They walked down the dark passage; the descent felt endless, spiralling deeper and deeper into the mountain's frozen heart.
After what seemed like hundreds of steps, they finally arrived at the end, where another door lay.
"Again? Another mechanism to solve?" Derek said in irritation, his voice bouncing off the walls.
But before anyone could respond, before Gareth could even approach it, the door simply opened. It swung inward silently, smoothly, as if it had been waiting for them.
Beyond lay a chamber so dark that even with their lighting, they could barely make out its dimensions. It was large, that much was certain.
The darkness seemed to swallow sound itself, creating a void that felt less like an absence of light and more like a presence.
"Stay together," Gareth said quietly.
They entered slowly, the group clustering closer together as they crossed the threshold. The moment the last person stepped inside, the door behind them slammed shut with a sound like thunder.
