London, 1924. The air in the unmapped excavation tunnel was suffocating, thick with coal dust and the metallic scent of fresh soil. Twenty-year-old Arthur, then just a junior surveyor for the Underground rail project, held his trembling kerosene lantern higher.
The blasting crew had fled hours ago. They said they had struck something that "bled darkness."
Arthur stepped over the rubble, his boots crunching in the unnatural silence. At the end of the tunnel, the rock face had collapsed, revealing a cavern made of smooth, unnatural obsidian. It wasn't empty. A pool of pure, undulating shadow rested in the center, drinking the light from Arthur's lantern. It had no shape, but Arthur could feel it looking at him. A primordial hunger.
"Who goes there?" Arthur called out, his voice cracking.
The shadow rippled. It didn't speak, but a chilling thought forced its way into Arthur's mind: Awake... finally awake.
Suddenly, Arthur's foot kicked something in the dirt. It was a shard of pale, silvery metal, seemingly chipped off from an ancient altar buried beneath the rubble. As Arthur picked it up, the jagged edge sliced his palm. The moment his blood touched the cold metal, it flared to life with a blinding, resonant blue light, vibrating with a desperate warning. The shadow in the cavern violently recoiled from the glow, shrieking like tearing metal.
In that terrifying instant, looking at his glowing, blood-stained hand, Arthur realized the world beneath his feet was entirely wrong.