The darkness swallowed everything but the sound.
I moved away from the desperate shuffle of feet heading toward the green lights, my hands stretched and my fingers brushed against the damp stone. I followed the soft weep, Kira's distinctive half hiccup that I'd heard during countless nights in the dormitory when she thought everyone was asleep.
"Kira?" I whispered, my voice barely audible over the panicked murmurs of the others.
I started walking towards the cries I heard in the darkness. Then, a faint glow materialized ahead, not the sickly green of the distant lights, but a pale, organic luminescence. Moss stuck to the walls, giving off just enough light to transform total blindness into near blindness.
In that dim glow, the narrow walls of the cave revealed themselves. Not a room, but a passageway, descending into the earth.
I kept moving forward, following the sporadic cluster of glowing moss, until the passageway opened slightly into a small opening. There, leaned against a ledge, was a familiar silhouette.
Kira's shoulders shook following the pace of her silent sobs, her breath coming in a random rhythm. She didn't look up when I approached, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees.
I crouched beside her, my heart hammering against my ribs. This close, I could smell the soap we all used in the showers, a reminder of how recently we were still just workers instead of prey.
"Hey." I said, the word feeling utterly inadequate.
Kira lifted her chin, her face barely visible in the moss light. "I can hear them." she whispered, her voice tight with fear. "Something's out there. Waiting."
"Yeah." I nodded, settling beside her against the stone. "Probably lots of somethings."
"We're going to die." She stated it as a simple fact, the way we used to announce warehouse shipments.
"Probably." I agreed. I pulled the yo-yo from my pocket, surprised it had made the journey. Its green light created a tiny beacon between us.
We sat in silence for a moment, the distant sounds of panic echoing down the passageway.
"I got something." Kira said finally, uncurling slightly. "An ability. I don't think it can save us, but..." She extended her palm toward a crack in the stone floor. Her brow furrowed in concentration.
A thin blade of grass, impossibly bright against the dark stone, pushed up through the crack. It grew slowly at first, then faster, reaching toward Kira's palm as if drawn by magnetic force. Within seconds, it was as tall as her finger, a vibrant green spear in a world of yellow and black.
"I can make plants grow." She touched the grass with her fingertip, and it bent gently toward her. "And kind of feel water."
I stared at the grass, watching it sway slightly in the air. "Two things is better than one, cool."
"What about you?"
My mouth twisted into a grimace. "I can switch things. Move them from one place to another." I picked up a pebble from the ground, then spotted a small mountain of sand near Kira.
The hissing returned, and I felt again like I was using something from within. I focused on the pebble and the pile of sand. Switch.
The pebble vanished from my fingers and appeared on the ground with a soft click. At the same moment, a small pile of sand materialized in my palm.
"I guess we didn't get the extra moist ability after all." I said. "Bummer."
Kira's lips twitched, the ghost of a smile breaking through her fear. "Maybe next time."
"Yeah, if we live that long." I watched the sand drift from my palm back to the ground. "So far the System has rewarded your gardening skills with grass growing, and my box moving with... pebble moving." I shook my head. "At least Ember got fire."
"And…" Kira's voice softened. "What do we do now?"
Before I could answer, a sound traveled through the rock beneath us, a low, vibrating growl that didn't come from any human throat. It resonated through the stone, up through our bodies, making my teeth tremble, and my hair stand.
Kira's eyes widened, her momentary calm shattered. My hand clenched into a fist around my yo-yo, the metal edges digging into my palm.
The growl came again, closer now, accompanied by a wet, slithering sound from the direction of the green lights.
"That's our answer." I whispered, rising slowly to my feet. I reached down, offering my hand to Kira. "We run."
She grabbed my hand, her fingers cold and trembling. "Where? The lights—"
"Are a trap." I finished. "Here on the outside, you can't trust your senses, only your gut."
Another growl, multiple voices now, a chorus of hunger. The air grew heavy with a sour, metallic smell that made my throat tense.
We moved together toward the narrow passage opposite from where I had entered. It descended at a steep angle, the glowing moss was thicker here, illuminating a tight opening that twisted down into deeper darkness.
"We don't know what's down there." Kira panted, hesitating.
A screech tore through the darkness behind us, followed by human screams. The sounds of tearing, of wet impact, of terror given voice.
"We know what's up here." I countered, already stepping onto the downward slope.
The passage narrowed further, forcing us to turn sideways to squeeze through in places. The moss grew brighter the deeper we went, casting our shadows against the walls. Our breath came in fast gasps, partly from physical effort, partly from fear.
Behind us, the echo of screams continued, growing more desperate, then abruptly cutting off one by one.
"Why aren't they following us?" Kira asked, pressing herself against the wall to navigate a particularly tight squeeze.
I didn't answer immediately, my mind racing. The green lights were obviously attracting most of the exiles. But this passage was here, open, accessible. Another trap?
"Maybe they're too big?" I offered uncertain, not believing it myself.
The passage suddenly opened into a larger space, though the only exit appeared to be the way we had come. A dead end. The moss here covered the walls in intricate patterns, giving off enough light to see clearly.
In the very center of this cavern, its surface perfectly black and absorbing all the light, began the lake. It cut the cavern in two, a silent, dark mirror laid upon the glowing stone.
And on the other side, across that motionless black water, the cavern wall was filled with holes. Dozens of them. Dark tunnels and archways, some small, some large, leading away into the deeper rock. A maze of possible exits, of possible paths forward.
Kira sank to her knees at the edge of the chamber, breathing hard. "Now what?"
I approached the lake cautiously. The surface was perfectly smooth, reflecting the moss light like a mirror. I couldn't tell how deep it went.
A new sound reached us, different from the growls and screeches above. A rhythmic clicking, like many legs on stone, coming from the passage we had just traversed.
"Something's coming." Kira whispered.