Deep within the tunnels—beneath stone, soil, and the last threads of reason—lay a cavern.
Not just a tunnel or offshoot chamber, but a true underground hollow, the size of a football field. A biome, twisted and created in secret.
The air here was wet and strange. The silence, heavy and artificial. Like sound itself refused to stay here long.
The floor had long since stopped being rock. It was overrun with grass that shimmered oddly in the light—wrong in color, wrong in movement.
Petal-like blooms rose between patches, opening and closing slowly like mouths learning to breathe. Thick vines wound across the space in heavy knots, climbing the walls and ceiling in a chaotic web.
And nestled in those walls—pods.
Large. Pliant. Suspended by pulsing vines and coated in that familiar blend of blood and chlorophyll slime. Half cocoon, half horror.
Inside them: people.
