The smell hit first.Not oil. Not rubber. Something older—burnt stone and scorched metal, as if the Earth itself had been on fire for centuries.
Omega rolled down the ramp into a tunnel wide enough for a freight train, walls slick with condensation that reflected the faint glow of red hazard lights. The deeper they went, the more the hum of their own engine was swallowed by a much heavier rhythm.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Adrian leaned forward. "That's not an echo."
They emerged into a cavern that looked like the inside of a god's ribcage. Massive pillars curved overhead, dripping molten metal into channels that flowed like rivers of blood. The track ahead was narrow, twisting between the molten streams, each turn lit by the ghostly firelight.
And waiting on the far end, parked sideways across the road, was a machine unlike anything they'd seen.
It was matte black, no shine, no reflection. Its body was all jagged angles, like it had been built to cut the air in pieces. Instead of headlights, it had two burning rings that pulsed in sync with that underground heartbeat.
From the shadows, its driver stepped forward. Helmet down. Visor like obsidian. The name whispered in the underground was "Ferryman." No one had ever beaten him, not here.
Marcel smirked, but his grip tightened on the wheel. "He's not here to race."
Adrian's voice was low. "No. He's here to collect."
The starting lights appeared without warning—holographic, flickering in the rising heat. Three… two…
The instant "one" hit, the black machine was gone, vanishing into the twisting underworld like it had melted into the darkness. Omega roared after it, but this wasn't speed as they knew it—this was survival.
The tunnels were alive. Every hundred meters, the walls shifted, collapsing and reopening in new paths. Tracks split, merged, and dead-ended in seconds. It was as if the road itself was hunting them.
Marcel had to drift not just around corners but through collapsing sections of floor, leaping gaps that hadn't existed a heartbeat before. The molten rivers surged higher, splashing droplets that hissed against Omega's bodywork.
The Ferryman was always just ahead, leaving no tire marks, no heat signature. Sometimes, Marcel caught flashes of his taillights—two burning rings that hung in the darkness like the eyes of some ancient predator.
Adrian scanned the HUD. "No map. No GPS. This place is rewriting itself."
"Then we stay faster than the rewrite," Marcel growled.
A massive gate appeared ahead—twenty feet high, steel teeth grinding open and shut. The Ferryman slipped through just as the gap was barely wide enough for his car. Marcel didn't lift. Omega shot forward, sparks flying as the gate slammed shut inches behind them.
Inside, the air turned colder, despite the molten glow below. They were in the Ferryman's true territory now—a vast, circular chamber with tracks spiraling up and down like a vortex.
The black machine waited dead center, idling.
Marcel realized the truth. This wasn't a chase anymore. This was a duel.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the Ferryman launched. No countdown. No rules.
And in the underworld, you don't just win.
You survive.