Silence sat between them like a third presence heavy and suffocating
Mattias didn't answer right away. His eyes flicked toward Manu who was grinning again that same grin that made he had just moments before while watching me get torn apart .
"A temporary alliance?" Mattias repeated flatly. "You make it sound like I have a choice."
Manu chuckled lowly, spreading his arms in mock innocence. "Oh, you always have a choice, half-breed ,you can say no and I can just trap you here till you give up on living only to not ever die,a fair trade, No?"
Mattias tilted his head the black goo crawling lazily up his arm before melting back into his skin "You talk too much for someone who could've done that already."
That actually made Manu pause for half a second then he laughed with the sound sharp enough to echo across the still air.
"your quite amusing," Manu said his grin widening.
Mattias didn't smile "You said alliance. What's the catch?"
Manu crouched again, eyes glinting gold as the air began to shift the darkness around them quivered, taking vague shapes walls, shadows, echoes of movement in the distance could be heard.
"The catch," Manu said softly, "is that I don't lie and right now" he look in the direction of that movements."If we both don't get out of here neither of us will live to dread the next day"
Mattias felt a shiver run down his spine studied him for a long, long moment "You're making this sound like we are trapped."
"Because we are," Manu said with a grin "you just don't see the bars yet."
Mattias frowned "Bars I can't see?"
Manu's grin didn't waver, but his tone changed It was still smooth still playful but underneath there was a tremor a thread of unease that didn't belong.
Manu: "You think death is the worst thing that can happen to you, don't you?"
Mattias: "It usually is."
Manu: "Then you will live longer enough to come to appreciate death."
The air around them shifted It wasn't sound, not exactly it was a step like thousands in one step the black floor rippled under their feet the same way it had moments before… but heavier and denser. As if something enormous had just noticed them.
Mattias glanced around calm but alert.
Mattias: "You mean the goo?"
Manu: "No. I mean this hell it isn't just empty ,that by now you realise that this place is not empty but have you even throught of why you have met so few horrors up to now."
A deep ,low hum began to rise from below .Not mechanical not alive either.
Manu's grin faltered for the first time since Mattias met him.
Manu: "If you value that borrowed existence of yours… walk. Don't run. Don't speak, don't even breath loud ,just follow my steps."
Mattias hesitated staring at him.
Mattias: "You're serious."
Manu: "Oh, good he can tell tone you must what a cookie for that get off your ass now move!"
The hum sharpened into a frequency that made Mattias's teeth ache. The ground beneath him shifted like liquid and suddenly, the air that had felt still and weightless now pressed in heavy, choking.
Mattias's black goo wouldn't save him here it would instead trap him.
He could feel it. Whatever stirred beneath them wasn't something that killed but consumed whole.