I wedge my fingers into the gap. The wood scrapes my skin as I pry it up, slowly and steadily. It resists at first—years of dust clinging to the seams—then gives with a soft, reluctant creak.
A gust of cold air rushes up at me.
I freeze.
The tunnels breathe against my face—damp, ancient, carrying the scent of wet stone, rust, and something older. Something like bones and secrets.
My heartbeat thunders against my ribs.
This is it.
No Santino to drag me back.No Romeo watching from the shadows.No one to pull me out if this goes wrong.
Just me.My father’s ghost.And Giovanni’s sins rotting beneath holy ground.
I adjust the strap of my bag and lower myself through the opening. My boots hit the first step—narrow, slick stone. The cold wraps around me immediately, crawling up my legs, seeping into my clothes.
Thunder fades with every step I descend, swallowed by the earth until the only sounds left are my breath and the faint drip of water somewhere below.
When my head dips below the floor, I reach up and pull the board into place.
The slab settles with a muted thud.
Quiet.
But final.
It feels like a lock sliding into place, sealing me inside the dark winding beneath the church.
I pause, letting my eyes adjust. My flashlight sits in my bag, but I don’t switch it on yet. Not until I’m deeper. Not until I know I’m alone.
I listen.
Nothing.
No footsteps.No voices.No priest shouting my name.
Just the steady beat of my heart and the slow drip-drip-drip echoing down the passageway.
I take another step. Then another.
Each footfall ricochets off the walls, the sound swallowed and returned like a prayer the ground refuses to believe. It feels like I’m walking into the throat of something ancient—something that’s been waiting a very long time to swallow me whole.
“Too late to turn back now,” I whisper.
The tunnels don’t answer.
So I keep going.
The Tunnels of the Rivas Dead
The tunnel swallows me whole.
The last breath of sanctuary air disappears as the darkness clamps around me, thick and cold, like the ground is dragging me deeper with greedy hands. My flashlight flickers with every step, throwing frantic slices of light across the walls.
These tunnels are older than the church.Older than Giovanni.Older than the fucking crown the Rivas men bleed for.
My father once whispered that the ground remembers everything men try to hide. Down here, the air breathes with that memory. Wet. Heavy. Angry.
