Dawn arrived quietly, slipping through the broken ribs of the chapel roof like a tired traveler looking for shelter. The air was colder than yesterday thin, pale, almost translucent. Ash drifted lazily through the beams of morning light, falling like snow that had forgotten how to shine.
Elizabeth woke before Lucas, as she always did. Her knees ached from sleeping on stone, but she rose slowly, brushing dust from her habit. The candle she had kept burning throughout the night had shrunk to a stub, trembling with the last of its strength.
She cupped her hands around the small flame and whispered, "Let today be gentler."
But even as she spoke, the ground gave the faintest pulse beneath her feet soft, rhythmic, like the memory of a heartbeat.
She lowered her gaze.
Not again.
Lucas opened his eyes at the sound of her breath catching. He pushed himself upright, rubbing the stiffness from his shoulders. "It's earlier than usual," he murmured.
Elizabeth nodded. She didn't have to ask what he meant. The tremor. The pulse. The small, regular thrum under the cracked tiles.
"It feels… closer," she whispered.
Lucas reached her side, gently touching her arm. "We can leave today. Head south. The fires haven't reached that far. It's safer."
Elizabeth blinked at him, and even in the dim morning, her eyes looked tired. "But someone is still calling."
Lucas closed his jaw tightly. The word calling unsettled him more than the trembling earth ever did.
He glanced at the floor, at the hairline fractures running like veins across the ancient stones. "Elizabeth," he said slowly, "you don't have to answer something that isn't human."
"I know." Her voice was so soft he almost missed it. "But sorrow doesn't have to be human to be real."
Before he could reply, the chapel door creaked in the windless air.
Both of them froze.
No footsteps had approached.
No survivor wandered near.
And the door heavy, half burned, swollen from last week's rain never moved easily.
Lucas stood, pressing one hand to the violin case. Elizabeth's fingers tightened around the candle.
The door shifted another inch.
A small silhouette appeared in the frame.
"Lucas?" a trembling voice whispered.
Relief washed over him.
"Ana."
The little girl stepped inside, her face streaked with soot, eyes wide and wet. Lucas hurried forward and knelt, holding her shoulders. "You scared us. What's wrong?"
She swallowed hard. "M-Miss Elise sent me. Jace is hurt."
Elizabeth moved instantly. "Where is he?"
"Near the old fountain," Ana said. "He climbed the rubble looking for food. The stones… they moved." She hesitated, then whispered, "Like something pushed them."
Lucas exchanged a look with Elizabeth. Not wind. Not collapse. Not coincidence.
Something else.
He stood quickly. "Lead us."
Elizabeth snuffed her candle, tucking the cold stub into her sleeve, and followed.
The city outside looked like a painting washed in gray. Collapsed homes leaned against each other like grieving family; shattered windows reflected nothing; the sky was a bruised shade of lavender. The three of them moved through the ash that blanketed everything streets, roofs, the bones of buildings.
When they reached the square, the fountain stood like a monument to a world erased. Half of it had crumbled into a pile of broken stone. Elise knelt beside Jace, pressing fabric against the boy's arm.
He winced when Elizabeth approached.
"What happened?" Lucas asked, crouching beside them.
Jace pointed at the rubble. "I stepped on that rock. It moved. Like something breathed under it."
Lucas felt the cold slip down his spine.
"Elise," Elizabeth said gently, "May I?"
Elise nodded, stepping aside. Elizabeth examined Jace's arm it was a clean cut, but deep. She tore a strip from her sleeve and tied it securely.
"It will heal," she murmured. "Just don't climb alone again."
Jace tried to smile, but his eyes darted to the rubble behind them. "Sister… I heard something. Like a hum. Like… like it was sad."
Elizabeth stiffened.
Lucas saw it.
The tremor under the chapel.
The pulse beneath the tiles.
Now… a humming beneath fallen stone.
It was not a coincidence.
He took Elizabeth aside, voice low. "We need to leave. Today. Now."
She looked toward the ruined fountain. "Lucas, I… I think whatever is beneath the city is waking."
"Exactly why we have to go."
She shook her head, eyes distant. "Or why we can't."
Before he could argue, the ground shivered.
Not a quake.
Not violence.
Just a breath slow and heavy.
Ana screamed and threw her arms around Elizabeth's leg. Elise pulled Jace into her arms.
Lucas grabbed Elizabeth's hand. "Stay with me!"
The stones beneath the fountain shifted again. One block slid an inch to the side, grinding against the ground. Dust lifted.
Then the humming started.
A low, mournful vibration.
Almost like a choir singing beneath the earth.
A sound of grief.
Elizabeth's knees buckled. Lucas caught her.
"Eliz..!"
"Shh," she whispered, eyes wide and unfocused. "It's speaking…"
Her voice trembled.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
Lucas held her face. "Look at me. Stay with me."
But her eyes were fixed on the ground, on the fissure that had begun to widen beneath the fountain.
The humming grew louder.
A note of longing.
Of memory.
Of something ancient searching for a witness.
Elizabeth pressed a hand to her chest.
"It knows we're here," she said.
Lucas felt the tremor under his own feet now warm, rhythmic, almost like something alive.
"Elizabeth, please.."
And then she whispered:
"It says my name."
Lucas froze.
"What?"
She swallowed, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
"Lucas… it knows my name."
Before he could answer,
before he could drag her away,
before anyone could breathe.
The ground under the fountain cracked open with a sound like a massive stone inhaling.
A thin beam of warm air rose from the darkness, brushing Elizabeth's face.
She gasped
not in fear
but as if the earth had told her a secret.
Lucas lunged to grab her, but the tremor surged again.
A second breath.
Louder.
Deeper.
Closer.
Elizabeth lifted her head, lips parting in awe and terror.
And with a trembling voice, she whispered:
"Lucas… it's calling me."
Lucas's grip tightened around her arm
but the stone beneath his feet shifted,
the fissure widened,
and a warm gust of air blasted upward from the darkness.
as something ancient finally woke.
—END OF CHAPTER 11—