Falling again should've felt familiar by now, but this time it was nothing like the first. There was no wind rushing past me. No scrape of roots or rocks. No sense of dropping through air.
It felt like sinking.
The darkness wasn't empty. It pressed against my skin like water without the wetness, thick and heavy, slowing my movement even as I dropped. My arms floated beside me instead of flailing. My hair lifted around my face as though I were descending through a deep lake.
Then, all at once—
I hit ground.
The impact stole my breath. The stone beneath me wasn't jagged like the last cavern. It was smooth, warm, and faintly humming under my hands. I pushed up slowly, my body trembling, my heartbeat thundering in my ears.
For a long moment, I couldn't see anything.
The dark down here felt alive.
I blinked several times, waiting for my eyes to adjust, but they didn't. Instead, something else shifted in the space around me—a soft, pulsing glow grew under the stone near my knees. Like the ground itself was answering.
The light spread in thin veins across the floor, forming lines—no, patterns. Spirals. Curves. Symbols. The same shapes carved into the arch above.
The ones that reacted when the creature tried to touch me.
I swallowed, my voice barely a whisper. "Hello?"
My words faded like smoke into the dark. No echo. No return sound. Nothing.
I pushed myself upright. My legs shook, but they held. The pulsing light brightened, spilling across the cavern in slow waves, revealing a massive chamber around me. The ceiling arched so high it vanished into shadow. The walls glistened with moisture, and smooth, carved markings covered every inch of stone.
The place didn't feel deserted.
It felt waiting.
A soft sound reached me—a faint creaking, like something settling in the dark. I spun around quickly, heart hammering. I expected the eyeless creature to drop from the ceiling again.
But nothing moved.
The sound came from the stone.
The floor shifted under my feet like a heartbeat.
I backed up. "Okay… that's not normal."
A thin line of light formed ahead of me—straight, deliberate, leading deeper into the chamber. It wasn't random. It wasn't leaking from anywhere. It was drawing itself.
The Ridge was showing me a path.
Not good.
Not even a little good.
But staying still felt worse.
I stepped forward, each footstep echoing softly on the humming stone. The glowing path spread wider with every step, guiding me toward a raised platform made of the same smooth, warm stone.
A low hum grew louder as I approached. It wasn't mechanical. It wasn't natural. It felt like a living thing breathing under the surface.
At the edge of the platform, I stopped short.
Something lay in the center.
A shape.
A person.
My breath caught. "Addison?"
No answer.
I stepped closer—slowly, heart pounding in my throat.
It wasn't Addison.
A figure lay sprawled on the stone slab, long hair covering the face, limbs loose and still. The clothes were older than anything I'd ever seen—linen, torn and frayed, stained dark in places I didn't want to look at. Bones pressed against thin skin. The body looked starved. Forgotten. Preserved strangely well, like time hadn't reached it.
I whispered, "Who are you?"
The cavern responded with a low vibration.
The figure didn't move.
But something else did.
The air above the body shimmered.
Then lifted.
A shape—thin, white, almost translucent—rose like smoke peeling off the stone. It hovered, turning slowly in the air. Its form wasn't solid. It twisted like a veil in wind. But at its center, faintly, I saw the shape of a face.
Not a creature.
Not the watcher.
Not the hunter.
A person.
A woman.
Her eyes—faint pale lights—looked at me.
My breath caught. "You're… a spirit?"
The figure drifted closer, its presence sharp and cold, like stepping into winter. My skin prickled. I stepped back instinctively, but the figure glided forward—slow, patient, curious.
Its voice slid into the air in a whisper so soft I barely recognized it as words.
"Blood… of mine."
I froze. "What?"
The figure reached toward me. I flinched, but it didn't touch me. It hovered close enough for the cold to bite.
"The first pact… broken."
My knees weakened. "I don't understand."
The spirit's form flickered, glitching between clarity and smoke. The face shifted—old, young, unfamiliar, then settling on a single shape again.
"They hid you," it whispered. "Hid the last of the line."
My voice cracked. "What line?"
The spirit's eyes brightened, glowing through the dark.
"Mine."
My pulse stopped.
"Addison said the pact was tied to blood," I whispered. "To a family line."
The spirit drifted closer until its face hovered inches from mine.
"You… are the key they feared."
My body went cold.
"Feared?" I repeated. "Why?"
The cavern answered with another deep rumble. Dust drifted from the ceiling. The stone pulsed again under my feet.
The spirit flickered violently, its form unraveling in thin streaks of white light.
"It wakes."
Her voice cracked with urgency.
"Go."
I stumbled back. "Where? I don't know where the exit is—"
A roar cut through the cavern, distant but unmistakable.
The hunter.
The sound rattled the stone walls, echoing again and again, growing louder with every bounce.
My heart leapt to my throat. "It's coming down here?"
The spirit dissolved for a moment, then reformed in a burst of cold light.
"It follows the marked."
"I know," I whispered. "Trust me, I know."
The spirit lifted an arm and pointed toward the far wall where no path existed. Just solid stone.
I shook my head. "I can't walk through that."
The stone answered with a crack.
A vertical line split down the center of the wall, light pouring through the seam. The rock groaned as it moved, edges parting slowly until a dark tunnel appeared behind it.
A way out.
Or a deeper trap.
Hard to tell at this point.
The spirit's voice shook the air.
"Run."
I didn't argue.
I bolted toward the opening, feet pounding against the glowing stone. Behind me, the chamber roared again. The hunter's sound was closer—too close.
I sprinted into the tunnel as the wall began sliding shut behind me. The crack narrowed. The light dimmed.
Halfway through, I turned back.
The spirit stood staring after me, her flickering form trembling like a flame in wind.
Then something huge moved in the shadows behind her.
A shape too large for its space.
Eyes burning.
Teeth glinting.
The hunter.
The spirit lifted a hand toward me as if in warning.
The wall slammed shut.
Darkness swallowed everything.
My breath caught.
Then—
Footsteps echoed in the pitch black ahead of me.
Slow. Steady.
Not the hunter.
Not Addison.
Human.
A familiar voice spoke softly in the tunnel—
"Finally found you."
John.
But his tone wasn't normal.
And he wasn't alone.