The shadows moved with them.

Drifting through the dark like ghosts returned from the grave—Luke, Eralin, and Caelan, a fractured pack with fading strength, and a fragile but rekindled bond.

Their path curved wide through the black corridors of the Center, until finally, they reached the crate again.

It loomed from the dark like a monument to death—wooden, massive, reeking. Its corners were streaked in dried blood and black ichor, smears left behind by the thing Luke had butchered.

The open side still hung low like a mouth agape, light from within barely flickering—a dying flame trapped inside a coffin.

The stench hit them harder this time.

Rotting meat. Sweat. Metallic tang. Wet fur. Old blood.

Luke coughed once, caught between the sting of the scent and the ache in his torn shoulder.

 "Let's make this quick," he muttered, voice hoarse.

Caelan gave a nod and climbed inside first.

Inside the 'Box' that was more like a shed.

The interior was tighter than they remembered. Not a box. A cabin. A cage. A panic room.

Lining the walls were racks of weaponry—machetes of rusted metal, sharpened rebar spears, and hand-axes wrapped in bloodstained fabric. Several cracked wooden shields lay stacked in the corner. In the opposite side, pouches—water, nutrient paste, sealed bricks of bread—all marked with no labels, only red symbols drawn in what looked like finger paint… or blood.

Caelan's eyes moved fast. He reached for what they needed:

– Two blades.

– A satchel of water.

– One solid-looking axe with a stone blade.

– A roll of nutrient paste that smelled vaguely of damp flour and wet dog.

Climbing out, he handed Eralin a longer dagger—nearly the length of her forearm.

 "Better weight," he said. "Sharper, too."

Then, from his belt, he unwrapped a scrap of dirty cloth he'd torn from a corpse earlier—the only clean section left untouched by rot.

He handed it to Luke.

 "We need to stop the bleeding. You won't last an hour like that."

Luke sat near the edge of the 'box'

Eralin knelt beside him, eyes focused, jaw set.

The bandana around his shoulder had hardened with dried blood—dark, stiff, like cracked bark under pressure.

She peeled it away gently. Luke bit down on his own sleeve.

 Ssssshhhh...

The hiss of pain escaped anyway.

 "Ughhhh—"

His vision blurred momentarily.

Caelan turned away, keeping guard, gripping the axe loosely but ready.

Eralin poured clean water over the wound. Luke nearly buckled, but she steadied him with a hand to his chest, then wound the clean cloth tight and firm, her hands methodical and quick.

 "It'll hold," she whispered.

Luke gave a sharp nod and stood—wobbling, but not falling.

Luke the said out of concern for their health.

 "Let's take care of ourselves first," Luke rasped. "Come, eat."

No one argued.

In the middle of this darkness, in the bowels of a living nightmare, they sat and broke bread.

They devoured it like animals—fingers trembling, water trickling down their chins, crumbs sticking to sweat. It wasn't food. It was life. And it vanished far too fast.

 Bite. Chew. Gulp. Repeat.

It felt endless and instant all at once.

 "This is enough," Caelan finally said. "We save the rest… if they're still alive."

He swallowed hard, eyes cast into the black corridor beyond.

His stomach still growled, but bloating now would dull the body.

 Slower reactions meant a faster death.

Then—he stood.

Caelan moved toward the corpse of The Veil.

It still lay there, twisted and riddled with holes, a beast with purple-gray skin like loose cloth, and claws made of children's fingers fused into blades.

Without a word, Caelan began his work.

His hands moved with grim precision—

mercenary instincts from a lifetime ago, scraping, slicing, skinning.

The creature's hide came off like wet leather, its innards slopping to the ground with thick, sticky plops.

 Schllllt.

Splkkk.

Thckk.

He used its sticky black guts, finding strands that gleamed like silk and stuck like tar. The consistency of spiderwebs, but denser—more elastic.

With those, he tied the hide into three makeshift sacks—dripping, pulsing faintly, and smelling like a butcher's floor on a hot day.

He handed one to Luke, one to Eralin.

Each bag held small knives, a few sealed waters, and some wrapped nutrient bars in waterproof casing.

They did not pack the bread.

 "Blood contamination," Luke said aloud. "No point eating if it kills us slower."

They all nodded.

Luke hoisted the bag over his good shoulder.

 "Alright," he said, his voice low but clear. "We find the others. One by one."

Eralin didn't speak. Just adjusted her grip on the dagger and nodded once.

Caelan gave a silent thumbs-up, face unreadable.

Together, they vanished into the dark again—

—this time better armed, better fed, and grimly determined.

But no safer.

The Center still breathed around them.

Walls pulsed with damp air. Distant screeches bled through corridors like echoes from another world.

And beyond every twist of stone—

Their teammates waiting...waiting for 

salvation 

-__

The three of them moved like ghosts—Luke, Eralin, and Caelan—slipping through corridors where death lingered like dust.

