The van hummed low as it carved through the darkness, headlights cutting pale tunnels into the night. The city was behind them now, swallowed in the rearview, yet its ghosts still lingered in every breath inside the vehicle.The air was thick with gunpowder and sweat, clinging to their lungs, to their clothes. Voss gripped the wheel like it was the only thing tethering him to reality, his knuckles bone-white, his eyes fixed dead ahead. He had been driving without speaking for twenty minutes straight, not even sparing a glance at the others.In the back, Adrian sat rigid, Alina curled against his chest. Her small body twitched with every pothole, every shift in the road. Her face was smeared with dirt, lashes clumped with tears, lips trembling even in sleep. The toy phone was still clutched tight in her hand, as though it was the one thing that could keep her tethered to safety.Adrian pressed his lips against her tangled hair, breathing her in like she might vanish if he let go. His s
The air in the tunnels was heavy, wet with mildew, clinging to Voss’s skin like a second layer. He crouched low, every joint screaming as he shifted another inch forward, his shoulders brushing the cracked rubber stacked high. The tires shielded him from sight, but the cover felt paper thin against the weight of two rifles in the room.Alina sat just beyond, knees hugged tight to her chest, trembling but quiet. A child forced into silence. Voss’s heart clenched at the sight, but his mind was steel. He had to be precise — no mistakes.As his calloused fingers tightened on the toy phone, a thought struck him — Layla’s words, a week ago, on some quiet evening when the world wasn’t tearing itself apart.“They’re cleverer than you think, those kids,” she had laughed, sitting at the kitchen table. “Tried teaching me some of that sign language they’ve been learning on YouTube . God help me, I couldn’t pick it up — my fingers felt like sausages. But Alina? She was quick. Too quick. She rememb
The phone buzzed faintly in Adrian’s palm. Its plastic edges dug into his skin as if reminding him it was real, not another trick. He pressed it close, his breath rasping in the tunnel’s stale air. “Dad?” Leo’s small voice filtered through, clear this time, stripped of distortion. Adrian swallowed hard. “I hear you, son.” It was still foreign. Leo calling him dad…. How cliche was it that the first time he called him dad was in a life and death situation. “I’m tracking the echoes,” Leo said quickly. He sounded nothing like a four-year-old should. No fear. No hesitation. Just sharp, precise words. “The crying you’re hearing isn’t real. Not all of it. He’s bouncing sounds off the walls. He wants you chasing ghosts.” Adrian’s jaw tightened. His chest still burned with the memory of Alina’s sob — the hitch in her breath. He’d know that sound in a hurricane, in the middle of a battlefield. But still, doubt gnawed at him like rats in the walls. “I heard her,” Adrian said stubbornly.
The hairpin burned in Adrian’s palm. Not literally, but close enough. Its weight was insignificant, yet it anchored him, steadied him against the madness threatening to eat away at the edges of his mind. His daughter had been here. She had left this behind. He tightened his grip and pressed deeper into the tunnels. The walls narrowed as he went, slick concrete pressing close, so tight his shoulders brushed both sides. The air grew wetter, heavier, until it clung to his skin like a shroud. Humidity mixed with the smell of rust and something darker — old blood soaked into stone, sharp and metallic. A rat skittered ahead, claws scratching against the damp floor, before vanishing into a crack. Adrian ignored it. His focus was forward. Always forward. The tunnel sloped downward, water pooling ankle-deep. His boots splashed softly, each step swallowed by the suffocating silence. Until— The speakers crackled alive again. “Adrian…” Leo’s voice bled through, stretched and distorted unti
The sound of his daughter’s sobs seemed to cling to the concrete, echoing off every surface, fading and reappearing like a phantom. Adrian’s breath caught in his throat. He froze, head tilting slightly as he tried to place the direction. It wasn’t coming from the plaza anymore. It was beneath him. His eyes swept the cracked tiles until he spotted the broken remains of a stairwell tucked into the shadows. Rust ate through the railing, and weeds had burst through the edges, clawing toward the surface. Adrian’s chest tightened. A cold draft whispered up through the broken stairwell, carrying with it the damp stink of mold, wet stone, and something metallic—like rusted iron. Her voice came again. Faint. Fragile. “Daddy?…I want my daddy” Adrian didn’t hesitate. He swung himself down the stairwell, boots clanging against corroded steps. Each hollow thud echoed into the dark below, swallowed almost instantly. The further he descended, the stronger the stench became. He gagged slightly a
The road stretched ahead of Adrian like a black ribbon, unbroken and endless. He kept his hands locked on the wheel, knuckles pale, the headlights cutting through the night in sharp beams. The city had long given way to silence; skyscrapers blurred in the rearview mirror until only empty highways remained. The engine’s low hum was the only sound, and even that grated on him, like a taunt. He couldn’t breathe past the weight pressing on his chest. His daughter’s face kept flashing in his mind—Alina laughing as she smeared chocolate on her lips, tugging at his sleeve to show him her latest crooked crayon drawing. The way she whispered “Daddy” when thunder scared her. Now that same voice might be crying somewhere in the dark, terrified and alone. He blinked hard, but a tear still escaped, trailing down his cheek. The first in decades. He swiped it away angrily, jaw clenching. He had no room for weakness now. “Hold on, baby,” he whispered under his breath. “I’m coming.” Miles away,