Darkness swallowed Boyd and Ellis the moment they crossed the cave entrance.
There was no gradual transition between sunlight and gloom; it was like passing through an invisible curtain and suddenly plunging into pitch black.
Ellis spun around so quickly that he nearly lost his balance, raising his flashlight to illuminate the path they had come from.
The beam swept across the surface, revealing nothing but a solid wall covered in moss.
The entrance to the forest had disappeared without leaving a trace.
"Dad..." Ellis faltered, panic creeping into his voice. "How... how is this even possible? We just walked in. The exit was right behind us!"
The thought of being trapped beneath tons of rock, without even knowing where they were or how long they could remain there, made Boyd start breathing rapidly.
Still, when he noticed his son's growing desperation, he pushed his own pessimistic thoughts to the back of his mind and once again assumed the posture of a man who needed to have answers, even when he had none.
"Calm down, Ellis." Boyd placed his free hand on his son's shoulder and squeezed slightly, trying to project a sense of security he was far from feeling himself.
"Take a deep breath. We've seen worse things than a disappearing entrance."
Ellis blinked several times, his eyes wide as he searched his father's face for some confirmation that this still made sense.
He found none, but the firmness in Boyd's voice seemed to be enough to keep fear from completely taking over.
"We're going to keep moving," the sheriff decided, pointing his flashlight toward the corridor stretching ahead of them.
"There's gotta be a way out. There always is. Stay close, and don't make a move without telling me."
Time lost all meaning as they advanced through the darkness.
With no windows, clocks, or other points of reference, it was impossible to tell whether they had been walking for thirty minutes or two hours.
The silence also seemed to muffle everything around them, leaving only the sound of their boots crushing small stones and their increasingly heavy breathing.
Then Ellis's flashlight beam slid across the right wall and revealed something different, making him stop abruptly.
"Dad, look at this."
Boyd approached cautiously, directing his light toward the same spot.
The rock had changed. It was no longer rough and uneven like the rest of the cave, but covered in ancient drawings that stretched across a wide section of the wall.
They did not look like primitive scribbles made at random; there was too much detail, too many precise lines.
Whoever had created them was clearly skilled.
"What the hell is this?" Boyd murmured, more to himself than to his son.
They slowly made their way along the wall, examining every detail.
In the first panel, small figures lay on a structure resembling an altar, arranged side by side as if they were part of some ritual.
Around them, larger silhouettes stood with their arms raised in a posture that suggested worship or invocation.
Thick lines of white pigment emerged from the mouths of the smaller figures, rising toward the top of the carving.
Those shapes resembled ghostly outlines being torn from their bodies, as if something invisible were being extracted.
"They look like children." Ellis slowly raised his hand, pointing at one of the smaller figures.
His voice came out low and trembling, almost as if speaking any louder might draw the attention of something hiding in the shadows.
Above the entire scene was an elevated platform, separated from the other figures.
A person dressed in white stood there, watching everything from a distance.
Boyd and Ellis continued, following the sequence of images.
In the next panel, the same figure in white appeared bent over the luminous forms that had escaped from the children's mouths, devouring them as though those spiritual manifestations were some kind of food.
Ellis swallowed hard before looking at the final image.
In it, the larger silhouettes threw the smaller ones into an enormous bonfire, while the same white outlines detached themselves from the charred bodies and rose toward the figure dressed in white, who remained above them, watching the sacrifice from their pedestal.
"I've seen this before," Ellis suddenly said. "Not... not exactly this. But something similar."
"In school, there was a book about ancient civilizations. Some cultures sacrificed children to the gods. Sometimes they were their own children. They believed it would bring rain, good harvests... protection. Things like that."
Boyd lowered his flashlight for a few seconds, disturbed by the possibility that these might not be mere symbolic representations.
The town had already shown him things that defied any rational explanation, and he did not want to discover that those images were records of actual events.
"Let's keep moving."
A few yards ahead, something even more impossible happened.
The cave began to illuminate itself, first with small reddish points of light, then with a warm glow spreading down the corridor.
Ancient torches, fixed in iron brackets driven directly into the stone, were burning as if someone had just passed through and brought them to life.
"Dad, if these torches are burning…" Ellis began, keeping his finger away from the trigger but close enough to react quickly.
"...then someone lit them," the sheriff finished, examining every shadowed corner as his grip tightened around the shotgun. "And that means someone, or something, has been here recently."
From that moment on, the two slowed their pace even further.
Every step was calculated. Every shadow received several seconds of attention before being dismissed.
The hallway finally ended in front of an old, weathered wooden door, looking as if it had been there for centuries.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Ellis murmured, unable to hide the tension.
"We don't have another option. And we don't have anywhere to go back to, either." Boyd adjusted the shotgun against his shoulder and, keeping the weapon ready, reached his other hand toward the iron ring-shaped handle.
The wood gave way under his strength with a prolonged creak, so sharp and painful that it sounded like a scream echoing through the corridor.
