Chapter 13: The Womb of the World
December 30, 2016 – The Depths
The air in the tunnels changed. The stale dampness of the sewers was gradually replaced by a colder, drier chill. The concrete and brick gave way to rough-hewn rock, slick with a primordial moisture. We were moving beneath the old city now, into the foundational bones the modern world had been built upon.
The encounter with the Execution Division had sealed us in a tomb of silence. We spoke only in the most necessary whispers, our footsteps careful and measured. Every distant drip of water was a bootstep, every gust of wind through a distant vent a whispered threat. Ngozi had not spoken a word since the Oasis. She simply held my hand, her grip tight and trusting, a trust I felt I no longer deserved.
Dr. Adisa, paradoxically, seemed to gain a shred of resolve. Perhaps it was the immediacy of the threat, or the grim determination he saw in my mother's eyes. He now led the way, consulting the map with a frantic intensity, his fear sharpening into focus.
"It should be here," he whispered, stopping at a junction where three tunnels met. One, the main drain, continued straight. The other two were smaller, older. He pointed to the left one, a dark maw that sloped downwards. "This is it. The old utility access for the university's geothermal system. It comes up directly beneath the Physics building."
The tunnel was narrow, forcing us into single file. The air grew warmer, humming with a faint, sub-audible vibration that set my teeth on edge. The walls were threaded with thick, insulated pipes and bundles of cables, some of which glowed with a faint, emergency blue light.
The feeling of being watched became a physical pressure. The primal wrongness of the Crimson Hour was here, even in the depths. It was a stain that had seeped through the earth itself.
Then, we saw the first sign.
A patch of wall was... different. The rock was smoother, veined with faint, pulsating crimson lines that resembled capillaries. The air around it shimmered with a heat-haze distortion. As we passed, a low, clicking sound emanated from it, fading as we moved away.
"The barrier is thin here," Adisa breathed, his face pale in the blue light. "This is a stable weak point. They use these to cross over, even outside the Hour."
We pressed on, the tunnel widening into a large, circular chamber—a geothermal control station. And it was here we saw the full, horrifying truth of the Convergence.
The chamber was a nest.
Not of the large, predatory creatures, but of the smaller, scavenger types. Dozens of them, some no larger than cats, skittered across the floor and walls. Their carapaces gleamed in the eerie light, and their too-many eyes reflected the blue and crimson glow like malevolent jewels. In the center of the chamber, a larger, more stable rift shimmered, a vertical tear in reality itself, through which we could see a landscape of swirling, bloody light and jagged, black rock.
And they were feeding.
On the bodies of two Execution Division soldiers, their armor torn open.
We froze, trapped in the entrance. There was no other way through. The creatures had not noticed us yet, absorbed in their grisly feast.
Mama's hand found mine, her grip vise-like. Ngozi buried her face in my side. We were going to die here. We had come so far, only to be butchered in the dark.
Then, Adisa did something I would never have expected. He let out a sharp, guttural cry and slammed his hand against a large, red emergency button on the wall.
A deafening alarm blared through the chamber. Strobing white lights erupted from the ceiling.
The creatures shrieked in unison, a sound of pure agony and confusion. The light and noise were anathema to them. They scrambled, disoriented, some fleeing back through the rift, others scrambling past us in a blind panic, claws scraping on rock, too terrified to even notice the fresh meat we represented.
In less than thirty seconds, the chamber was empty, save for the dead soldiers and the still-shrilling alarm.
Adisa leaned against the wall, panting. "They are sensitive to intense, chaotic energy," he gasped. "It disrupts their connection to this reality."
He had fought back. Not with a weapon, but with knowledge. For the first time, I saw a flicker of the scientist he must have been, not just the terrified prisoner.
We sprinted across the chamber, past the rift, which pulsed with an angry, wounded light. On the other side was a heavy metal door, marked BASEMENT ACCESS - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
It was locked.
From behind us, down the tunnel we had come from, we heard a new sound. Not the skittering of creatures. The steady, purposeful thud of boots. The Execution Division had heard the alarm.
We were trapped between the soldiers and a locked door.
I slammed my shoulder against it. It didn't budge. Mama and I threw our weight against it together. Nothing.
"Stand back," a weak voice said.
Ngozi stood there, holding a keycard she had pulled from the belt of one of the dead soldiers. Her eyes were wide, but her hand was steady.
She swiped it.
A green light. A click.
The door swung open just as the first soldier rounded the corner into the chamber, his rifle raised.
"Stop!"
We plunged through the door into the darkness of the basement, slamming it shut behind us. I found a heavy metal bolt and threw it, sealing us in.
The pounding started immediately. Fists, then the butt of a rifle, hammering against the metal. But the door held.
We were in. We were in the Physics building. The source of the end of the world was somewhere above us.
But we were not alone. The pounding on the door was just one threat. From the darkness of the basement corridors around us, we heard a new, familiar sound. A low, wet, rhythmic tearing.
The creatures were here, too. And they were already feeding.