They thought it would be another shrine.
That's what the old student map had suggested—an unlabeled location, halfway up a wooded ridge outside the city. The spot looked like every other marker they'd visited so far.
But when they arrived, they found nothing.
No shrine.
No structure.
Just wind, dry leaves, and a sloped hill too steep for anyone to build on.
"We came all this way for dead trees," Cyrus muttered.
Marin had her tablet out, flipping between images of the symbol Rai had tattooed on his hand and the diagram from the map. "We're close. The angle matches. Maybe something's buried."
Iris walked slowly along the hill's edge, glancing toward the base of a thick pine. "I remember standing here. Years ago. But we didn't go farther."
"Why not?" Owen asked.
"I don't know," she said quietly. "Like we weren't supposed to."
They almost gave up.
But then Owen, frustrated and pacing, stomped the ground near a patch of broken stone—and heard a hollow thud.
He froze.
"Uh. Guys?"
They cleared the area and found what looked like an old stone covering—fractured and grown over with dirt and vines. The cracks led downward, like part of the ground had shifted long ago.
Together, they moved the debris aside, revealing a gap barely wide enough to fit through.
A natural shaft, tight and dark, disappearing below.
The air that came from it was cold.
The descent was slow.
Owen went first, checking for stability. Cyrus followed, muttering complaints. Then Marin, Iris, Ronald. Emma hesitated for a moment—but followed Rai, close behind.
The passage was cramped, rough. Every breath echoed. The deeper they went, the colder it became. The air turned stale, thick.
Nobody spoke much after that.
It was too quiet for comfort.
At the bottom, the tunnel widened into a larger chamber—curved, stone-lined, and empty.
Almost.
The walls were covered in fragments of worn script. Symbols. Faded etchings. And in the center—half-erased by time—was a large, broken spiral, carved into the stone.
Most of it was unreadable.
Except for one section.
And Rai couldn't stop staring at it.
He walked forward slowly, the others keeping behind.
"Rai?" Emma asked.
He didn't answer.
His hand moved toward the spiral. As his fingers brushed the stone, the lines seemed to pulse—not glowing, not magical. Just... present. Like something under the surface had felt him.
And then he spoke.
But the words weren't his own.
"You are the first breath.
The final silence.
You are creation and unmaking.
The flame that does not warm.
The shadow that does not flee."
His voice faltered, but he kept going.
"You cradle the truth in illusion.
You blind with light.
You lead through dark.
I kneel.
I remember.
I serve."
The chamber seemed to shrink.
Even Owen, who never looked shaken, shifted uneasily.
"Did you... memorize that?" Cyrus asked, voice low.
Rai shook his head. "I don't know how I knew it."
Marin stepped forward. "Half that text isn't even visible."
Emma stepped up beside him and placed a hand on his arm. She didn't say anything poetic. Just looked at him hard and asked:
"Do you feel okay?"
Rai didn't lie. "No."
She nodded. "Okay. Then we're not staying."
As they turned to leave, Owen's lantern flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then died.
No sound followed. No wind.
Just three seconds of pitch black.
And in those three seconds... they all felt something move.
Not seen. Not heard.
Just felt.
When the light returned, no one spoke.
They climbed back up slower than they'd come down.
All except Ronald.
He lingered.
He walked up to the spiral, crouched low, and whispered something no one else would've understood. A phrase in a language that had no vowels.
Then, with practiced ease, he broke off a piece of the stone and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
"Always been a fan of relics," he muttered, almost smiling.
Then followed the others into the dark.