6. Chapter 6 - Matt
The scraping echoed through the corridor again, close enough now that nobody mistook it for settling stone.
Every operative in the formation froze instinctively as the noise carried through the ruins ahead of them. Floodlights swept across wet stone and fractured support arches while rifles lifted toward the darkness beyond the corridor split.
Nothing moved.
Matt kept staring into the shadows anyway.
His pulse had started climbing hard enough that he could feel it in his throat, but his hyena’s reaction felt sharper than fear alone.
Instinct pressed insistently toward the darkness ahead, focused with the same terrible certainty that had followed him since first seeing the excavation entrance from the aircraft.
Something was there. And somehow it already knew he was looking for it.
Commander Vale motioned two wolves forward. “Advance carefully.”
The operatives moved suddenly, rifles raised as they pushed deeper into the corridor with disciplined precision. Mounted lights swept across the walls, illuminating faded carvings buried beneath centuries of water damage and mineral deposits.
Matt noticed fresh claw marks. Not the massive gouges near the surface. These were smaller.
Long grooves scored through the stone pillars lining the corridor at shoulder height, deep enough that fragments of pulverized rock still littered the floor beneath them.
One of the wolves near the front crouched beside the gouges, running gloved fingers lightly along the fractured stone. “These are fresh.”
Nobody liked that statement.
Vale stepped forward beside the operative while Baptiste remained near Matt at the center of the formation. “Keep moving,” she ordered.
The team advanced deeper underground.
The corridor narrowed gradually as they descended, forcing the formation into tighter spacing while the excavation supports became less frequent around them. Ancient architecture overtook the modern reinforcement structures until the tunnels no longer resembled an archaeological dig at all.
They looked inhabited. Not recently, but repeatedly.
Matt caught the shift once he stopped looking at the walls individually and started seeing the tunnels as a whole.
Sections of collapsed debris had been cleared aside too deliberately to be natural cave-ins.
Dust patterns looked disturbed in uneven paths across the floor.
Even some of the claw marks overlapped older damage in ways that suggested movement through the tunnels happened often enough to create familiar routes.
The realization crawled unpleasantly beneath his skin.
“These tunnels are being used,” he said.
Baptiste glanced toward him. “Yes.”
Matt looked sideways. “You say that like you already knew.”
“I suspected.”
“That feels like information you should lead with.”
Before Baptiste could answer, one of the wolves near the front suddenly raised a fist. The entire formation stopped instantly.
Matt heard it a second later. Breathing. Closer now.
The sound drifted faintly through the darkness ahead of them, low and uneven beneath the distant drip of water echoing through the tunnels. It did not sound rushed or aggressive.
If anything, the slow rhythm made it worse.
Like whatever waited ahead felt no need to hurry.
Vale motioned the formation tighter while one operative adjusted the beam on his rifle-mounted light toward the far end of the corridor.
The breathing stopped.
Silence crashed through the tunnel hard enough that Matt became abruptly aware of every tiny sound around them.
Water dripping somewhere deeper underground.
Fabric shifting softly as operatives adjusted their stance.
The faint electrical buzz from the portable floodlights mounted farther back along the excavation route.
Then something moved behind them so fast Matt barely registered it before one of the rear operatives shouted. He spun in time to see a shape explode from the darkness along the ceiling and drop into the rear formation hard enough to slam an operative sideways into the wall.
Gunfire erupted instantly.
Muzzle flashes strobed violently through the corridor while wolves shifted partially mid-motion, teeth bared as chaos detonated through the tunnel.
Matt caught only fragments of the creature between bursts of gunfire. Black movement crossed the corridor at impossible speed while claws tore sparks from the stone walls and pale eyes flashed white in the darkness.
Whatever the thing was, it was far too large to be human.
Before anyone could pin it down properly, the creature moved again. It crossed the tunnel in a blur of violent motion while bullets shredded the stone where it had been only moments earlier.
“CONTACT REAR!” somebody shouted.
Another operative screamed.
Matt spun toward the sound just in time to see the creature slam into one of the wolves hard enough to drive both of them through a weakened excavation support. Stone cracked instantly around the impact.
