"MOVE IT! MOVE IT! GO, GO, GO! BREAK IT DOWN!"
The Commander's voice thundered through the tunnels, bouncing off stone and steel, fracturing into a dozen echoes that made it sound as though an entire army was screaming alongside him.
The soldiers didn't need further explanation.
They all felt it.
The rumbling beneath their boots.
The unnatural tremor crawling through the ground.
The distant, unmistakable staccato of gunfire echoing from somewhere far below.
Something had gone catastrophically wrong.
Adrenaline flooded their systems as they threw themselves at the wall that separated them from Armando and his remaining men. Pickaxes slammed into stone with brutal force, each impact sending shards of rock skittering across the tunnel floor. Bricks cracked. Mortar burst apart in clouds of dust. Hands blistered. Muscles burned. No one slowed down.
A heavy drill screamed to life behind them, its rotating head biting into the rock like a mechanical beast. The vibration rattled teeth and bones, the sound so loud it drowned out even the Commander's shouting. Stone began to fracture, spiderweb cracks racing across the wall.
Then—
CRACK.
The wall gave way with a violent collapse. Dirt, stone, and debris poured inward as if the tunnel itself were exhaling. Soldiers stumbled back, coughing, shielding their eyes. The moment the dust thinned, they surged forward again, widening the breach with bare hands if necessary.
"Hole's clear!"
"Move!"
Dozens of soldiers poured through the opening, boots pounding against the ground as they split instinctively toward both intersections. Voices overlapped. Orders were shouted and repeated. Rifles were raised. Safety clicks snapped off.
The Commander pushed through the chaos with his subordinates close behind him.
"Left team, with me!"
He didn't know why he chose the left tunnel.
He would never be able to explain it later.
They advanced cautiously, glow sticks cracking open one by one and thrown ahead. The chemical light flooded the tunnel in an eerie, pulsing red — not bright enough to banish the darkness, only enough to give it shape.
The air felt different here.
Thicker.
Colder.
As if the tunnel itself was holding its breath.
Their footsteps echoed too loudly, too sharply, each sound stretched unnaturally long. The Commander's eyes swept over the walls as they moved, his mind still racing with images of gunfire and missing men.
Then he slowed. Soldiers passed him until he was alone.
Something on the stone caught his attention.
The Commander stepped closer to the wall, raising his flashlight. At first glance, he thought the surface was simply cracked — natural fractures formed by pressure and age. But the longer he stared, the more wrong it felt. The lines weren't random.
They curved.
They flowed.
They meant something.
His breath hitched as recognition dawned.
Letters.
Carved deeply into the stone, ancient and deliberate, their edges worn smooth as if they had been there far longer than this tunnel should have existed.
It resembled Arabic — but distorted. Older. Wrong in subtle ways that made his skin crawl.
He read the inscription slowly, his lips barely moving.
ܠܰܝܬ݂ ܐܰܠܳܗܳܐ ܗܳܪܟ݂ܳܐ.
A chill ran down his spine.
"What the hell…" he muttered.
He traced one of the symbols with his finger. The stone felt cold — Ice cold — and something about the texture made his stomach turn, a sense of dread.
He stepped back.
Then he looked up.
The flashlight beam swept across the ceiling.
His eyes widened.
His heart dropped.
The same phrase was carved there.
Repeated.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The light moved frantically now — across the walls, the ceiling, the floor beneath his boots.
Everywhere.
The inscription covered the tunnel completely, layered over itself endlessly, as though something had carved the same message over and over again in obsession, in devotion… or in warning.
Something was very wrong.
A deep, primal fear seized him — the kind that bypassed logic entirely. His hands began to shake. His breath turned shallow. The Commander felt small. Exposed. Like prey that had wandered too far into a lair it was never meant to see.
His fingers spasmed.
The flashlight slipped from his grasp and clattered to the ground.
As he bent down to retrieve it—
Drip.
Something wet struck the back of his neck.
He froze.
Slowly, he reached up, fingers trembling as they brushed against the liquid. Thick. Warm.
He pulled his hand away and stared at it.
Dark.
Another drop fell.
Drip.
His pulse roared in his ears as he raised the flashlight with shaking hands and pointed it upward.
The beam climbed the wall.
And stopped.
A face stared back at him.
It was carved into the stone — yet it wasn't stone at all.
Its skin was pale, almost chalk-white, stretched unnaturally tight over sharp features. Deep, sunken rings circled eyes that glowed a dull, furious red. Blackened lips curled upward into a grin far too wide, revealing yellowed, uneven teeth.
Blood seeped from its mouth.
Slowly. Patiently.
The drops that had touched his neck.
The Commander screamed into the dark void that was now swallowing the tunnel.
He stumbled backward, losing his footing and crashing hard onto the tunnel floor. The flashlight skidded from his hand, spinning until its beam illuminated the creature fully — the tunnel bathed in harsh, flickering light.
The face did not move from the wall.
But its eyes followed him.
The Commander scrambled backward on his hands, boots dragging uselessly against the stone. His chest burned. His vision blurred. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to run — to flee — to do anything except remain here.
The glow sticks began to flicker.
Red light pulsed erratically, casting warped shadows that stretched and twisted along the inscriptions. The tunnel groaned softly, as though the stone itself were shifting, listening.
The creature's grin widened.
A low growl vibrated through the air — not just heard, but felt — rattling through the Commander's skull.
Then it spoke.
The sound echoed endlessly through the tunnel, overlapping with itself, layered and distorted. Yet impossibly clear inside his mind.
ܐܶܢܳܐ ܐܶܡܨܽܘܨ ܕܡܳܟ݂
The words burned as they entered his thoughts, twisting and reshaping themselves.
eshte dmok
Without warning, the meaning snapped into place.
Perfect English.
I WILL SUCK OUT YOUR BLOOD.
The Commander couldn't scream.
He couldn't move.
His body locked up completely, lungs struggling to draw breath as terror crushed down on him. Sweat poured down his face. His heart felt as though it might burst from his chest.
The lights went out.
The glow sticks died.
The flashlight flickered once — twice —
Then darkness swallowed everything.