The fissure glowed like a wound of pale fire, its trembling light rising in thin, wavering strands almost too delicate to belong to something ancient. The chapel felt smaller, shrinking under the weight of a presence that carried both sorrow and hunger, like grief so deep it learned to breathe on its own.
Lucas dragged Elizabeth back until her shoulders touched the cracked wall beside him. Her breath came in short, shaken bursts. Not from fear but from recognition.
The glowing hand-like shape rose a little higher from the fissure, not solid, not fluid, but something in between. A silhouette without form. A memory pretending to be a shape.
Elizabeth's lips parted.
"It's trying to understand us."
Lucas shook his head fiercely. "It's reaching for you."
"No…" She pressed a shaking palm over her heart. "It's reaching for… for the surface."
The chapel floor trembled beneath them, vibrating with a low, throaty hum that felt like mourning. Like something buried too long was trying to speak for the first time.
Survivors huddled against the back walls, their faces pale, their hands over their ears. Some prayed, their voices drowned by the rumbling. Others sobbed. Jace clung to Elise's skirt, trying to be brave and failing.
Another pulse surged upward
not violent, but heavy as regret.
Lucas braced himself, pulling Elizabeth further away from the widening fissure.
But Elizabeth took a small step forward anyway almost unconsciously.
Lucas caught her wrist sharply.
"Elizabeth, STOP."
She froze, breath catching.
"I I didn't mean to move."
"You don't have to," Lucas said, voice tight. "It's pulling you."
She met his eyes scared, guilty.
"I know."
The glowing silhouette changed shape suddenly fingers dissolving, stretching, reforming into something that resembled wings, then collapsing again. Lucas felt bile rise in his throat.
"It's not alive," he muttered, as if trying to convince himself. "It's… it's some kind of echo. A reflection. A mistake."
Elizabeth shook her head. "It's alive, Lucas. Just… not the way we understand life."
The fissure brightened again.
A gentle chime rang out like a bell submerged in water.
The survivors cried out.
Elizabeth flinched. "It's trying to speak."
Lucas stepped in front of her again, shielding her. "Well, we're not listening."
But Elizabeth whispered, "I already am."
The glowing shape flickered, responding as if it heard her.
"Stop talking to it," Lucas hissed. "Please."
Elizabeth pressed her lips together.
"I'm not speaking. I'm hearing."
Lucas's stomach twisted.
"How?"
She took a trembling breath.
"Because it's not using words. It's using feeling."
"Elizabeth.."
"You don't understand," she said, voice cracking. "It's been alone for so long, Lucas. So, so long… buried, waiting, hurting. And now now it can finally reach someone."
Lucas ran a shaking hand through his hair. "And unfortunately, that someone is you."
Another pulse shuddered up through the floorboards, making the chapel groan. A pew tipped over and crashed, sending dust spiraling into the air.
Lucas shielded Elizabeth as debris fell around them.
The glowing shape rose higher now a full column of light reaching several feet above the fissure. The color shifted from pale white to a muted gold, as though the entitiy had discovered sunset and was trying to imitate it.
Elizabeth stared in awe.
"That's… beautiful."
Lucas tightened his hold on her arm.
"That's dangerous."
She didn't look away.
"It's remembering the sky."
Lucas froze.
"What did you say?"
Elizabeth lifted a trembling hand to her temple. "It remembers what light felt like. What warmth felt like. What the world above used to be."
"And how would you know that?" Lucas demanded.
Elizabeth's voice softened, hollow with awe. "Because it's showing me."
The ground shook.
A deep groan echoed from the fissure
not hostile.
Not monstrous.
But unbearably sad.
The glowing column twisted, curling like smoke reaching for a distant sun. The color dimmed, flickered
like a heartbeat growing weaker.
Elizabeth gasped, doubling over.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"It's fading."
Lucas held her tightly. "Good. Let it fade. Let it go."
"No," Elizabeth whispered in anguish. "It's dying."
The word hung in the air like a curse.
The survivors behind them trembled.
Lucas stared at her. "Elizabeth… that thing under the city is not alive in any way that concerns us."
"It is alive," she insisted desperately. "It feels pain. It feels isolation. It's been trapped for.."
Her voice broke.
"For centuries."
"How do you know that?"
Her eyes fluttered, unfocused again. "It showed me the dark. The weight. The layers of stone pressing down on it. The tremors weren't attacks they were its attempts to breathe. To rise."
Lucas's throat went dry.
Elizabeth lifted her gaze to the glowing shape. "It's begging. Lucas… it's begging for help."
Another tremor jolted the chapel, causing part of the ceiling to collapse near the altar. Dust billowed through the room. Survivors screamed.
Lucas pulled Elizabeth down behind a pillar as stones crashed around them.
When the rumbling faded, Lucas grabbed her shoulders again.
"Elizabeth listen to me. You are not its savior."
She swallowed.
"You don't understand.."
"I DO understand," Lucas snapped, voice cracking. "You want to help. You always want to help. But this… this isn't a wounded stranger. It's an ancient force under the ground."
She shook her head desperately. "It's a consciousness. Not a monster."
"Consciousness doesn't mean safe!"
"Safe isn't what it wants," she whispered.
"It wants to not be alone."
Another chime rang out louder this time. The glowing column pulsed as if calling to her. Shadows rippled across the walls.
Elizabeth took a step forward.
Lucas grabbed her again, voice shaking with fear and fury.
"No. No more steps. You stay with me."
She looked at him really looked and her face crumpled.
"I don't want to go. But it… it keeps following my heartbeat."
Lucas's expression hollowed. "What?"
Her hand trembled toward her chest.
"Our hearts… are syncing."
The glowing column flared
bright, blinding for a moment
then shrank.
Not defeated.
Not gone.
But retreating.
Gathering.
Preparing.
Elizabeth whispered, "It's trying to rise again."
Lucas's pulse spiked. "Then we run."
Elizabeth turned to him fear and resignation mingling in her eyes.
"We can't outrun something that lives beneath the entire city."
The column of light suddenly snapped downward, collapsing like a curtain of gold being pulled back into darkness.
Silence.
Stillness.
Then.
A slow, horrifying sound rolled beneath them:
A deep inhale.
Elizabeth's breath hitched. "Lucas…"
Lucas tightened his arms around her.
The fissure widened one final time
and something enormous began to push upward from the depths, its shape unseen, but its presence shaking every beam and bone in the chapel.
Elizabeth choked on a sob.
"It's coming up."
Lucas dragged her backward, but the air thickened
pressure crushing down on them
as a single, trembling whisper rose from the dark.
Elizabeth…
The chapel lights died.
The ground split wider
and something ancient
finally
broke the surface.