Then the corridor exploded.
The ceiling answered with a violent grinding roar as the damaged support column collapsed inward. Dust and shattered rock slammed through the tunnel while floodlights burst overhead in showers of sparks.
“MOVE!” Vale shouted.
The floor lurched beneath Matt’s boots.
Then the tunnel gave way.
For one weightless second he felt himself falling through darkness while stone and debris crashed around him. Somebody grabbed briefly for his arm through the dust before the collapsing floor tore them apart again.
Matt hit hard against stone and rolled violently down a steep incline hidden beneath the collapsed corridor. Pain exploded through his shoulder as he slammed into another outcropping before finally crashing to a stop against wet rock somewhere deeper underground.
The world went silent except for falling debris.
Dust choked the air around him while smaller fragments of stone continued raining from the ceiling overhead. Matt coughed hard and forced himself upright, his ears ringing violently enough that it took several seconds before sound returned properly.
“…Baptiste?”
Nothing answered.
Matt grabbed for the flashlight clipped to his vest and switched it on with shaking fingers.
The flashlight beam illuminated a narrow stone corridor half-buried beneath fresh collapse debris. Ancient walls stretched away into darkness on both sides while dust drifted through the air like smoke, thick enough to dull the edges of the tunnel around him.
Matt swept the light across the corridor again, searching for movement, voices, anything.
There were no operatives. No gunfire answered him, only the occasional crack of settling stone somewhere deeper underground.
Matt touched the comm clipped near his collar. “Vale? Baptiste? Anybody copy?”
Static crackled faintly through the speaker before fading again.
He tried once more, louder this time, but the result remained the same. Nothing answered him.
A cold realization settled into his chest while he looked back toward the collapsed incline above him. Several tons of stone now sealed the passage completely
He was alone.
Years of military training took over as he checked himself for injuries, reached automatically for his rifle, and found only empty space. The pistol was still holstered at his side. Only then did he sweep the corridor for another way out.
Matt forced himself to breathe evenly while inspecting the damage.
His shoulder was already bruising beneath the tactical vest, and one sleeve had been torn open where falling stone sliced through the fabric, leaving blood running lightly down his forearm.
Everything still moved correctly, though. Nothing felt broken.
Matt exhaled and looked deeper into the corridor around him. “Fantastic,” he muttered into the silence. “Absolutely excellent evening so far.”
The flashlight beam trembled as Matt turned deeper into the corridor, its narrow cone of light sliding across wet stone and drifting dust. That was when he heard the breathing again.
It was closer now.
The sound no longer echoed faintly through distant tunnels or carried upward from somewhere deep beneath the mountain. This time it came from directly behind him, slow and uneven in the darkness just beyond the reach of the flashlight.
Matt froze instantly.
The hyena surged into violent alertness hard enough to lock every muscle in his body while instinct screamed conflicting commands through his system all at once. Move. Fight. Run. Do something.
Slowly, carefully, Matt turned toward the darkness behind him.
For several long seconds he saw nothing except drifting dust and uneven stone disappearing into shadow. Then the flashlight caught two pale eyes reflecting back at him from farther down the corridor.
Not animal eyes. Intelligent ones.
The creature stood motionless just beyond the edge of the light, large enough that the surrounding darkness seemed to break awkwardly around its shape instead of fully concealing it. Matt could only make out fragments at first as the trembling beam shifted across the corridor.
Black fur slick with moisture. Clawed hands hanging low at its sides.
Broad shoulders massive enough that they nearly brushed both walls of the narrow passage.
And beneath all of it lingered the unmistakable outline of something that had once been human long enough ago to still carry traces of it.
The thing watched him without moving.
Matt felt his hand drift toward the pistol holstered at his side.
The creature noticed and Its head tilted in response, not with aggression but with a strange, almost thoughtful curiosity that unsettled Matt far more than open hostility would have.
Then a far worse realization settled cold through his chest.
The creature had already been close enough to kill him.
And for reasons Matt did not understand yet, it had decided not to.
Matt kept the flashlight trained on the creature while every instinct in his body strained toward movement.