Story 1287: Underground Screams

The wall’s voices didn’t stop.

They grew louder, overlapping, as if the dead were clawing through digital space just to be heard. The ground vibrated beneath their feet, sending up plumes of ash and rust.

Juno stepped back from the monument, her mother’s voice still echoing in her skull.

“Cycle. Return. Deep Vault…”

Axen shouted, “We triggered something. It’s pulling power from a buried conduit!”

Then the earth opened.

The collapse happened fast—an entire section of ground fell inward like a lung exhaling, revealing a gaping shaft beneath the Wall of Heads. Old rails led down into blackness, twisted like a spinal cord, metal groaning from pressure and age.

And rising from that dark… came the screams.

Not human.

Not animal.

Just raw anguish.

H-13 peered over the edge, his scanner flickering. “Audio source is real. Not hallucination. Estimated depth: 500 meters. Likely access point to Subgrid 3-V.”

“Facility 3-V?” Shade asked.

“No. Beneath it.”