Before they could react, a violent wave of dizziness hit them. The ground seemed to vanish beneath their feet, forcing them to close their eyes on instinct.
When they opened them again, a startled clearing of the throat broke the silence.
"Are... are you guys real?"
Boyd raised his gun toward the voice on pure reflex, his heart pounding in his chest.
The sight before him kept his finger hovering over the trigger.
Chained by the wrists to the wall of a circular dungeon lit by torches stood a very old man.
His body seemed reduced to the bare minimum needed to remain alive, nothing but stained skin stretched tightly over sharp bones.
His deeply sunken face was partially hidden behind a long, unkempt gray beard.
"Who are you?" Boyd asked, his authoritative voice echoing through the dungeon. "And who chained you here?"
The old man blinked slowly, as though he needed a few seconds to believe there were actually other people standing before him.
His eyes moved from Boyd to Ellis and then back to the sheriff.
"My name is Martin," he finally replied. "And you? Are you from the town?"
Image
"We are." Boyd lowered the shotgun. "Boyd Stevens. This is my son, Ellis."
Ellis, however, was no longer looking at the old man. He was examining the dungeon, noticing details that had gone unnoticed during the first few seconds.
There was one door at the beginning and another at the far end. Skeletons hung by their arms at various points along the walls.
"Dad..." His voice lost its firmness again. "The door we came through. It's gone."
Boyd turned his head toward where his son was pointing.
Where there had once been a dark wooden door, there was now nothing but a smooth, continuous stone wall, with no cracks or marks suggesting there had ever been an opening.
"I used to think the town was the worst part," Martin remarked, letting out a trace of bitter laughter. "Until I went through the tree."
Boyd frowned, trying to fit that information into everything he already knew about the town. "What are you talking about? What tree?"
Surprise spread across Martin's face. His eyebrows rose as he stared at the two of them. "You didn't come through the tree?"
"No. We came in through the cave."
The old man's expression changed. The last bit of color drained from his face, replaced by a mixture of shock and sorrow.
"That's bad," he murmured. "That's very bad."
Then his attention fell on the shotgun in the sheriff's hands, and something resembling relief appeared on his face. "Thank God you have a gun. Kill me."
"What?"
"Kill me." Martin pulled against the chains, making the metal scrape against the stone. "Please. It's the only way."
A knot formed in Boyd's chest as he imagined what the man must have endured to make such an absurd request.
He stepped forward, preparing to examine the chains, but Ellis instinctively grabbed his arm and shook his head.
"Look at the state he's in, Ellis." Boyd kept his voice low but firm. "We need to help him."
Before his son could argue, the sheriff crouched beside the wall and found a loose stone on the ground.
He gripped it tightly and began striking it against the rusted link holding one of Martin's wrists, testing the metal's strength.
"You have to kill me," Martin insisted, his breathing quickening as he watched Boyd work. "And leave. Quickly. Before they come back."
"Who? Them?" Ellis asked. "The creatures?"
A dry sound escaped Martin's throat, almost a laugh, though there was no humor in it.
The old man shook his head and looked at Ellis with an expression that mixed pity and fear.
"You really think the creatures are the ones who put me here?"
"There are things out there far worse."
A chill ran down Ellis's spine. For a moment, a part of him he would rather not admit existed considered leaving the man chained there, pulling his father away, and escaping through the back door.
Boyd, however, had his attention drawn to a detail on Martin's forearm, partially hidden beneath dirt and aged skin.
A tattoo almost erased by time, but still recognizable enough to catch his interest.
"You were a Marine."
"Semper Fi." The answer came out hoarse, while a faint trace of pride crossed his features.
"Marines don't leave a man behind," Boyd declared. "I help you, you help me."
"If you really want to help me," Martin immediately shot back, "then kill me."
Boyd pretended not to hear him. He continued striking the chain while looking for a way to break it, but a slight tremor ran through his hand.
When Ellis noticed the movement, he took his place.
The sheriff didn't protest and instead began asking more questions.
"How long have you been here?"
"I stopped counting," Martin said. "But it was many years ago."
"You mentioned a tree." Boyd took water from his backpack and helped the old man drink. "What exactly happens when you go through one?"
Martin hesitated, wrestling with himself over how much he should reveal. Finally, he slowly let out his breath.
"There are magical trees in the forest. Some of them have a hollow in them. You enter one and come out somewhere else."
"Sometimes, you get stuck in between. And that's when they get you."
"Who are they?" Boyd insisted.
Martin didn't answer. One of his arms was freed when Ellis managed to break a chain.
Then, before they could even take advantage of the small victory, a distant sound traveled through the dungeon.
Footsteps.
The three of them froze.
A few more noises came from the corridor, accompanied by deep growls.
The little calm Martin still possessed vanished from his face, and he began pulling against the remaining chain with a strength almost impossible for such a debilitated body.
