Where the Past Waits

The air inside the tunnel was thick with damp and decay, the scent of rust and stagnant water clinging to the walls. Jessica adjusted her footing on the narrow metal rungs of the ladder as she descended further into the darkness, the beam of her flashlight barely piercing the void below. The others followed in tense silence, their breaths measured, their movements precise.

Leanna landed beside her first, her boots splashing against the wet ground. "This place hasn't seen daylight in decades."

"Which means whatever’s down here wasn’t meant to be found," Olivia added as she climbed down.

Jessica’s hand traced the rough, icy stone of the tunnel wall, her fingers catching on an uneven groove. Something about the texture stirred a memory, something buried deep. A flash of small fingers on cold stone. A voice, low and urgent. “Hide.”

She inhaled deeply, blinking away the sensation. Not now. Not here.

"Jess?" Leanna’s voice pulled her back to reality.

"I’m fine," she muttered, shaking off the unease. "Let’s keep moving."

The tunnel stretched forward into an oppressive darkness, its length unknown. Their footsteps echoed with each cautious step, the distant hum of machinery barely perceptible through the stone. The deeper they went, the colder it got, the kind of cold that stuck to your bones..

"Hold up," Olivia whispered, motioning for them to stop. She pointed ahead where a faint red glow pulsed in a rhythmic sequence, embedded in the wall. "Motion sensors. They're still active."

Olivia knelt beside the device, inspecting its wiring. "We trip this—best case, we’ve got a ten-minute head start. Worst case, they already know we’re here"

Jessica exhaled, considering their options. "Then we do this fast. In and out before they can react."

Olivia nodded and got to work. The rest of the team kept their eyes on the tunnel ahead, the silence suffocating. Jessica couldn’t shake it, the gnawing certainty that she’d been here once. Long ago. Or maybe in someone else’s life.

A sudden noise—a faint whisper against the stone—made her freeze. She turned, the flashlight sweeping across the corridor behind them. Nothing. But she could feel it. A presence lingering in the dark, watching.

And then, for a second, she heard it again. A whisper like an old breath against stone: "Jessica... run." Memory or warning — she couldn’t tell anymore.

Her pulse thundered in her ears. The memory was there—just out of reach.

Before she could say anything, Olivia whispered, "We’re in. Let’s move."

Jessica forced herself to nod, shoving the ghost of the past aside. She could unravel it later. Right now, they had to survive. They pressed forward, deeper into the abyss, unaware of the eyes that followed from the shadows.