The tunnels were deathly quiet.
Fred leaned heavily against the rough stone, his breathing ragged.
Clara crouched beside him, scanning the darkness ahead with narrowed eyes.
Neither of them spoke.
Words felt too heavy.
The mist was gone—but its chill clung to Fred's skin, like invisible fingers tugging at his soul.
Finally, Clara broke the silence.
"We need to move. Barton's not dead. Not yet."
Fred nodded grimly.
Deep inside, he knew it too.
People like Barton didn't die from a simple fall.
Not when they had darkness itself on their side.
--
The tunnel they had stumbled into was different from the others.
The walls were smoother, lined with strange veins of silver that pulsed faintly.
It felt... deliberate.
As if someone—or something—had carved this path for them.
Clara ran her fingers over one of the silver veins.
"This wasn't made by the Builders," she whispered. "This is newer."
Fred frowned.
"Newer? How new?"
Clara didn't answer.
Her face was grim.
They pressed on, deeper into the unnatural passage.
Until they found it.
---
The tunnel widened into a chamber.
At its center stood a pedestal, no higher than Fred's waist.
Resting atop it was a single object:
A map.
But not just any map.
It shimmered as Fred approached, the markings shifting and writhing like living ink.
Landscapes rearranged themselves, rivers flowed backward, mountains crumbled and reformed.
It wasn't just a map of places.
It was a map of possibilities.
Of broken paths.
Of futures lost and futures stolen.
Fred reached out, but Clara grabbed his arm sharply.
"Careful," she warned. "These things are never left unguarded."
Fred hesitated.
But curiosity gnawed at him, stronger than fear.
He touched the map.
---
A flash of searing white.
And suddenly, Fred was somewhere else.
Standing alone in a ruined city.
Ash falling like snow.
Fires burning in the distance.
Clara lay crumpled at his feet, blood staining her chest.
Barton loomed over them, laughing.
"You chose wrong," Barton's voice echoed through the emptiness. "And now everyone pays."
Fred tried to move, to scream, but his body was frozen.
The vision shattered like glass.
He staggered back, gasping.
Clara caught him before he fell.
"What did you see?" she asked urgently.
Fred shook his head, throat too tight to answer.
The map pulsed softly, almost... mockingly.
---
Fred forced himself upright.
He studied the map again, more carefully.
It wasn't just showing them where to go.
It was offering them a choice.
A path that might lead them out.
But at a cost.
The silver veins in the walls pulsed brighter, as if sensing their hesitation.
Fred traced the shifting routes with his finger.
Each path ended in a symbol.
Some he recognized: danger, death, betrayal.
Others were alien, unknowable.
There was no safe route.
Only the one they could survive.
Maybe.
Clara touched his shoulder.
"Decide, Fred."
And so he did.
He chose the narrowest path.
The one lined with thorned symbols.
The hardest way.
Because he knew—
Anything too easy down here was a trap.
---