Vince woke to the sound and light shake of someone calling him. Not loud. Not panicked. Just close.
"Hey… hey, wake up. Can you hear me."
His eyes opened to darkness veined with pale blue light. For a second he thought he was underwater. The world felt heavy and distant, like his body was crushed by a truck. Then the pain arrived – a sharp pulse at the base of his skull that snapped everything into focus.
He pushed himself upright with a groan. Around him, silhouettes shifted. Voices overlapped. Someone was wiping. Eleanor was crouched nearby, one hand hovering awkwardly like she didn't know whether to help him up or give him space.
"You hit hard, she said. "Don't stand too fast."
He ignored her and stood up. The cave tilted. For a moment the glowing walls smeared into streaks of light. He swallowed the nausea and forced himself steady.
A cave.
They were in a cave.
The walls were studded with crystalline veins that glowed faintly, casting long skeletal shadows across eighteen scattered bodies. The air smelled damp and metallic, like rain on hot wires.
Knox staggered to his feet and spun in a slow circle. "How did we get sucked into an abnormally?"
The word hung there.
No one answered.
They all remembered the portal – the rip in the air floating above the street. The screaming crowd. The tension in the bus. The moment the bus had crashed with the abnormally.
No one had ever gone through one and lived.
People who touched the abnomalies turned to ash.
"Are we dead?" A voiced echoed out of the crowd, It was Yasmine.
"We are not dead," Knox said quietly, like he was arguing with himself. "If it was death, it wouldn't feel like a concussion."
That got a weak laugh from someone. It died quickly.
Yvain stepped forward, voice shaking but determined. "Okay, lets not panic. Lets stick together and find a way out."
"Yeah," Theo added, nodding too fast. "There's a path. Look."
A narrow tunnel stretched ahead, sloping gently downward. The glowing stone continued into it like a trail of frozen lightning.
They moved as a cluster. No one wanted to be last, yet no one wanted to lead the way.
The tunnel seemed endless. Footsteps echoed in hollow rhythm. Time wrapped in the in the dark; minutes stretched thin and fragile. Yasmine's breathing grew ragged behind Eleanor.
"What if this isn't the way out?? She whispered. "What if we're just going deeper into this weird place?"
Tony spun on her, irritation flashing, his voice dripping with disdain. "You got a better idea? Do you see any other path or are you suggesting we should have waited at the cave?
Knox abruptly responded, stepping between them. "Calm down, there's no need for us to fight amongst ourselves."
Tony gave Yasmine a withering look as they continued along the path.
They finally reached the end of the tunnel, walking into a vast chamber. A hall carved from black stone. Smooth, ancient. The celling arched out of sight. At the center stood a large circular podium barely raised from the floor, its surface etched with symbols that seemed to crawl when you looked too long.
Theo approached first.
"Careful," Vince warned.
Theo stepped onto the platform.
A beam of light erupted at the center of the podium.
Everyone flinched. The beam flickered, vanished, then reappeared as Theo stepped on the platform again. He looked down, he had stepped on a tile, activating it.
"There's a tile," he said. "I stepped on a tile."
Others crept closer. The podium was ringed with engraved squares, each bearing a different sigil. One by one, curiosity overcame fear. They stepped onto the tiles.
Light stacked at the center of the podium.
Each new beam merged into the column until it became blinding. Eleanor squeezed her eyes shut. The hum grew into a roar inside her skull.
Then the light collapsed inward.
Where the beam had stood, the air tore open. A portal pulsed in the center of the hall.
An abnormally.
Marielle chuckled dryly. "How's that supposed to help us?"
"Maybe it's the way back." Cateline whispered. "Should we step in?" she added out of curiosity.
"Or maybe we touch it and turn into dust," Tony shot back.
No one moved. They all pondered for a while.
Yvain responded "We won't know if we don't try. Does anyone see any other way?"
No one answered. After the awkward silence, he continued "that being said, who will go first?"
Again the room went into an awkward silence with no one making a move. The portal rippled, shrinking slightly.
Harvey stepped forward. He extended his hand and pushed it through the abnormally.
Nothing happened.
He turned, eyes wide. "It's safe—" as he got sucked into the abnormally.
The portal shrank again.
Grant lunged after him.
The opening tightened, getting smaller.
Realization hit like a hammer.
At the rate of the shrinking, only few people would make it through.
A cold chill ran down their spine as they all begin to panic.
Bodies slammed forward. Shouting. Hands grabbing at air and on someone.
Eleanor was shoved from behind and stumbled. She saw faces twist into desperation – friends turning into strangers in the span of a heart beat.
The portal dwindled.
Vince dove. It vanished inches from his fingertips.
Silence crashed down.
Five of them stood in the hall, breathing hard. The rest were gone.
Eleanor stared at the empty space where the portal had been. Her chest felt hollowed out.
Marielle screamed in vexation as the scene replays back in her heard.
"Zach chose himself" he murmured.
They had been together for three years.
Just as she was about to make it through the portal, Zach pushed her out of the way, saving himself.
"If I ever see him again..." Her face still in disbelief.
Silence filled the air
Knox finally breaks the silence.
"Standing here won't find us a way out of this place. Lets look around maybe we could find our way out too."
At that moment the hall trembled.
Stones screamed. The podium cracked open, folding inward to reveal a staircase spiraling into blackness.
They all crept forward to take a peak.
"It's pitch black down there." Tom thought out loud. A little flame glowed on his palm.
Marielle noticed the flame hovering on his palm. He wasn't hurt, he just seemed lost in thoughts.