"You need to kill me now," he pleaded. "And get out of here. They're coming."
Primal terror took hold of the chamber. It wasn't simply fear of the unknown, but the instinctive reaction of prey confronted by a predator far beyond its ability to fight.
For the first time since entering the cave, Boyd felt that there might be no strategy capable of saving them.
There was no more time to hesitate.
He raised the shotgun and looked at his son. "Ellis, hold him from the other side. I'll blow this last chain off."
Ellis positioned himself, wrapping one arm around Martin while Boyd adjusted the weapon.
The shot echoed through the dungeon, reverberating off the walls like thunder trapped inside a box.
The link broke, and Martin collapsed forward, only avoiding the stone floor because the two of them managed to catch him.
The old man was practically weightless. His arms hung over their shoulders as they trudged towards the door.
Behind them, the growls were rapidly drawing closer, growing louder and more threatening with every passing second.
Then Martin screamed.
The sound was so sudden that Ellis nearly dropped him.
The old man's body convulsed violently between them as he struggled to break free.
"What's happening, Martin?" Boyd struggled to keep him upright.
"Our time is up."
That was when they noticed.
Beneath Martin's thin, aged skin, small shapes were moving.
They were sinuous and fast, sliding beneath the flesh like worms trapped under translucent fabric.
Ellis froze at the sight, while Boyd barely had time to process what he was seeing.
Martin reacted first.
With a strength that shouldn't have existed in such a malnourished man, he pushed them both against the wall.
The remains of the handcuffs were still attached to Martin's wrists, and the metal tore into Boyd and Ellis's skin, leaving matching cuts along their arms.
"What the hell are you doing?" Boyd gritted out, wincing at the burning pain.
Martin stared at him for one final moment. There was guilt in his eyes, but also a kind of resignation that made Boyd even more uneasy.
"My blood is your blood now," the old man whispered, his voice fading along with his strength. "I'm sorry."
Martin fell backward and collapsed onto the stone floor. His body remained motionless, finally appearing lifeless.
Paralyzed, Boyd stared at his own wound, struggling to understand what had just happened.
Beside him, Ellis was in the same stupor until new growls tore through the corridor.
He grabbed his father's uninjured arm and pulled hard. "Let's go!"
Boyd didn't argue. The two ran as fast as they could, leaving Martin's motionless body behind.
As soon as they went through the doorway, the same vertigo struck them, but this time it was far more intense.
When their senses finally stabilized, Boyd and Ellis were lying on the ground, still inside the cave.
A faint light appeared in the distance, revealing the entrance they had used earlier.
For a few seconds, neither of them moved.
Then Ellis noticed something beneath them.
A symbol had been carved or burned directly into the rock, though it hadn't been there before.
The lines formed a trident, deeply blackened as though they had been drawn by fire itself.
"Please tell me this is all a nightmare," Ellis muttered, pressing a hand against the cut on his arm.
Boyd clutched the matching wound on his own arm and kept his eyes fixed on the symbol.
"I wish I could."
…
At the place where they had disappeared, Martin, the man Boyd believed he had seen die, was kneeling.
His head was bowed, his shoulders hunched, his hands resting on the ground before him in a posture of submission.
Footsteps echoed through the corridor before stopping in front of him.
Martin did not dare raise his head.
"I did what I was told," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Crouching beside the old man with unsettling calm, Donovan hissed without changing his tone.
"Do you think I'm an idiot?"
Martin began to tremble.
"I... I don't understand."
"I saw everything," Donovan continued, his voice carrying a sharp, bored edge as he studied the prisoner. "From the moment you asked them to kill you to the information about the trees."
Martin began banging his forehead against the floor, repeating apologies so quickly that the words became almost incomprehensible.
Donovan simply watched him, showing no sign of impatience or irritation.
"There's no need to worry," he finally said, slowly rising to his feet. "Deep down, I'm a good person. I won't kill you for this failure."
Martin froze.
Those words had a far greater effect than any threat of death could have.
"Take him to the new experiment," Donovan ordered, already walking away.
Martin panicked, tears streaming down his aged face as he begged for any other punishment.
His desperate screams echoed through the corridor, but Donovan showed not even a trace of compassion.
"Don't let him die."
Two figures emerged from the shadows behind him.
They were humanoid and bipedal, but something was deeply wrong with their anatomy.
Their bodies possessed monstrous, canine features, while grotesque necks supported enormous dog-like heads.
Thick saliva dripped from their jaws, producing a faint hiss when it touched the floor.
The creatures grabbed Martin by the arms and began dragging him down the corridor.
The old man continued screaming and pleading, but his cries grew more and more distant until they disappeared completely into the darkness.
Donovan closed his eyes and remained silent, as if he had communicated with someone.
"The mission has been completed successfully."
========================================
Read ahead on Patreon!
[email protected]/Northmann
(Replace the @ with a.)
As always, thank you for your support! 😊