They didn't walk in straight lines.

They curved. Circled. Evaded.

Luke led them in crescent paths, deliberately avoiding narrow halls or places where moans echoed too cleanly, or the wet snap of bone meant a beast was feeding.

They passed a broken tunnel where 

something massive chewed on a still-twitching body—its spine bent backward like a snapped tree. The creature's back heaved and rippled with breath.

They turned around.

No sound.

No confrontation.

Just silence.

And movement.

---

Caelan moved with sharp eyes. He knew what to look for: makeshift weapons discarded by the dead.

—A jagged kitchen knife.

—A cracked but sharpened chisel.

—An iron pipe with nails driven through one end.

He grabbed what he could, stuffing them into the dripping sack he'd made from the Veil's flesh.

 "Blades first," he whispered. "Food's worthless if you die holding it."

Eralin collected essentials with surgical efficiency.

—Two water pouches wedged in a crack.

—A wrapped square of dried protein under a half-burnt corpse.

—Three flint stones, likely unnoticed.

She moved silently, pausing now and then to listen—to everything.

A breath. A click. A scraping sound.

Any of it could mean death.

---

Walking around they noticed one thing that felt normal now.

All around them: bodies.

Some were whole. Some weren't.

One girl had a spear through her chest—her eyes wide open, mouth locked in a silent scream.

Another had been peeled, her skin hung like a curtain on a rusted pipe. Her face still clung to the skull beneath.

They stepped over entrails like vines.

Luke said nothing.

There was nothing to say.

Then—movement.

A flicker behind a support beam.

Luke signaled a halt.

Caelan raised a weapon.

Eralin crept forward—

Then stopped.

A boy.

Pale.

Thin.

Gray hair matted with blood.

He held a bent crowbar, unshaken as if nothing happened. 

"...Gray," Luke said quietly. "It's us. You're safe."

The boy didn't speak. Didn't blink. Just nodded.

Then moved toward them—slowly, like a deer expecting to be shot.

His hands were caked in dried blood.

He fell into step behind them like a silent 

ghost.

Luke didn't ask what he'd been through.

But the look in his eyes told him everything.

They kept moving—now four.

Then a sound.

A breathy whisper.

 "H-help…"

Everyone froze.

Could be bait.

Could be a mimic.

Eralin held up a fist.

Her ears flicked. Tuned.

She turned to Luke and nodded once.

Real. Breathing. Terrified.

They followed the whimper around a bend and found her—

The brown-haired girl, no older than thirteen, curled behind a half-collapsed slab of concrete, arms wrapped around her knees, her shirt torn, smeared in soot and blood.

She flinched as they approached.

"Easy," Eralin whispered.

She offered a hand. The girl hesitated. Then reached.

When she stood, her knees buckled, but Eralin caught her.

 "Here," she said gently, pulling out a water pouch and a small wrapped protein bar.

The girl devoured it like a starving animal. Her eyes never stopped scanning the dark.

---

Only one remained.

Luke scoured the area—looking for blood trails, scuff marks, or any signs of a struggle.

He found footprints—dragged, heavy.

They followed them into a long hallway filled with rebar and stone debris.

Then—a voice:

Coincidentally it was the member they least expected to be alive.

 "Help me, you bastards—!"

Pinned behind a collapsed chunk of wall, the noble brat writhed, his shirt caught under a steel bar, his chest crushed partially beneath the weight.

 "It's pressing on my ribs—I can't move!"

Gray and Caelan leapt to action, lifting. The stone groaned as it shifted.

Luke grabbed the brat's arm and pulled.

Pop.

A shoulder dislocated.

The noble boy screamed, then bit down on his sleeve, eyes wide, teeth bared in pain.

 "You should be thankful," Caelan muttered. "We could've left you."

The brat didn't say thank you.

But he followed, with a dislocated shoulder and a indescribable face.

---

Now Six Again

Their pack was whole again.

Bloodied. Hungry. Broken in spirit.

But breathing.

They moved through the arteries of the Center, no longer individuals, but a living stitch of shadows, watching and weaving.

Caelan distributed weapons—one to each of them.

 "Take it. Fight if we must. Run if we encounter a beast again ."

Eralin handed out the last of the water, keeping only one pouch for herself.

 "Don't gulp. Sip it slow. We need it to last."

They didn't speak otherwise.

They listened.

To the twitch of stone.

The distant gnnnrrkkk of something scraping.

To the sobbing in the dark that sometimes wasn't human.

They saw a corpse crushed under metal.

Another with his throat gnawed away.

One child missing his head entirely, his spine swaying like a rope.

This place wasn't hell.

It was what hell was scared of.

 "Stay sharp. We keep moving. We find light, or we make it ourselves."

 Luke said encouraging the others but 

what he saw was only fear and the will to survive in their eyes.