closed, heart stuttering, not daring to believe—
"I knew it would be. The closer we got to this chapel, the more I could feel something pulling from beneath it. I'm just surprised something this pretty could really exist in a world like this…"
Ren turned, and there she was. At the top of the trail behind him, arms folded over her chest, with her dark dress stirring with the mist. The moonlight reflected off her pale skin. Eva…
She walked down with soft steps, trailing a hand along the carved stone for balance.
"I-I asked you not to follow me," Ren said sternly, even as the relief softened the edge.
As she stepped to his side, Eva replied. "And I asked you not to leave me…"
She just stood close—close enough for their shoulders to brush. Both gazing upon the falls.
"I don't think this place is for her," Eva whispered, her voice low and reverent. "The Mother, I mean…I don't think she made it. There's something different than above. It doesn't fit her…"
Ren looked around again, as if seeing the chamber through her perspective now. The arc of stone above them, faint veins of silver and lapis light glimmering like constellations. The moon overhead cast no shadow, leaving everything beneath it unnaturally visible.
"Yeah, you're right," Ren agreed. "It's too still."
He glanced toward the waterfall again. The way it poured so quiet from the cracks high above didn't seem natural. There was no roaring splash—just the motion without a sound.
"It's like we're in a dream…" Ren murmured.
Eva took a deep breath and nodded. "But not our dream..."
Ren turned away from the ledge, his boots echoing off the damp stone, looking toward one of the side paths branching off from the main trail—narrow, slightly overgrown with pale moss.
"We should look around," He said, glancing back at her. "See how far this place goes."
Eva followed behind.
They took the side trail, ducking beneath a low arch of stone that seemed more shaped than formed—carved intentionally for some unknown reason. On the other side, the chamber had widened into a tiered platform, broken in places, with low stone benches arranged in a crescent facing inward toward a single standing pillar. The pillar was cracked but intact, its surface etched with fine circular patterns like ripples on water. Beneath it was a wide depression. Perhaps an old basin that was now completely dried out.
Eva stepped into the center of the crescent, her fingers hovering just above the surface without touching it. "This could've been a place for gathering," She said. "Or maybe a ritual site…"
Ren knelt beside the basin. The stone here was darker, smoothed in places where something had worn it down over time. "Whatever happened down here…it wasn't violent."
Eva looked down at him.
"How can you tell?"
Ren stood to his feet. "There's no blood in the stone."
Then a faint sound reached Eva—a low, melodic tone of wind moving through hollow crystal.
She turned toward the source: a thin, sloping path to the left, leading deeper underground. This path hadn't been carved. It seemed to have been a natural formation. The rocks twisted inward, shaped by water and time, spiraling like the inside of a shell. Eva took careful steps toward it.
"There's…something below us."
"You sure?"
She glanced back at him. "You don't feel it?"
He paused, taking in the wind. He did. The tempo it circulated. The warmth it gave off.
'That's strange…' Ren thought. 'I've never felt a wind like this before.'
He followed Eva as they descended down the narrowing spiral. The light dimmed but never vanished entirely, filtering down through fractured stone like memory through a dream. Moss gave way to wet rock, darker now, veined with faint, glinting crystal. The air thickened—not foul, nor fresh—just as if breathing through soaked cloth. Their footsteps slowed, the sound clearer.
"You were right," Ren whispered. "Something's down here."
His hand drifted instinctively to his belt.
He touched the broken hilt still strapped there, feeling the useless weight.
Eva brushed her hand along the wall. "I can feel it…It's been alone for a very long time."
They rounded the final bend. The chamber below opened into a vast circular hollow field.
At its center stood something that might once have been a tree—but no longer deserved the name. Its trunk rose like a spine forced up through stone, pale and split, with jagged protrusions branching outward like ribs. There were no leaves, nor bark. Just exposed structure, slick and raw, rooted deep into the floor like claws. The stone beneath it was dark. Stained even. But…
At its base, something pulsed—not with light, but with darkness. A slow, uneven expansion and withdrawal, as if the tree itself were breathing in some form of grief.
