Drew's chest heaved, each breath sharp and shallow, stabbing through her lungs. She could feel Jax trembling beside her—tense, coiled like a spring—but she didn't dare look at him. Not yet. Not when something in the darkness was moving… something that shouldn't exist, yet was crawling, shifting, alive.
Her voice echoed back to her, but it wasn't hers. The whisper she'd heard, the one that had called her name—it rose again, slow, deliberate. It slithered along the walls, wrapping around the room, curling into her skull.
"Drew… follow me…"
She stumbled back, and Jax's hand tightened around hers. The grip was firm, grounding her to reality—or the semblance of it—but every nerve screamed that reality had no hold here.
"Stay close!" he hissed, dragging her toward the far wall. "No sudden movements. Don't make it notice you!"
But the darkness was already noticing.
A scraping, wet sound dragged across the floor behind them. Not soft, not light—heavy. Pressing, deliberate, like claws raking against stone. The ceiling quivered above, and a shadow flickered across it. A shadow that didn't belong to either of them.
Drew froze mid-step. Her pulse pounded so violently she thought the sound would alert it.
Jax's grip on her hand became almost painful. "Move! NOW!"
She obeyed, feet shuffling, heart hammering in sync with the tapping, scraping, crawling that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Then a soft, wet slurp sounded behind her, like something dragging itself along the wall. Drew's stomach lurched. She pressed herself against the cold stone, trying to blend into the darkness, but it wasn't the shadows that terrified her—it was what the shadows were hiding.
Something was breathing.
Not Jax. Not her. Something else. Something ancient.
It exhaled in slow, deliberate bursts, each one carrying the weight of a predator, deep and guttural, reverberating through the stone floor.
Her mind screamed. She needed light. She needed escape. But the door—the only door—was gone. Vanished. As if swallowed by the darkness itself.
Jax's voice cut through her panic, low and urgent. "Drew. We go left. Follow me. Quietly."
They moved. Step by careful step, keeping low, sliding along the wall. Each scrape, each drip of unseen liquid echoed like gunfire in the confined space. Drew could feel the heat of unseen eyes on them, the almost tangible pull of something malicious brushing past her like smoke.
Then a sound that stopped her cold—a whisper, almost right beside her ear:
"Drew…"
She screamed silently in her head, gripping Jax's arm. He stiffened beside her, listening. His jaw tightened.
"I… am… you."
Drew's blood ran cold. Her voice. Her voice was speaking to her. But it wasn't her.
Jax whispered, almost under his breath: "It's mimicking us… it wants to confuse us. Don't respond. Don't. Answer. It."
But the whispering grew louder. Each syllable precise, taunting, carrying her name like a knife twisting inside her skull.
"Follow me… Drew… come… come to me…"
Something shifted ahead, low on the floor. Something wet. Something that left a trail of darkness across the stone, spreading like ink. Drew stumbled back, catching herself on the wall. Jax grabbed her hand again, dragging her forward.
"You're okay," he muttered. "You're here. We're here. Just… stay with me."
But Drew's mind was splitting apart. The whispering was everywhere now—inside her head, around her, under her feet, crawling across the walls. She couldn't distinguish reality from the voice. She couldn't tell where Jax ended and the darkness began.
Suddenly, the floor beneath them shivered. Like a pulse. Slow. Deep. Then another. Then another. The walls began to bend subtly, stretching upward, narrowing the space until the air felt suffocating.
Her breath hitched. Her hand scraped the wall for balance. Something was moving in the corner of her vision. A figure—or several figures—loomed just beyond the edges of perception, always just out of focus. Every time she tried to look directly, they vanished, leaving only the imprint of darkness.
Then she heard it—the first human scream. Not Jax's. Not hers. Someone else, somewhere deeper in the labyrinth. Painful, ragged, echoing. It resonated with the whispers, feeding them, empowering them.
Jax froze. Drew collided with him. "What is it?" she gasped.
