A deafening groan erupts, the kind that vibrates through bones and nerves alike.
The whole chamber starts shaking like a slumbering beast waking up after eons of sleep. The walls start moving, slowly at first, closing in on us at a menacing pace. Stone scrapes against stone, and the shards raining on us from overhead thicken the air with dust and danger.
“I take it back, very climactic,” she screams in panic as her shadows swirl behind her. “Killian, do something. Make it stop.”
The walls are upon us in mere seconds, threatening to squash us like rotten fruit, and I’m torn between reaching out for Aimee to anchor her in her fear and frantically looking for the way out of here.
The tunnels behind us have disappeared, an indifferent wall of smooth stone standing where a gaping hole was just minutes ago. It’s as if there had never been anything else there.
The chamber keeps shrinking by the second, compressing to the point of suffocation, leaving no room to think clearly. Only pure, unadulterated panic, where each heartbeat echoes too loudly and blood thuds deafeningly in my ears.
This place is designed to be the perfect tomb.
Massive.
Impersonal.
Brutal in its simplicity.
Only it will not be fucking ours.
Aimee clings to my forearm, murmuring broken words I can’t even decipher over the loud grinding of rocks. I keep her upright with one arm banded around her waist, pushing against the block of granite hurtling at us with the other.
I’m trying to find a lever, a crack, any blemish on the stone’s sleek surface that could be a clue, a way to stop this death sentence.
I throw all my vampiric strength into reversing the unforgiving progress of the wall, but it’s the wrong move. Instead of slowing down, the stone lurches forward, picking up speed, until the gap narrows at arm’s length.
The suffocating fear throws Aimee into a frenzy, and she’s frantically touching the rock, probing, grasping, while muttering the same word on repeat.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
I don’t know what to do. If I can’t use my powers to surpass this trial, if it’s not a test of strength, then what is it?
What can we possibly give the mountain that would prove our worth, our singularity, and purpose?
“Ouch,” Aimee exclaims, cradling her hand against her chest. “This fucking wall bit me.”
The iron scent of blood fills in the small space left between us, and my fangs burn in hunger, just as the trickle of her blood on the wall glows bright red, moving sinuously toward the words etched in unforgiving stone.
“The blood,” she whispers in awe, realization washing over her features. “The blood is the answer. Quick, Killian, it’s like a minuscule prickle on the surface, barely there.”
I feel the surface, searching for anything jagged, spike-like, but my palm meets only flatness.
“Faster, Killian, I don’t want to fucking die here,” she wails, moving next to me and groping the moving wall to no avail.
I feel the bite of rock against my back, and any semblance of composure vanishes. I can’t let us die in this cursed contraption.
Not like this.
Not at odds with each other.
I sink my fangs into my wrist, ripping flesh and bone, and smear the crimson liquid onto the cold surface.
Nothing happens.
For fuck’s sake, I’ve exhausted all our options. All that is left is to embrace the outcome.
I grab Aimee in one swift movement and crush my lips against hers. She moans in my mouth, opening up and pushing her tongue against my own.I bit her lower lip, drawing blood and lap it slowly, letting the small high conquer my veins.