"What the hell, Tom."
All attention turned towards Tom.
Tom regains consciousness from his thought, noticing the flame he panicked and the flame went off.
"How did you do that." Marielle asked surprisingly.
"I don't know." Tom replied with fear in his voice, "what's happening to me...."
"Its okay." Eleanor whispered, walking close to hit yet weary, trying to comfort him.
Vince noticed the inscriptions and symbols on the tile they had each stood.
He closely observed them. Each tiles had different inscriptions and symbols.
He recognizes some of the symbol but couldn't read the inscriptions.
"What if stepping on the tiles was some kind of an awakening?" He finally voiced out.
The others looked dumbfounded and confused.
"Hear me out." He continued. "What if stepping on the tiles had given us powers, hence the light beams".
He moves to a random tile he had recognized the symbol.
"Here, the symbol in this tile represent super strength."
They all closed in to inspect the symbol.
"You know this, how?" Knox curiously asked.
"Uhmm, I've seen it in a movie and read about them in novels." Vince replied.
"You based your thoughts on a movie and fictional novels?" Marielle scuffed, dismissing his thoughts.
"What were you thinking about when the flame appeared?" Vince askes, as he moves towards Tom.
"Uhmm, I dunno." He hesitated.
"Maybe how we were supposed to see in the dark stairway."
"Try focusing your mind on creating the flame to guide our way down the stairway." Vince whispered to Tom.
Tom relaxed himself, extending his hands with his palms widely open. He lets out an heavy breath.
Slowly the flame ignited on his palm. It grew bigger and more powerful. He didn't know to use or control the power.
He panicked as he couldn't control it, the flame blasted upwards, towards the roof.
They all watched in awe has Vince seemed to have finally proven his theory right.
Powers! they had powers.
The realization spread through the group in stunned silence.
The walls of the chamber started closing in. The blast had triggered something.
As the room grew smaller each second Knox voiced out.
"I guess we have to go down the stairs."
He stammered as he just realized he hadn't been paying attention to anyone's name as he didn't know them and they had just met at the cave. "Hey bro, would you like... lead the way... you know... so we could see where we are headed?"
Tom creates another flame as they rushed down the stairs.
His flame would flicker, grow brighter, become deemer at intervals.
He was learning how to control it. It felt like a rubber band being placed in his palm. He could feel the edges but felt no pain.
He would sometimes loose control and had to blast the flame forward, trying not to hurt anyone.
At the end of the stairway was was an intersection. The right path had a glowing light at the end of the tunnel while the left path was just pitch black darkness leading to the unknown.
"Maybe that's our way out" Knox said laughingly. Smiles written all over their face as they nodded in agreement.
They turned taking the right path.
Knox felt more relaxed and slowly trailed behind the rest.
They heard something fall on the floor behind them.
They all turned back.
It was Knox's body on the floor. His head ripped off. Blood flowing all over.
They looked up to see a figure lurking out of the shadow.
Its skin stretched tight over its muscles like wet leather. Tusk curved inward toward their own skull. Their hands with three fingers and long claws. And their eyes milky white.
They lurked in the shadows, preying on their victim and lunges when no one noticed. They mostly attack in packs of three.
They panicked as the saw another two lurking out.
All except Tom made a run for it, heading toward the other end of the tunnel.
Tom realized he was alone. He tried to blast them with his flame hoping to get a hit then make a run for it. But he could barely make the flame big enough for a blast.
One of the hollow hogs lunges forward, ripping Tom's gut. He falls to the ground as blood rushes out of his stomach.
Vince, Marielle and Eleanor makes it to the end of the tunnel.
"No, No! No!! No!!!" Marielle screamed.
It was a dead end. A wall with glowing light just has they had saw in the cave.
One of the hogs lunges at Vince.
He stretched his hands forward, trying to block the attack as he shrinks back a little, closing his eyes and bracing for impact.
The hollow hog is frozen mid air.
Vince opened his eyes. He noticed the hollow hog frozen in mid air.
As he puts down his hands letting his guard down, the hog falls to the ground and in a split second punches Vince, sending him flying across the room. He stands up, coughing out blood.
His wounds began to heal. It was just flesh wounds.
He turns to realize he is surrounded by two hogs while third hog moved slowly towards Marielle and Eleanor, lurking to see their next movement.
Vince tried fighting his way out but didn't know how to control his new found powers.
An hog grabs hold of his neck with both its hands. Its claws slowly penetrating his neck as it ripped off his head.
Vince body fell lifeless on the ground.
Marielle and Eleanor felt devastated with the feeling of uselessness not knowing how to use theirs powers if they had any.
Eleanor closes her eyes, accepting her faith they were about to meet their end.
Eleanor opens her eyes, the blurnesss slowly fade. They were at the intersection again.
"Maybe that's the way out" Knox said laughingly.
Her stomach dropped.
It felt like deja Vu.
She just had a premonition of was about to happen if they take that path.
"Stop." She gasped. No one listened.
They all nodded in agreement with smiles on their faces as the moved toward the right path.
Eleanor's scream ripped out of her throat "STOP!"
The word cracked through the tunnel. Everyone froze.
Knox turned. "What?"
Her hands shook violently. The image of their death rolled through her mind again, sickeningly vivid.
"That path," she whispered. "We die if we take that path."
Silence fills the air.
Tom's flame flickered more as he was now feeling uneasy.
"How do you know this" Vince asked.
Eleanor looked at the glowing tunnel. At the others. At the future she just witness collapse.
At that moment they felt a dark aura. It felt like they were being watched.