The bluish glow pulsed at the end of the tunnel.
It wasn't daylight.
It wasn't an exit.
It was alive.
Ethan skidded to a stop, his heart hammering against his ribs. Behind them, the mummified horrors clawed their way free from the stone, their grotesque whispers growing louder.
But whatever was ahead... it was worse.
The light shifted, revealing a form.
At first, it looked humanoid—a tall, emaciated figure with elongated limbs, its flesh glowing faintly, pulsing like a dying ember.
Then it moved.
The glow rippled, and its body twisted—shifting, stretching, splitting apart and reforming like something that refused to settle on a single shape.
Noah inhaled sharply. "Nope. Nope. Absolutely not."
Valerie's fingers tightened around her gun. "What the hell is that?"
Ethan's mind raced. He had seen something similar before.
The golden veins. The distorted body.
Like Adrian.
But this wasn't Adrian.
This thing was… wrong.
Blaze growled, fur bristling. Shadow let out a low, warning hiss.
The thing tilted its head, its empty face locking onto them.
Then—it spoke.
The Voice in the Light
The voice didn't come from its mouth.
It came from everywhere.
A distorted, layered sound that echoed inside their skulls.
"Why… do you resist?"
Ethan clenched his teeth. "What?"
The figure twitched, its form flickering, struggling to stay in one shape.
"You were meant to be more."
Valerie took a step back. "Yeah, we're good, thanks."
The creature shifted again.
Suddenly—it had eyes.
Too many. Too human.
Ethan's stomach twisted. Those eyes…
He knew those eyes.
They were Adrian's.
Noah paled. "Okay. Nope. I am officially done with reality."
"Come back." The voice layered, overlapping on itself. "Come back and become."
Ethan's fingers curled into fists. "Not happening."
The thing didn't move.
Instead—the tunnel moved.
The walls shivered.
The ground rippled like liquid.
And then—hands erupted from the stone.
Thousands of blackened, skeletal hands, reaching, clawing, pulling toward them.
The light creature began to split apart, its form multiplying, more and more of its grotesque, half-formed bodies peeling away from itself.
And then they all spoke at once.
"BECOME."
The Only Way Is Forward
Valerie fired first.
Bang.
The bullet ripped through one of the figures, but it didn't bleed. It shuddered, its body glitching, as if reality itself rejected its existence.
Ethan didn't wait. "RUN!"
They sprinted forward, the only direction left.
Noah cursed as the hands from the walls lashed out, trying to grab them. He kicked one away, shuddering at the cold, deathly grip.
Blaze snapped at the fingers, tearing through them. Shadow darted between them, moving too fast for the grasping limbs.
The light intensified as the figures kept splitting, filling the tunnel, their bodies writhing, shifting into familiar shapes—faces they knew.
Olivia gasped. "They're—us."
Ethan's breath caught as he saw his own face forming in the glow.
His own twisted reflection reaching for him.
"Join. Become."
No.
Not today.
The tunnel suddenly dropped downward.
A pit.
No time to think.
No time to stop.
Ethan jumped.
One by one, they plunged into the darkness below—just as the light swallowed the tunnel above them.