The cold seeped into me, marrow-deep, as I forced myself upright. My breath came out in shallow puffs, each one coiling in the thin, sour air like smoke from a dying fire. The light ahead pulsed faintly, as though it was breathing—inhale, exhale—guiding me forward with every flicker. I hesitated, my fingers trembling against the brittle stone beneath me.
There was no other choice.
I pushed forward, each step scraping echoes from the hollow beneath my boots. The ground was slick with a thin film of something I didn't want to name. Above me, the ceiling arched low, cracked and lined with veins of rust that pulsed faintly with that same slow rhythm. Like the ground itself was alive, dreaming in its own quiet decay.
The whispering voice from before returned, slithering through the dark.
"Careful where you step," it murmured. "The breath beneath is shallow, and you wouldn't want to wake what sleeps."
I froze, one hand braced against the wall. The light ahead pulsed brighter, calling me. I wasn't sure if it was a warning or a promise.
The ground shuddered faintly beneath me, as though something far below had shifted in its sleep. My thoughts twisted back to the figure in the titan's ribs, its voice still echoing in my skull. You've got it. That little crack. The rot. The stolen piece.
Whatever it was, it was in me now. I felt it, a weight I couldn't shake, a faint pressure at the back of my skull and behind my ribs, like something waiting for permission to crawl free.
I kept walking.
The light led me down a narrow corridor where the walls pressed in too close, their surfaces slick and veined like the inside of a throat. My breath rasped in my ears, the sound too loud, too sharp. The air was thick with the scent of metal and rot.
I stumbled, one foot catching on something half-buried in the muck. When I looked down, my pulse stuttered. A bone—long, smooth, too pale in the gloom. I crouched, brushing aside the thick film of decay clinging to it. The bone wasn't old. It was fresh, the marrow still wet.
The whispering voice returned, almost a laugh now. "They don't all wake up."
A shiver ran through me, and I straightened quickly, stepping around the bone with a deliberate care. My boots left smears of black behind me, faint tracks leading through the muck. I couldn't afford to look back.
The corridor widened into a vast chamber, the ceiling arching into shadow. The light pulsed brighter here, revealing a low platform in the centre of the room. On it stood a figure—tall, motionless, shrouded in tattered cloth that whispered faintly with each pulse of light. Its head was bowed, hands clasped before it, and its skin shimmered faintly with the same sickly glow that threaded through the walls.
I approached cautiously, my steps echoing like a heartbeat.
The figure didn't move.
I circled it, searching for a face, a clue, anything that might tell me what it was. Its skin was pale as wax, its features blurred as though half-forgotten. Where its eyes should have been, there were only hollows, deep and empty.
My voice cracked the silence. "Who are you?"
The figure's head tilted slightly, the motion almost imperceptible. Its hands uncurled, revealing long, jointed fingers ending in claws too delicate for bone. The voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere at once, layered over itself like a chorus of breath.
"We are the breath beneath," it whispered. "We are the lie that sleeps. We are the hunger waiting for the dream to end."
I took a step back, but the air thickened around me, pressing close, making it hard to breathe. My skin prickled with cold.
"You carry it," the figure said. "The crack. The stolen ember. It sings in your bones, calling us to you."
My heart stuttered in my chest. "I don't know what you mean."
The figure's head tilted the other way, its hands tightening into fists. "You will."
The ground shuddered again, deeper this time, the faint vibration rising into a low, resonant hum. The walls of the chamber rippled, as though something vast had stirred beneath them. I felt it in my teeth, a deep ache, a pressure building behind my eyes.
"The breath beneath," the figure whispered, almost tenderly. "It wakes."
The platform buckled under the figure, cracks spiderwebbing out from beneath its feet. A low groan echoed through the chamber, the sound of something old and brittle giving way. My pulse hammered, and I turned to run, but the air thickened, clutching at my limbs like wet cloth.
The figure's voice rose, sharp and cold. "You can't outrun the breath. It's in you now."
I stumbled, fell to my knees as the ground split open beneath the platform. A rush of cold air howled upward, carrying with it the stench of rot and old blood. The figure sank into the widening crack, its body unravelling into strands of pale smoke, vanishing into the darkness below.
I scrambled to my feet, gasping, and backed away from the fracture. The light flickered wildly, then died, plunging the chamber into darkness. The hum faded, leaving only silence and the faint rasp of my breath.
But before the last of the light was gone, I caught a glimpse of something in the depths of the crack. A shape, vast and coiled, a mass of teeth and bone, breathing slow and steady in the dark.
The breath beneath had woken.