Story 1250: Dragged Under

It started with a tremor beneath the street.

After the hospital burned, Juno and Shade barely made it out alive, carrying the black box through smoke and sirens. The Code Blue broadcast had been silenced, but the damage was done. Survivors had vanished—or worse, been rewritten.

They headed toward the city’s edge, to the underground aqueducts that once funneled stormwater. A forgotten route out of Blackout.

But Blackout never lets anyone leave quietly.

The first sign was the smell—stagnant water, rotting things that never died fully.

Then came the dragging sounds.

“Tunnel’s close,” Shade muttered, wiping soot from his face. “Stay quiet. Something down here doesn’t like footsteps.”

They reached a grated entrance beneath an old subway stairwell. As Juno pried it open, she glanced at the flood gauge.

Recent spike.

Too recent.

They entered anyway.