The Descent into Hollow Earth

The subway tunnel swallowed us whole.

But it wasn't the same tunnel anymore.

Not really.

It had changed—or maybe we had.

We weren't running through the remnants of a city anymore, not the decaying bones of civilization buried beneath layers of rubble and war. We were somewhere older, somewhere that had been waiting beneath the surface long before the streets above had ever been paved.

I could feel it.

A weight pressing down on my chest.

The air was thicker now, dense like something unseen had soaked into it, curling around my skin, winding into my lungs, settling into the marrow of my bones.

And the silence—

It was the kind of silence that wasn't just an absence of sound.

It was active.

Listening.

Waiting.

And it wasn't empty.

System Update: