CHAPTER 1444: STORY 1444: THE HOLLOW VEIN

The fissure tightened behind them with a slow, almost reluctant squeeze, sealing them in utter blackness. The silence here wasn’t relief—it was oppressive, as though the air itself had weight.

Mira could hear her own heartbeat thundering in her ears, but it wasn’t alone. A faint second rhythm—slower, deeper—echoed through the walls, like they were inside some vast body.

“Elena...?” Mira whispered.

“I’m here.” Her voice was small, muffled. “But it’s... cold.”

Mira reached for her, fingers brushing against clammy skin. The red veins on Elena’s legs now pulsed faintly, each beat coinciding with that deeper rhythm. When Mira looked down, her own were glowing faintly too, casting ghostly light that revealed the fissure’s interior.

It wasn’t stone. It was a tunnel made of tightly packed fibers, translucent enough to see dark shapes moving just beyond the walls.

Something brushed Mira’s shoulder from the other side—like a fingertip tracing her outline.

She jerked back, but the walls here flexed with her movement, almost tenderly, as if testing her reaction.

“We have to keep going,” Elena said, already crawling forward. “If it sealed us in, it means something back there wanted us dead.”

Mira followed, the tunnel narrowing until they had to crawl on elbows and knees. The fibers beneath their hands felt like old rope—damp and warm.

Halfway through, the deeper pulse quickened.

The fibers under Mira’s palm twitched.

Ahead, Elena froze. “Mira... there’s something in here with us.”

A shadow moved across the glowing strands ahead—long, jointless, sliding silently. The tunnel itself seemed to inhale, expanding slightly, then contracting as if to push them forward.

“Mira, go!”

They scrambled, elbows scraping the warm surface. The shadow kept pace with them just beyond the wall, matching every move. Then, without warning, a thin, needle-like appendage pierced through the fiber beside Mira’s face, stopping just short of her eye.

The appendage vibrated, producing a sound too low to hear but deep enough to rattle her teeth. Her vision blurred, and for an instant she wasn’t in the tunnel—she was inside the spiral again, looking down into the heart’s maw. The pale eye blinked in the dark.

“Mira!” Elena’s voice shattered the vision. The appendage retracted, and they crawled faster, lungs burning.

The tunnel suddenly split into two. One path descended steeply, the other curved upward toward a faint reddish glow.

“The light—” Elena started.

But from the glowing path came the sound of wet, dragging movement. Something breathing.

Mira made the call. “Down!”

They slid into the lower tunnel, the walls slick and accelerating their fall. The glow vanished behind them, replaced by the faint scent of stagnant water.

When they landed, it was knee-deep in a black liquid that clung to their skin.

Elena gagged. “What is this?”

From the darkness ahead, dozens of small, pale faces floated just above the surface—children’s faces, eyes closed, their skin wrinkled and thin as paper.

One of them opened its eyes.

And smiled.