The chapel had always carried a thin scent of wax, dust, and quiet prayer but now, beneath the trembling air, a new smell rose from the widening crack in the floor. Not rot. Not earth. Something colder. Something that felt like the breath of a forgotten cavern opening for the first time since time itself was young.
Survivors pressed against the walls, clutching each other.
Ana sobbed into Elise's sleeve.
Jace's eyes glistened with fear.
Lucas pulled Elizabeth away from the growing fissure, but she resisted not moving forward, not stepping into danger, but rooted where she stood, as if someone beneath the ground held her by the chest.
The sobbing sound rose again soft, trembling, impossibly human. It didn't echo like something monstrous. It quivered like something broken.
"Elizabeth," Lucas whispered, gripping both her arms, "whatever that is whatever it wants you are not answering it."
She closed her eyes. "If I don't… it will tear this chapel apart."
"You don't know that."
"I do."
The fissure split wider stone cracked from the altar to the entrance, slicing the chapel in two like a wound reopening.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
A wooden beam groaned.
Then another.
The survivors began to scream.
Lucas shielded Elizabeth from falling debris as the floor convulsed beneath them. A second pulse exploded through the ground, stronger than before, and the air shook like a drum.
Elizabeth clutched her head with both hands, gasping.
"Lucas it's calling louder."
Lucas held her tightly. "Don't listen. Stay here. Stay with me."
She looked up at him, her breath shaking, eyes shimmering with terror.
"Lucas… I can't shut it out. It's inside the stones. Inside the air. Inside me."
"No." His voice fractured. "You're you. You're not its voice."
"But it remembers me."
The ground throbbed again, and the crack widened so fast Lucas barely pulled her back in time.
A huge chunk of floor dropped into the darkness below.
Ana screamed.
Elise cried out for help.
Jace grabbed onto a pew as it slid toward the widening hole.
Lucas lunged and caught his arm. "Hold on!"
Elizabeth reached for Elise with her other hand, pulling her back from the edge.
The chapel was falling apart around them.
A gust of icy wind burst upward cold enough to sting Lucas's skin. It was not wind from below. It felt more like… breath.
The ancient sobbing rose again.
Elizabeth flinched violently, doubling over as if the sound pierced her directly.
"It's hurting," she whispered, tears sliding down her cheeks. "It's hurting so much."
Lucas grabbed both sides of her face, forcing her to focus on him.
"You don't have to share its pain. Elizabeth look at me. Look at me."
Her eyes met his helpless, terrified, yet stubborn in that way she always held her faith.
"It wants me," she said, voice cracking. "Not them. Not the city. Me."
Another tremor surged through the chapel.
The altar split in half.
Ancient stone rolled aside, revealing a cavity beneath a dark throat descending into a deep, unseen world.
Cold air rushed out.
Ash swirled.
Shadows crawled across the walls as if reaching upward.
Elizabeth whispered, "That's where the voice is."
"No," Lucas snapped. "That's where death is."
But Elizabeth stepped forward again, breath shallow, drawn by something she couldn't see.
Lucas grabbed her wrist. Hard. Desperate.
"You're not leaving me. Ever."
She turned slowly, and her voice trembled with a truth she hated:
"I'm afraid I already am."
The floor lurched.
A beam snapped overhead.
The ceiling dropped a cascade of rubble.
Lucas wrapped his arm around Elizabeth and pushed her behind a pillar, shielding her.
Dust flooded the air, thick and choking.
When the rumbling slowed, Lucas coughed and looked around.
Half the pews had fallen into the fissure.
Debris covered the sanctuary like fallen bones.
"Everyone to the sides!" he shouted. "Stay away from the center!"
Elise helped Ana and Jace to the far wall, toward the stained window that somehow survived earlier blasts. Two other survivors followed, trembling.
Elizabeth tried to stand, but when Lucas helped her, she swayed.
"Slow," he said gently. "Stay with me."
Her voice shook. "Lucas… it's not trying to destroy us. It's begging. It's pleading. It's…"
She swallowed hard.
"…dying."
Lucas stared at her.
Dying?
He wanted to deny it, but the sobbing beneath the chapel the broken, trembling sound did not feel like a predator.
It felt like grief.
Old grief.
Endless grief.
"Elizabeth," he said quietly, "you can't fix the earth."
"No," she whispered. "But I can listen."
A new tremor rolled beneath them, slow and shuddering.
Not violent.
Almost like a… gasp.
Elizabeth pressed a hand to her heart as her breath synced with the tremor, unwillingly, instinctively.
Lucas saw it.
And fear clawed up his spine.
She was aligning with it.
"No," he said, stepping in front of her again. "This ends now. You're not going near that hole."
"But if I don't.."
"You will die."
Her lips parted. "Lucas… if it dies alone down there… the city will collapse."
He froze.
Not because he believed it
but because she believed it.
And somehow, that terrified him more.
Then..
A thin stream of pale light rose from the fissure again.
Faint at first.
Then growing.
Reaching.
As if sensing her presence.
As if searching.
Elizabeth inhaled sharply.
"It's here."
Lucas tightened his grip on her hand.
"I won't let it take you."
"It's not taking me…" she whispered.
The pale light stretched higher, trembling, wavering
"Elizabeth no"
The light stopped an inch from her face.
Lucas pulled her back
but the air thickened, heavy as hands, holding them both in place.
A soft hum filled the chapel
a mournful tone that wasn't sound, yet vibrated through every bone in their bodies.
The survivors began to cry.
Some prayed.
Some simply froze.
Elizabeth's eyes filled with tears as the trembling light brushed her cheek like a fragile fingertip.
"It's showing me," she whispered. "Lucas… it's showing me its wound."
Lucas felt her hand slipping from his grip.
"No. Elizabeth. Don't.."
Her body jerked as a violent image flooded through her mind
so sharp she nearly collapsed.
She gasped.
And for the first time, Lucas heard it.
Not the sobbing.
Not the breath.
But the faintest fragment of a memory
a whispered voice inside the tremor.
He froze.
It wasn't calling her name this time.
It was begging.
Not in words.
Not in any human tongue.
But Elizabeth understood.
She staggered backward as if struck.
Her voice came out broken:
"Lucas… it wants to come up."
Lucas stared at her.
"What?"
She pressed a shaking hand over her heart.
"It wants to rise."
The fissure cracked deeper
a rumble so low it vibrated through every rib in the room.
Lucas grabbed her shoulders.
"If it rises, the entire chapel will collapse."
Elizabeth looked up at him with wide, wet eyes.
"I know."
Lucas's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Then we run."
Elizabeth looked toward the doorway
but something froze her in place.
A new sound.
A new tremor.
From beneath the altar's shadow
from deep inside the fissure
a hand-shaped silhouette of light reached upward.
Elizabeth gasped.
Lucas dragged her back.
But the presence beneath the earth exhaled again, shaking every candle, every broken stone, every breath in the chapel
as the glowing shape slowly rose from the crack.
Not a creature.
Not a body.
Something amorphous.
Something seeking.
Something remembering.
And in a voice trembling with terror and awe, Elizabeth whispered:
"Lucas… it's trying to touch the world."
The fissure ripped wider
and something ancient
finally began
to climb.