Page 16 of What Beats Within the Tunnels

Colton leans in close, his lips brushing my ear. “Did you think I was going to let you have all the fun, my little enchantress,” he whispers, and I squeeze his hand tighter, my heart pounding. Gods, he really is crazy.

“Are you ready?” Colton asks, and I look up at him, his green eyes glowing with a fierce intensity I’ve never seen before. The ground continues to shake, and I swallow hard, determined not to let my own fear consume me.

“Yes,” I force myself to say, my voice scratching my throat.

Colton leaps off the edge, wrapping himself around Chepi and me. I bury my face in his chest as the shadows swallow us whole.

Chapter

Seven

Afierce gust of wind roars upward, delivering a putrid stench that invades my senses and rattles my stomach. The gust seems to cradle us momentarily in its grasp, slowing our fall then vanishing as swiftly as it came, dumping us onto a hard surface. Pain ricochets through my body as we collide with the ground below.

“You’re welcome for breaking your fall,” Colton says, coughing beneath me.

“Shh,” I whisper, feeling Chepi to make sure he’s okay. I blink against the pervasive darkness that engulfs everything, swallowing all the light and leaving nothing but an impenetrable void.

“Stay close, boy,” I say to Chepi in a hushed voice as I struggle to get to my feet. I wipe my damp hands on my clothes, the slick rock beneath us adding to the discomfort. An eerie squelching sound accompanies every step we take on this wet surface. Water murmurs in the distance, bouncing off the cave walls, disorienting me further.

“Let me go first. Take my hand.” Colton steps in front of me, and I reluctantly take his hand. I guess it’s not the time to be difficult right now. We take slow measured steps until small patches of light appear and help my eyes to adjust. The walls and floors are slick with moss, which glows with a faint bioluminescence, casting eerie green splatters of light across the dank space.

As we move further into the tunnel, the space seems to open up ever so slightly ahead. I quicken my pace, eager to escape this claustrophobic place, but Colton squeezes my hand, steadying me next to him. We emerge from the darkness, and I freeze in terror. The cave branches off into three openings, and there’s a bottomless pit in the center of the path in front of us. The realizations hits me like a punch in the gut. These aren’t just any tunnels—they’re the tunnels from my nightmare. Why did my midnight mind show me this place for the first time only right before unlocking the bridge? This can’t be a coincidence. What was my dream trying to show me? I try to remember it more clearly, but the memory is fuzzy now. Something was after me, and the whispers… A chill spreads across my skin. I try to shake off the uneasy feeling.

“I’ve been here before,” I say quietly. Seems like something I should share with Colton, since we are now in this together because he’s absolutely insane and decided to jump into the earth after me.

“What do you mean? How?” he asks, coming to a stop before the dark hole in front of us, peering into it carefully.

“I don’t think I told you, but I have midnight mind and have been seeing Zomea for some time now. Only once and only recently was I brought here in my nightmare.” I shiver, stepping closer to him. “Colton, something was after me,” I whisper.

“What was after you?” He finally looks at me, his attention fully mine. In the shadowy ambiance of the tunnels, his emerald eyes gleam with a sharp intensity. His dirty-blond hair falls in a disheveled mane around his face and shoulders, complementing the ruggedness of his features. With broad shoulders set back, and a stance that speaks of natural, athletic strength, he carries an undeniable presence—graceful yet formidable. I won’t admit it aloud, but by the gods, am I relieved to have him by my side right now.

“I don’t know,” I admit. We stand silently before the three tunnels, their dark maws beckoning me with the same ominous emptiness.

“I think we should take the left tunnel.” I take a step forward, tugging Colton’s hand as I inch around the dark pit in the floor. Chepi stays close, hovering right over my shoulder.

“Why exactly do you think we should take the left tunnel, Princess?”

“Intuition.” I shrug, stepping into the tunnel. I’m not exactly sure why I chose the left one, but my choice was driven by an inexplicable urge. The sound of trickling water echoes all around us. I don’t like it. The idea that this tunnel system could be beneath some sort of body of water makes me really uncomfortable. The thought alone gets my feet moving faster, drawing me forward.

I stop dead in my tracks when I hear it. A distant throb undulates through the dank air of the tunnels, a rhythm so primal and elemental that it resonates within my own chest. It’s a heartbeat—a relentless thud…thud…thud…echoing through the darkness, disorienting me.

“Colton,” I exhale, my voice a thin wisp of sound, trembling in the darkness.

“What’s wrong?” His voice, instantly edged with alarm, cuts through the silence.

“Do you hear it?” I say quietly, clutching his hand tighter than I’m proud of.

“I don’t hear anything. Lyra, what do you hear?” he whispers.

The thud is maddening, each beat reverberating in my skull. I can’t block it out. It’s a heartbeat, a rhythm, a reminder that something unseen and unknown lurks in the foreboding depths of these tunnels.

“Let’s keep moving.”

I hurry our pace, not knowing where we are going, but I have a strange sensation of something pulling me toward it. The feeling grows more intense with each step, urging me to go deeper into this maze of tunnels.

Suddenly the whispers start, so faint at first that I almost think I imagined them.

“Now that I can hear,” Colton says, moving past me to take the lead but not releasing my hand. We keep up our pace, and the whispers grow louder, carried on a gust of wind that seems to guide our path. We pass through several more openings, each leading to a new tunnel, and every time we step into a new one, the whispers become louder, as if they’re closing in on us from all directions. I can no longer hear the heavy beating as the whispers turn to screams, dozens of them, all echoing around us. Adrenaline takes over, and I start to run as fast as I can, my heart pounding out of my chest. Colton keeps pace next to me, and I cradle Chepi under my arm, not comfortable with him flying on his own.