The dark didn't break — it peeled.
Layer by layer, as if someone were lifting heavy cloth from his senses. The weight was still there, pressing on his chest, curling behind his ears. But sight returned first, faint torchlight flickering to life, one flame at a time.
He stood upright.
Boots on stone.
Slick. Damp. Cold.
And the smell—
Blood, rot, and something older than either. The kind of stench that stuck behind your teeth.
His eyes adjusted slowly.
Stone walls rose around him like the insides of a throat — no sky above, just the slow drip of water from some unseen height. The floor sloped downward, every edge uneven, cracked. And bones, human bones, littered the ground like forgotten offerings.
Skulls.
Some caved in. Some clean. Some fresh enough to still glisten.
Jin didn't move.
He couldn't. Not yet.
