7. Chapter 7 - Matt #4
Theron released another low growl that sounded more frustrated with himself than threatening. “You should not have come here.”
“Well, unfortunately nobody mentioned ancient underground murder kingdoms in the mission briefing.”
A faint shift crossed Theron’s expression before his gaze drifted toward the darkness beyond the chamber entrance.
“It was not always this way,” he said after a moment.
“Long ago, many who came here believed they could free the First King from beneath the mountain. When they failed, they became trapped here with him.”
Matt slowed while cleaning the blood from Theron’s side. “The things chasing us?”
“Some were followers once,” Theron said. “Others came later. Time changed all of them.” His jaw tightened faintly. “Whatever loyalty existed between them died long ago. Now they survive beside each other because leaving is impossible.”
In that moment, Theron looked less like a creature surviving inside the catacombs and more like a man trying very hard to remember how to be one again.
Matt carefully resumed cleaning the wound, slower this time. “This might sting.”
Theron snorted softly. “You think a little pain matters now?”
“Emotionally or medically?”
That finally earned an actual reaction. A low rough sound escaped Theron again, quieter this time and unmistakably amused despite the exhaustion pulling at him. Matt felt something warm settle unexpectedly beneath his ribs at the sound.
Then Theron suddenly went still.
The change happened instantly. Every trace of amusement vanished while his head lifted sharply toward the darkness farther down the corridor.
Matt saw it. “What?”
Theron’s eyes narrowed. “They found us again.”
Matt sealed the bandage over the worst of the wound and leaned back. “That’ll have to do.”
Theron nodded once before rising to his feet.
Matt slung the medical pouch back onto his vest and followed.
The corridor shook beneath them as they pushed deeper into the catacombs.
This time the tremor carried longer than the others, rolling through the stone in slow violent waves that made the ancient walls groan around them.
Dust drifted steadily from the ceiling overhead while distant sounds echoed through the tunnels behind them: collapsing stone, shrieking creatures, and somewhere beneath all of it, the low thunderous roar continuing to rise from the depths below.
Matt kept pace beside Theron while sweeping the flashlight ahead through the darkness.
After several seconds of silence, he sighed. “I talk more when nobody explains the ancient underground apocalypse.”
Theron considered that for a moment. “Fair.”
Another tremor rolled through the tunnel. Theron slowed this time instead of pushing forward.
The hesitation caught Matt’s attention almost at once.
“You know where we’re going, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That is both reassuring and deeply suspicious.”
Theron ignored the comment and motioned toward a narrow opening farther ahead where the corridor curved sharply downward through fractured stone.
Unlike the larger tunnels above, this passage looked older and far less traveled.
Thick mineral deposits covered portions of the walls while faded carvings spiraled across the stone in patterns Matt no longer even attempted to understand.
“You asked what happened here,” Theron said as they entered the passage.
Matt blinked once. “That sounds dangerously close to actual information.”
Theron’s breathing roughened before he continued. “The monastery was never meant to keep people out.”
Matt looked toward him. “It was meant to keep something in.”
Theron nodded once. “The monastery wasn’t the prison,” he said. “It was built to preserve it.”
The realization settled heavily between them.
“The hungry ones?” Matt asked.
“No.” Theron’s voice dropped lower. “Something older.”
The tunnel opened abruptly into a narrow chamber carved directly into the mountain. Ancient pillars lined the walls in uneven rows while a shallow underground stream cut through the center of the room, black water disappearing beneath the stone floor farther ahead.
Theron stopped beside the water’s edge.
Matt noticed the change in him. The constant tension riding beneath Theron’s movements had sharpened again, though this time it did not feel directed outward toward danger. It felt internal.
“You knew this place before the monastery existed,” Matt said inquisitively.
Theron stayed silent long enough that Matt already knew the answer before he finally spoke. “Yes.”
Matt stared at him. For the first time since meeting Theron, the scale of what stood beside him began settling into something real. Not just dangerous. Ancient.
“How old are you?”
Theron’s pale eyes shifted toward the black water moving through the chamber. “I stopped counting after the first century.”
Matt nearly dropped the flashlight. “You are aggressively casual about information that should probably cause psychological damage.”
A rough sound escaped Theron that almost resembled tired amusement before fading again. Then he crouched beside the underground stream and dipped one clawed hand into the water. “This mountain was a kingdom once,” he said. “Long before Rome. Before church. Before wolves came north.”
Matt moved closer carefully while listening. “There were shifters here?” he asked.
Theron nodded. “Many kinds. Packs. Clans. Things human histories forgot.”
The low rumble from deeper underground echoed faintly again. Theron’s expression darkened. “The prison beneath the mountain was built to hold the First King, but over time the corruption twisted many of those meant to guard it into something else entirely.”
Matt tensed at the words. “The First King,” he said carefully.
Theron looked toward him sharply at the name. “You remember.”
“I remember enough to know I absolutely hate that sentence.”
For several seconds Theron remained silent. Then, “The First King was never king of people.”
Cold unease crawled through Matt’s chest.
Theron rose back to his feet while black water dripped from his claws onto the stone floor. “He was the first thing beneath the mountain to turn bonds into chains.”
The chamber felt colder.
Matt’s eyebrows climbed. “You’re talking about him like he’s older than shifters.”
“He is.”
A distant roar rolled through the catacombs. Theron continued anyway.
“The hungry ones were not his first victims. They were only the first to survive what he became.”
Matt remembered the pale creatures scrambling across the walls. “What did he do to them?”
Theron was silent for so long that Matt almost thought he wouldn’t answer.
“He found what they loved,” he said at last. “Then he taught them to love only him.”
Matt felt something cold settle beneath his ribs. “That’s… not possible.”
“No,” Theron said. “It should not be.”
“Then how are they like this?”
Theron’s eyes met his. “Because corruption begins long before the body changes. It devours memory. Choice. Identity. By the time the flesh follows… there is almost nothing left.”
Matt thought of the carvings deteriorating farther down the walls. The loss of language. The increasingly feral writing. Then another realization hit him.
“You were fighting it.”
Theron looked away, confirming what Matt had already understood.
“The catacombs change those trapped here long enough,” he said. “Body follows eventually.”
That somehow felt worse. Another tremor shook the chamber hard enough to send ripples racing across the underground stream. Theron’s head lifted sharply toward the tunnel behind them.
Matt saw the shift instantly. “What?”
Theron’s voice dropped lower. “His reach is growing.”
“The king?”
Theron nodded once.
Something between them reacted before Matt consciously understood why.
A sudden violent pressure slammed through his chest hard enough to stagger him sideways.
Images flashed through his mind again in fractured bursts: antlers rising through darkness, silver crowns submerged beneath black water, endless tunnels filled with kneeling figures whose eyes glowed white in the dark.
Then one final image surfaced above the others.
Theron stood beneath open sunlight, fully human and painfully young compared to the creature trapped beneath the mountain now. Blood covered his hands while grief carved so deeply into his expression that Matt felt it like a physical wound.
He should have noticed the face first.
Instead, all Matt could see was the sorrow.
The vision vanished instantly. Matt caught himself hard against one of the stone pillars, breathing unevenly.
Theron crossed the chamber toward him despite the obvious effort it took not to touch him again. “What did you see?”
Matt looked up. “You,” he said.
Genuine alarm crossed Theron’s face.