Clara’s world shrank to the size of a flashlight beam. She lay flat on her stomach as the grit of the crawl space bit into her palms. The air felt stagnant, heavy with the scent of wet stone and a metallic tang that tasted like copper on the back of her tongue. She had just squeezed through a jagged gap in the foundation wall—a space that should not have existed according to the house’s exterior dimensions.
Her torch flickered, dancing over a floor that was no longer dirt. It was solid, leveled rock. There, reflecting the light in a dull, rusted glint, sat two parallel lines. They were narrow, seated deep in the mountain’s belly and stretching forward into a darkness so absolute it swallowed the beam of her light. The tunnel appeared to go on for miles, disappearing into the heart of the peak.
She froze. The silence was thick, broken only by the sound of her own jagged breathing. This was not a cellar or a storage nook. Her skin prickled with a sudden, primal urge to retreat. She did not go further. Not yet. She backed away slowly, her hand trembling as the implications of what she had discovered began to settle…