LOGIN“Shhhhh… don’t make a sound,” Caramen warned, her eyes darting around the room, instantly reminding me of our precarious perch. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment.Becoming Shadows“So, what do we do first?” I lowered my voice to a whisper.“We observe. We listen. We learn. We become shadows in the night,” Caramen replied. “For now, we go back to our hiding place and observe their routine. We need to know who enters and leaves, and when.”“What if they see us watching them?” The fear was a cold, creeping thing.“They can’t see us. This room is dark, and they only have a few lanterns. We’ll hide in the shadows and stay out of the light. We’ll use the darkness to our advantage.”“And if they find us?” fear accumulating inside me as I swallowed hard.“Then that’s why we need to act fast,” she stressed. “We will run as fast as we can, and we will not stop until we are safe. Survival is our only priority.”I nodded, my heart thumping a heavy rhythm against my ribs. Running w
“Plan what?” I asked, a sliver of hope cutting through the thick layer of fear.“To escape,” Caramen said, her eyes blazing with a fierce, unwavering determination. “We’re not going to stay here forever. We’re going to find a way out.”I looked at her, a strange mix of apprehension and burgeoning trust swelling in my chest. She was so strong, so utterly resilient. “How long have you been here?” I whispered.“Long enough,” she replied, her voice filled with a profound weariness. “Long enough to know that we have to fight. We have to fight for our lives, for our sanity, for our freedom.”I nodded, the word 'freedom' feeling potent and distant. The dying lantern light cast harsh, dancing shadows across the deep lines etched into Caramen’s weathered face. The silence was heavy, punctuated only by the unnerving drip of water echoing through some unknown source in the vast, subterranean space.“They brought me here in the dead of night,” Caramen continued, her voice a low, dangerous s
“Caramen,” I repeated the name slowly, a fragile anchor in the dark. “Thank you, Caramen. You saved me.”“We’re both trapped here,” Caramen’s voice was softer now, stronger. “We have to work together if we want to get out.”As the hours dragged, the adrenaline-fueled terror slowly receded, replaced by a deep, gnawing hunger. My stomach twisted, a hollow, insistent ache that sharpened as the faint light of the lantern began to dim, its failing battery casting shadows that stretched and distorted the crumbling room. The cold was a living thing, seeping into my bones.“Caramen,” I whispered, leaning against the cold concrete. “Are you hungry?”A rustling from behind the rubble. “Always,” she replied. “But there’s never anything to eat.”A quick, darting shadow, the scurry of a small body, caught my eye. A rat, disappearing behind a mound of debris. My stomach lurched with revulsion and a horrible, primal anticipation.Suddenly, Caramen moved. She emerged with the speed of a pr
Aliya's POV***The first thing after the initiated darkness was a suffocating, absolute blanket of it that still lingered, pressed against my eyes, thick as wet velvet. I woke to a hard, involuntary grin—a rictus of pain, every muscle in my body sour and protesting.Then came the pain. My skull was a bell struck hard, the dull, relentless pounding echoing the frantic hammer-blows of my own heart. I tried to sit up, but a sickening lurch of dizziness sent me collapsing back. The floor was an insult: cold, unyielding concrete, its rough texture scraping a fresh line of agony across my cheek.“Where am I?” The thought was a swirling vortex of confusion, fear, and the musty, suffocating odor of damp earth and decay clinging to my lungs. The only light was a faint, struggling flicker in the distance, casting long, distorted shadows that danced like mocking phantoms across the crumbling walls.My memory was a puzzle with half the pieces missing. I grasped for fragments: the painful, t
Quickly and involuntarily, my hands tore frantically through my pockets, a desperate, scraping friction against the cotton. The key. I hunted for the small, cold metal of the handcuffs key, but the search was a futile, sickening void. It was gone.The realization choked me. Only one name ripped itself from my throat, a slow, gravelly snarl that tasted of acid and betrayal: "Mary!"A sudden, hot ribbon of tears, sharp and scalding, broke free and carved a burning track down my temple. She had drugged me. Drugged Bryan. All for that insignificant piece of brass. She did it to help, to free my wife, to give her the chance for her own freedom. And now...My eyes snapped back to the horrific sight. She lay there, crumpled and utterly still, her once vibrant clothes soaked dark in a deepening pool of her own blood. The air was thick with the faint, metallic scent of it.Did Aliya do this? Was she a betrayal? The questions slammed into my skull like blunt instruments, shattering everythi
My weak eyes opened wider. The fog in my brain fought the light, but the urgency in Bryan's whisper was impossible to ignore. “My wife?” I asked. “What happened to her?” My breaths became unbearably faster now, shallow and panicked, and I just couldn't process anything anymore. I was too weak to fight back the drug that held me. All I could hear was a high-pitched sound, a relentless, whining drone in my ears, and my eyes began to give into the darkness that was struggling to invite me over.Then, after what seemed like an eternity, I heard my name echoed, gentle and familiar: “Collins?” The voice called out twice.My eyes fluttered open. The room was still hazy, but the voice solidified into a figure: it was a concerned Robert.My first words emerged as a dry, barely audible question: “What are you doing here?”“Well, here I am... for you!” His voice cut through the heavy silence of the house, unnervingly amplified.The sound, and the implication of his arrival, was a jolt of pure