"It's…" Ren's eyes narrowed. "Is that what's breathing?"
Eva examined it closer.
"No…it's something else."
The wind shifted. A low, dragging breath echoed through the chamber.
From behind the tree, something had moved. The sound was wrong—wet flesh dragging across the stone, bone grinding against itself. And shape emerged from the shadows, massive and misshapen. It crawled at first, forelimbs trembling as it pulled itself forward, then slowly rose into the shape of a wolf. Its form was unmistakable: long body, hunched shoulders, elongated muzzle. But it had been ruined. Ribs jutted visibly through torn, blood-slick skin, some cracked, some entirely exposed. Large sections of flesh were missing, peeled away to reveal yellowed bone and shredded muscle beneath. Its spine rose sharply along its back, vertebrae pressing against the skin as if trying to escape it. One hind leg bent backward at a grotesque angle, the joint swollen and split, bone flashing yellow through red. Its face was worse. The wolf's snout was torn open along one side, teeth exposed in a permanent, crooked snarl. One eye had collapsed into a dark, bleeding socket. The other was clouded, rolling as it struggled to see.
It breathed. The inhale was a rattling drag. The exhale was a tremble of pain.
The wolf's head turned toward them and stared.
Ren held his breath, and so did Eva.
But it didn't. The exhale rolled over them in a single, steady gust. Ren stepped forward without thinking, placing himself between Eva and the creature, one arm half-raised as if to shield it.
That was when it changed. But with the first pounce it made, its body flinched. Its massive formed recoiled, mutilated limbs twitching. Then, it started to shake. Not violently—at first. A tremor, like a ripple under the skin. But it built fast. Its front legs buckled. Its claws scraped at the stone in frantic spasms. And it let out a long, keening whine—high and thin and miserable.
"What's it doing?!" Eva questioned.
Ren couldn't answer, since he had no idea what this beast was doing.
It rolled on the stone, awkward and slow, limbs flailing. Its back slammed against the floor, sending a dull echo through the stone. And then, it began to violently claw at its own face.
"No—" Eva muttered, horror tightening in her throat.
The creature's claws scraped across its ruined eyes, thick ridges tearing loose under its own strength. Crimson blood pooled into the grooves of the floor. It let out a sound that couldn't be described. A plea for help. A scream of pain. A howl of horror. All of them at once.
"I sense it…There's something inside it," Eva said. "It's trying to stop it...Get it out."
The creature slammed its head into the ground repeatedly. As if trying to drive something out. As if trying to break its skull open and spill out whatever haunted it.
Dust and gore rose in clouds from its ravage. The tree began to pulsate harder, the shadows at its roots writhing like smoke in water. And with each pulse, the creature convulsed, trapped in an endless pain it couldn't seem to escape.
"Should we run while—?" Eva asked, stepping back.
Ren didn't answer with words.
His hand wrapped around her wrist, fingers tight enough to hurt, and he pulled her with him. Boots scraped against stone as he dragged her from the chamber without looking back.
'Move!' Ren thought. 'Don't think. Don't look. Get her out of here!'
In front of him, the curve in the stone. The narrow passage they had descended through—
I was gone.
'What?!'
He came to a stop, holding Eva back before she could crash into him. The wall ahead was seamless stone, cold and smooth, as if nothing had ever been there at all.
'That's not possible. We just came from there.'
Ren pressed his palm to the area, and pushed.
Nothing.
'No exit…'
The thought landed like a blade to the heart.
'It closed on us…'
His grip on Eva tightened without him realizing it, causing her to wince.
'It trapped us in here…'
Ren looked back as the wolf collapsed along the roots of the pale tree. Its chest rose and fell in broken sobs. And its blood darkened the stone beneath it, the tree's veins pulsing in return.
'There's...no exit? No entrance? Nowhere to keep moving forward to…' Ren thought.
Ren began to walk toward the self-defeated beast.
'That must mean you're the way out…'