The rusted door groaned in its frame, but held firm. Behind them, the silence grew heavier, more alert, as if the stone itself were holding its breath.
The young soldier, the last to cross the threshold, was shaking so violently the iron bar he'd just slid into place vibrated in his sweaty hands. His face, lit by the faint glow of a handlamp Julius had pulled out, was corpse-pale.
"Is... is it still there?" he whispered, voice fractured.
Julius pressed his ear to the cold metal. No scratching. No ragged breathing. Nothing but the dense silence of the deep. Still, he didn't relax. His shoulders stayed knotted, his eyes locked on the door as if he could see through the rusted plating.
"It knows where we are," he murmured at last, stepping back. His voice was tired, but without fear. A kind of accepted fatality. "It knows we climbed. Now it waits. It's got all the time in the world."
