Book 3 - Chapter 20
The tunnel swallowed us whole.
Jasper dragged me through the darkness, our boots slapping against stone slick with dust and old blood. Behind us, the echo of the entity’s laughter bounded off the walls like a taunt we couldn’t outrun. The supers howled high, triumphant, eager, and for a heartbeat, I thought the whole tunnel system might collapse under the weight of their pursuit.
“Faster,” Jasper hissed, pulling me around a sharp bend.
“Trying,” I rasped, though my lungs burned and my legs trembled. My power kept flickering, threads sparking at the edges of my vision, offering a future I didn’t want to see.
One thread showed Jasper’s back splitting open under a god’s spear.
Another showed my ankle catching on a rock my fall, his death.
Another showed the entity standing between us and the exit, smiling.
I ripped them all away.
The tunnel lights flickered, then died entirely. For a moment, only the sound of our footsteps existed.
Then…..
Boom.
The ground quaked.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
A wave of heat blasted through the corridor, shoving us forward. Jasper tightened his grip on my hand.
“What is that?” I gasped.
He swallowed. “A bill, apparently.”
The entity’s voice slithered through the dark, disembodied, echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once.
“Oh, don’t look at me,” he chimed sweetly.
“You opened the door. little Key. I’m merely watching the consequences unfold. It’s like dinner theatre with a higher casualty rate.”
“Show yourself,” Jasper snarled.
“Mm. NO.” His tone brightened artificially. “I quite like it here in the acoustics.”
Another tremor ripped through the tunnels, this one stronger. Something massive scraped against stone, a dragging, groaning sound that vibrated straight into my bones.
Japser shoved me behind him. “Whatever it is, Stay behine me Miley”
“I’m not hiding”
“You damn well are”
The threads exploded around me hundreds, thousands, shimmering with futures all scraming at once. Too many outcomes, too many variable. My head throbbed. The tunnel blurred.
Then all the threads snapped to attention.
All pointed backward.
All pointed towards the darkness we had just run from.
A voice not the gods, not the supers, not the entity rose from the black.
It was deeper.
Older.
Hungrier.
And it whispered my name
“Miiiiiiiiley…..”
My blood iced.
“That isn’t him,” I whispered. “That isn’t the entity.”
“No,” the entity said, suddenly close enough that his breath-cold, sharp, wrong-brushed my ear, “it’s the thing that notices when you cut the wrong lines.”
Jasper swung blindly, but his blade met empty air.
The entity’s voice echoed from further down the tunnel now, as if even he didn’t want to be too near whatever approached.
“Oh…Key… you really should stop pruning the future so aggressively. It attracts attention. Remember, every choice has a consequence.”
“What attention?” I snapped.
He sounded delighted. “Oh wonderful curiosity. It’s the first step towards catastrophe.”
The scraping grew louder.
Closer
Heavy
Slow
Deliberate
Jasper backed us up towards a branching path. “We need to move. NOW!”
“No,” the entity said, tone suddenly velvet soft. “You really don’t.”
The air behind us bent inward as if pulled by gravity that wasn’t gravity at all. Threads snapped, popping like sparks, my power flared instinctively, desperate, but for the first time, the threads refused to obey my grasp.
They twisted away like frightened animals.
“Jasper,” I breathed. “I can’t see…. I can’t read what’s coming.”
His hand tightened around mine. “Then I’ll deal with whatever it is”
The entity signed, low and pitiful. “Brave. Pointless. I approve”
A shape emerged from the darkness
Not a god
Not a super
Not the entity
Something older. Something wrong. A massive silhouette dragging itself through the tunnel, warping stone and reality around its bulk. Where it passed, the walls bled light. My power shrieked inside my veins, every thread curling in terror.
Jasper pushed me behind him again. “Run when I tell you.”
“No”
“Miley”
“No!”
The entity exhaled sharply, almost irritated.
“You two are exhausting. Fine. Let me translate the situation.”
He snapped his fingers
The world trembled.
The shape in the darkness paused
Its attention was fixed on me
The entity’s tone turned sugar-sweet and venomously sharp.
“Congratulations, Key. You’ve drawn out something that even the gods forgot they locked away.”
My heat plummeted.
“What….is it?”
“Oh, I’d love to tell you,” He purred, “But you’ll find out in about three seconds.”
The creature inhaled, and the tunnel went ice cold.
Jasper lifted his sword. Trying to shield me with everything he had.
The entity stepped back.
“Good luck, children,” he said brightly. “Try not to die-yet. I’ve grown fond of the entertainment”
The creature roared
A sound that shattered stone
A sound that carried hunger older than the pact
And then
The tunnel behind us collapsed
The exit is sealed.
Light died.
And something moved in the dark
Very close
Very hungry.