Before courage could desert her entirely, she stepped through the door and began her descent.
The darkness pressed against her eyes like a physical thing. She kept one hand on the wall, feeling her way down steps worn smooth by age, trying not to think about who, or what, might have descended here before her.
Then her fingers brushed something that wasn't stone. Soft, almost velvet, and at her touch it flared with pale green light.
Moss grew in the cracks between stones, dormant until disturbed. Where her fingers passed, it glowed, casting just enough light to see the next few steps before fading back to darkness. She traced her hand along the wall as she descended, leaving a trail of temporary light. The moss grew thicker the deeper she went, as if it fed on the darkness itself. Soon she didn't need to search for patches, it carpeted the walls in a living tapestry that responded to her presence with waves of ghostly illumination.
The stairs seemed endless. Her thighs burned, her breathing echoed strange in the narrow space. The air grew thick with minerals and age and something else—neglect. Abandonment. No one came here anymore.
Finally, the stairs ended at another door. This one bore no enchantment, just heavy wood and heavier iron. The lock had long since rusted away, leaving only holes where mechanisms used to be.
She pushed, and it opened with the groan of hinges that hadn't moved in decades.
The chamber beyond was vast, or seemed so after the cramped stairwell. More of that luminous moss grew here, responding to her entrance with a slow bloom of light that revealed cells. Ancient things carved directly from the rock, iron bars so old they'd partially fused with the stone. Most stood empty, doors hanging open on broken hinges. But at the far end, where the darkness pressed thickest, one cell remained sealed.
And from within came the sound of breathing.
Her heart hammered as she approached. The moss here grew sparser, as if even it feared to venture too close. In the dying light, she could barely make out a figure huddled in the far corner.
And from within came the sound of breathing.
"Hello?" Her voice came out whisper-soft. "Is someone there?"
Movement, slow and painful. The figure shifted, and she heard the clink of chains.
"Dreaming again." The voice was cracked with disuse, barely human. "Always dreaming of voices. Of light."
"You're not dreaming. I'm real. I'm here."
The figure crawled forward, then jerked to a stop as chains pulled taut. In the moss-light, she finally saw him.
He looked human. Matted dark hair hung past his shoulders. Clothes that might have once been fine now hung in rags. His frame was thin, wasted, but somehow still alive.
"Real?" He laughed, and the sound was broken. "Nothing's real down here. Just the dark and the dreams and—" He stopped, nostrils flaring. "You smell of sunlight. Of the world above."
"I am from above. I'm a prisoner too."
His gaze found the marks visible at her throat, and recognition flickered across his features.
"His prisoner. Marked like I was. Like I am." He lifted his arm, and she saw them, thorned vines wrapping his forearm, old and faded but unmistakably the same as hers. "You're new though. The marks still grow on you."
"You have them too." Relief flooded through her at finding another human who'd survived this. "How long have you been down here?"
"I don't know." His voice broke on the words. "Years. Many years. Time doesn't exist here."
She looked around the empty cell, the bare stone, the chains. No food bowls, no water, nothing.
"How are you still alive? There's no food, no water—"
"I don't know." He sounded genuinely confused, lost. "I should be dead. Should have died long ago. Sometimes I think I did die and this is just what death is. Eternal darkness."
"But you're not dead. You're talking to me."
"Am I?" He tilted his head. "Or are you another dream? They're so vivid sometimes."
"I'm real. I promise." She moved closer to the bars. "What's your name?"
"Thomas. Thomas Gray. I was—" He paused, brow furrowing. "I was someone. Before. Had a life, a trade. It's fuzzy now. The darkness eats memories."
