Into the Abyss

The air was suffocating. Each breath felt like inhaling smoke, thick and cloying, burning the inside of Caelum's lungs. The walls of the labyrinth pulsed like a living thing, the shadows stretching and twisting in unnatural shapes, as if something was watching from beyond the veil of darkness.

His heartbeat pounded in his ears, drowning out all sound except for the ragged breathing of his companions. They were trapped.

Aerin's knuckles were white around her weapon, her eyes darting to every shifting shadow. "This place isn't just alive," she whispered, voice barely audible. "It's feeding off us."

Selene stood rigid, her fingers glowing with barely contained energy. "It's not just the Trial Grounds anymore. This is something else entirely."

Elias didn't respond immediately. He was still, unnervingly so, his gaze fixed ahead where the passage twisted into an unnatural spiral of darkness. He had been like this since the last shift, since the disembodied voice had whispered its warning.

Caelum swallowed hard, gripping the hilt of his blade. They couldn't stay here.

The moment stretched, the silence pressing down on them. Then—

A scream.

Not human. Not beast. Something in between.

It came from above, from below, from all around them. A sound so sharp, so unnatural, that it sent a bolt of agony through Caelum's skull. His vision blurred. The walls trembled violently, the labyrinth contorting in response to the wail.

Then came the hands.

Long, skeletal, and covered in writhing black mist, they burst from the walls, clawing, grasping. Aerin barely managed to react in time, slicing through one as it reached for her throat, only for another to take its place.

"Move!" Elias commanded, shoving Caelum forward. "Don't fight them. RUN!"

They did.

The corridor shifted under their feet as if trying to swallow them whole. The floor cracked, breaking apart into jagged cliffs of nothingness. One misstep, and they would fall into the abyss below.

A hand caught Caelum's ankle. He kicked violently, shaking it off before it could pull him into the darkness. The others were ahead, leaping over broken pieces of the labyrinth, barely avoiding the grasping shadows.

The passage twisted again, and suddenly, they were no longer running forward—but downward.

Gravity twisted, the ground becoming a wall, the walls becoming a ceiling. The Trial Grounds were collapsing in on themselves.

Caelum slammed into the new ground with a grunt, rolling to absorb the impact. Selene landed gracefully beside him, already spinning to help Aerin, who nearly tumbled off the edge. Elias was the last to land, but he barely seemed shaken.

"Where the hell are we?" Aerin gasped, looking around.

The space they had fallen into was wrong. The walls didn't meet at proper angles, instead bending and warping as if drawn by a madman's hand. Floating orbs of deep crimson light hovered in the distance, their glow pulsating in eerie synchronization. The air smelled metallic—like blood.

Selene took a shaky breath. "This isn't just the Trial Grounds anymore."

"No," Elias agreed. "This is something else. Something older."

Caelum stepped forward cautiously, every nerve screaming at him to leave. But there was no exit. The path behind them was gone. The only way was forward.

And then, it appeared.

A figure, cloaked in rags so tattered they barely resembled clothing, stood at the center of the chamber. Its presence alone made Caelum's stomach lurch. The shadows around it twisted unnaturally, as if recoiling from its mere existence.

Then it spoke.

"You tread where you were never meant to walk."

Its voice was layered, as if many voices were speaking at once. The words weren't just heard—they pressed into Caelum's skull, suffocating, demanding acknowledgment.

Aerin lifted her weapon, trying to steady her shaking hands. "Who… who are you?"

The figure tilted its head, the movement disturbingly slow. "I am what remains. I am what the world forgot."

Elias stiffened. "A Forsaken."

Selene inhaled sharply. "That's impossible. The Forsaken were—"

"Erased." The figure finished for her. "And yet, here I stand."

The air crackled. The crimson orbs above them pulsed faster. The figure moved—not stepping, but shifting, like a mirage in the wind.

"You are not meant to be here," the Forsaken whispered. "But you came anyway. And now… you will bear witness."

The walls split open.

The shadows peeled away, revealing a landscape that should not have existed.

A city—or what was left of one. Ruins stretched endlessly beneath an abyssal sky, the remnants of something ancient and terrible. Dark spires jutted from the ground like broken bones, the architecture alien and unknowable.

And at the very center, a monolithic gate.

Caelum couldn't look away. Something inside him, something primal, recognized it.

The Forsaken lifted a skeletal hand toward the gate. "This is what they buried. This is what your ancestors feared."

Elias's voice was barely a whisper. "The Hollow Gate."

Aerin turned to him, eyes wide. "What's beyond it?"

Elias didn't answer. He didn't need to. The dread in his expression said everything.

The Forsaken's many-voiced whisper slithered through the air. "You have seen it now. You cannot unsee it."

The orbs above burst. A shockwave of force slammed into them, knocking Caelum to his knees. The walls trembled again, the city fading, being consumed by shadows.

The Forsaken stepped back, its form dissolving into mist.

"Leave," it whispered, the voice barely audible over the rising cacophony of the collapsing space. "Before you become one of us."

The ground split.

Gravity warped again, the world shattering into fragments of light and darkness.

And then—

Nothing.

Cold silence.

Then, the familiar weight of reality slammed into Caelum's body as he hit solid ground. He gasped, eyes snapping open.

They were back.

The labyrinth was gone. The city was gone. The Forsaken was gone.

Elias was on his knees, hands clenched. Selene and Aerin were panting, their faces pale. None of them spoke.

Because they all knew.

The Trial Grounds had revealed something they were never meant to see.

And the Hollow Gate…

Was waiting.