Well, shit. I was really doing this.
I closed my eyes for a second and inhaled, whispering a pep talk under my breath. Still, my feet refused to move. Maybe because they were smarter than the rest of me.
Finally, I took the first step forward and froze. Because something was underfoot. I looked down and bent, picking up what felt like fabric. It was a linen. Long, soft, and white as snow.
Odd. It was too clean and untouched to have been lying on the ground. As I held it in the light, I realised it looked like it belonged to someone recently. Maybe someone who had been here not long ago.
Then that same scream came again.
A screech, actually.
It cleaved the air so violently I felt it split through me. I stumbled back, my spine slamming against the car. My soul damn near left my body.
That wasn’t human.
That sound didn’t belong to anything mortal. It wasn’t pain, it wasn’t a cry for help. It was something feral and guttural and raw, like grief ripped open with rage. A shiver rolled up my spine, biting at my nape.
I glanced back at the car.
Maybe I should wait for Thrax. But the cryptid would only stop me from coming here. He’d probably tie me to a chair and launch into some self-righteous speech about instincts, boundaries and common sense.
Fuck it.
I dropped the linen and moved forward, following the winding path of stones, the flashlight barely cutting through the murk. Every few steps, I had to adjust because the slippery gravel gave way to sharp stones, then bigger rocks that jutted out like crooked bones. I crouched and scrambled, one knee after another, climbing uneven ground as the chill began sinking into my skin like slow venom. The cold bit and gnawed at my fingers despite the layers I wore, my breath puffing white clouds that vanished fast in the damp air.
Even though I’d been here twice before, everything looked...unfamiliar and wrong. Like the landscape had shifted since the last time. Did I read anything about The Crater having an effect of rewriting itself when no one was looking? I didn’t think so. But then,there were probably a handful of things I had yet to learn about this place.
I clambered up one last ledge of rock, my palms scraped, knees bruised, and finally got to a slightly flatter stone ground. I straightened slowly as I swept the flashlight around me.
“I’m not going beyond this,” I muttered, standing still and listening, hoping to hear something. But there was only the shrill whistle of wind between the rocks...until a low thunder rolled somewhere above. Lightning cracked the sky open in a jagged line, and for the briefest second, everything, The Crater walls, the rocks, the mist swirling below, lit up.
Then darkness again.
“Hello?” I called out, voice high but steady. “Is anyone there? Do you need help?”
My voice bounced back, echoing off the stone in a way that made my skin crawl.
“You need to get out of here now—”
“AAARRHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
FUCKING. HELL.
The sound tore through the air, high and sharp and wrong. That was a shriek from another world, a sound not meant to exist here. No lungs could make that sound. No human could survive the force behind it.
It was in my ears. Inside them. As though someone had pressed their mouth right against my head and screamed into my eardrums.
I jolted, stumbled backward, and slipped.
The rock beneath me was slick, and I crashed down hard, landing on my arse with enough pain to make me see stars. “Shit, shit, shit—” The ache bloomed across my tailbone, and I hissed through gritted teeth.
That sound—whatever it was—had not been human, that for sure. If it had been, I wouldn’t have heard it from my room earlier.And I sure as hell wouldn’t be hearing it now like it was nestled inside my skull.
I pushed myself upright, still dazed from the impact.
And then—another slip. This time, I tumbled.
My foot gave out and my body rolled over sharp rocks, arms flailing uselessly. I screamed as I landed hard on my elbow and clipped my head. My phone flew from my hand and vanished into the blackness, sliding into a space between the stones.