"Not… sure… yet," he muttered. "But we have to move. Faster."
The darkness ahead shifted. A faint, dim outline appeared, like the silhouette of a door—or a passage—but it seemed to warp the space around it, twisting light into shadow, shadow into sound.
As they approached, the whispering intensified, now almost a chorus. Drew could hear dozens of voices—or more—calling her name, crying, laughing, screaming. They filled the air, pressing into her ears, pressing into her mind.
She stumbled. One step. Two. A hand shot out from the void ahead and grabbed her shoulder. Not Jax. Something cold, skeletal, yet strong enough to lift her off the ground.
She screamed, kicking, thrashing.
Jax lunged forward, slamming his shoulder into the thing. It shrieked—a sound too high-pitched, too inhuman—and released her. She fell to the floor, coughing, gasping, fighting to breathe.
Jax helped her up, eyes wide, face pale in the dim warped light. "We… we can't stop. Not now."
They moved again. Faster. The distorted hallway twisted before them, stairs appearing where none existed, walls folding into themselves. Every step made the whispers louder, now surrounding them entirely.
Then came the floor.
It collapsed beneath Drew's feet. She fell into darkness, Jax's hand barely brushing hers. She screamed, clawing for something, anything.
She landed hard on cold stone. Pain lanced through her arm. The whispers were deafening now, screaming, chanting, mocking. And something moved above her—something wet and hungry. A shadow curled over her, stretching impossibly long, writhing like a serpent made of smoke and mirrors.
She could see it, now. Its eyes—or what she thought were eyes—glowing gold in the blackness. Its mouth opened. No lips. No teeth. Just darkness, spilling like smoke.
"Drew…" Jax's voice called from above, distant, strained. "Climb—now!"
She scrambled, kicking, pulling herself toward him, but the shadow lashed out. Cold. Sticky. It wrapped around her ankle, dragging her back, pulling her into the black pool that seemed to ooze from the floor itself.
Jax's hand closed over hers. "I've got you!"
She tried to scream, but the shadow clamped over her mouth with icy fingers, pressing, suffocating. The whispers became her own voice again—twisted, mocking, saying things she hadn't thought, hadn't dared to imagine.
"Come to me… come… belong…"
Her mind spun. The shadow pulled harder. She felt herself sliding, losing grip, losing control.
Then Jax's eyes—sharp, furious, human—met hers. He shouted, and his voice cracked the blackness like glass. "NOW, Drew!"
With a final surge, she tore free. Together, they tumbled through a narrow slit in the wall—a door-like opening that had just appeared—and landed in another room.
Drew gasped, looking around. This room was different. Warmer. Brighter. But the air was thick, metallic. Something had been here… something had waited.
And in the center, a figure knelt.
Not moving. Not breathing.
But unmistakably human.
Drew's stomach dropped. She stepped closer.
It wasn't human.
The head was tilted at an impossible angle, eyes wide and empty. The skin was pale, stretched too thin over the skull, and a whisper curled from its lips—her voice.
"Welcome… Drew."
The lights flickered. And in that instant, the walls screamed. The shadows leapt. The figure rose.
Its arms stretched impossibly long. Its voice was hers and every voice she'd ever known.
And then the floor beneath them cracked open.
Not a crack like a fissure—like a mouth. A mouth that yawned, dark and endless, and something inside roared.
Jax grabbed her again. "Hold on!"
They tried to move, tried to run—but the shadows poured out, thick and writhing, curling around their legs. Pulling. Twisting. Whispering. Calling her name.
And Drew realized, in that frozen heartbeat, that whatever this place was… it didn't just want them.
It wanted her.
And it already had.
The last thing she saw before the darkness swallowed them both completely:
Her own eyes, wide and empty, staring back at her from the shadows.
The whispers crescendoed, louder than her own heartbeat, louder than the screams, louder than the world itself:
"You… belong… to me…"
And the room fell silent.
Except for the sound of her own blood, hammering in her ears.