But nothing above us knew where we had gone.
I pulled out my phone and switched on the flashlight.
“Jesus,” I muttered.
The tunnel stretched in both directions—old, crumbling brick overhead, soot-blackened torch sconces spaced along the walls. Ancient. Far older than anything above.
History. Buried and forgotten beneath a world that had just ended.
Under different circumstances, I would have paused. Absorbed it. Asked about its construction, its era, the people who once moved through here before the city grew up around them and sealed them away.
“You lead… but stay close,” I said.
Libby nodded, moving to my side. Her voice was low and steady, a tone that took effort to maintain.
“Hanover,” she said, touching a worn symbol on the brick. “My dad made these marks. He spent years down here, mapping every intersection, every exit.”
I swept the light across it. Faded lines, directional arrows, a careful hand.
“You remember all of it?” I asked.
“Mostly. We spent a lot of time down here,” she replied. “I definitely remember enough to get us where we’re going.”
It would have to be enough.
We moved deeper, our footsteps muffled against the wet stone. Every sound in the tunnel was sharp, making me conscious of each breath, each shift of fabric, each small movement either of us made.
“Do you know where the exit hatch comes up near the store?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she answered without hesitation. “It opens into the park. Right across the street.”
I stopped.
“Of course it does,” I said, pressing a hand over my face.
Open ground. No cover, no concealment, no angles to work with. Exactly the wrong conditions for two people emerging from a hole in the earth with no idea what waited at street level.
Libby read my silence.
“I know,” she said quietly. “It’s not ideal.”
“No, it’s definitely not ideal.”
I looked down the tunnel, turning the problem over in my mind.
“Any exits that come up closer to the building? Something with cover?”
“Nothing connects cleanly,” she said, shaking her head. “The other passages dead-end or emerge farther out, into worse terrain.”
I exhaled through my nose and started moving.
My phone light revealed old markings, rusted fixtures, and decades of accumulated debris. Some sections narrowed until our shoulders nearly brushed the walls, the ceiling droppinglow. Others opened into wider passages where smaller corridors branched off and disappeared into darkness.
“Don’t take any of the branches,” Libby warned. “Some don’t reconnect. You could be lost for a long time before you realized it.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Then, a sound reached us from behind.
