As Fred lifted the lid, the temperature in the room plunged.
The flickering candles sputtered—some dying out instantly, others turning blue.
For a moment, Fred thought the box was empty.
Just velvet-lined darkness.
Then—
something moved.
A pulse.
A ripple in the blackness.
From the void within, a thin wisp of smoke curled out, twisting in the air like a living thing.
It brushed against Fred's skin—and he flinched, feeling ice and fire at once.
Clara shouted something, but the words were swallowed by a sudden roar, as if the walls themselves screamed.
The carvings on the walls—the names—began to glow faintly red.
The dead were waking.
---
The black mist thickened, forming the outline of a figure—a tall, crooked shape that didn't seem to obey the rules of light or shadow.
Fred stumbled back.
From the mist, a voice spoke.
Not aloud.
Inside his mind.
"You...are...mine..."
Fred clutched his head, gritting his teeth against the searing pain.
He saw flashes—
A battlefield soaked in blood.
A throne of bones.
Cities burning beneath black suns.
Visions not of the future, not of the past—
but of something worse:
Another reality seeping into his own.
---
Through the swirling darkness, Clara pulled her pistol.
BAM!
The shot ripped through the mist—but it only howled, reforming instantly.
Fred forced himself upright.
"We can't fight it like this!" Clara yelled. "You have to shut the box!"
Fred lunged toward the open box—but the mist wrapped around his legs, yanking him backward.
Tendrils of smoke stabbed into his flesh like knives of pure cold.
He screamed.
---
Clara dove, slamming into Fred, knocking him loose.
In one desperate move, she snatched a silver dagger from her boot—etched with the same strange spirals from the tunnel walls—and plunged it into the heart of the mist.
The creature recoiled with a shriek that split stone.
Fred, shaking, slammed the box shut.
Instantly, the mist was sucked back inside with a deafening roar.
The candles guttered out.
Darkness.
Silence.
Fred lay panting on the cold stone floor.
Alive.
But barely.
---
Clara helped him sit up.
"You don't get it," she said grimly.
"That thing isn't dead. It's not even trapped for long."
Fred swallowed, his throat raw. "Then what do we do?"
She met his eyes.
"We run. We find the others. We stop Velmont before he lets something worse into this world."
Fred struggled to his feet.
The tunnel behind them trembled.
Distant footsteps.
Not one pair.
Dozens.
They weren't alone anymore.
And whatever was coming... was already too late to avoid.
---