Chapter 329: Deep down
(Back at Alpha Kieran’s end)
Selene pushed herself up slowly.
For a few seconds she remained there, straddling the motionless body beneath her, chest rising and falling in uneven breaths. The air in the room felt thick... humid... as if the walls themselves had watched something they shouldn’t have.
Kieran lay completely still.
His head had lolled to one side, dark hair spilling across his face. Not a single twitch. Not a single word.
Selene rolled her shoulders back, annoyance flickering across her face.
"Ugh... you are absolutely useless when you’re like this and I hate it that we have to do this when you’re unconscious," she muttered under her breath.
She swung one leg off him first, then the other, too reluctant.
Her bare feet touched the cold stone floor.
For a moment she simply stood there, staring down at him.
Kieran’s chest rose faintly. Barely noticeable. His limbs hung heavy, completely unresponsive.
Selene tilted her head.
"Hmm."
She reached down and tugged at the collar of his shirt, straightening it in a strangely careful gesture.
"Can’t have you catching a cold now, can we?" she said softly, a crooked smile pulling at her lips.
Then she grabbed his arm.
Dragging him wasn’t graceful. His body was dead weight, his toe nails scraped across the floorboards with a dull thud... thud... thud.
Each sound echoed loudly in the otherwise silent room.
Selene paused once, glancing towards the door as if expecting someone to burst in.
Nothing.
Only silence.
"Relax," she whispered to the unconscious man. "Things are only going to go uphill from here. No turning back, my love."
Finally she managed to haul him onto the narrow cot pushed against the far wall.
His body dropped onto it with a dull bounce, one arm hanging limply over the side.
Selene leaned over him, studying his face closely.
There was something almost curious in her gaze.
"You’re far more interesting when you’re quiet," she murmured.
For a moment it almost looked like she might touch his face.
But instead she stepped back.
Slowly.
One hand reached for the switch on the wall.
Click.
The room fell into darkness instantly, swallowing the cot, the limp figure on it, and every trace of what had just happened.
Only the faint moonlight slipping through a crack in the shutters remained.
Selene opened the door.
Before leaving, she looked back once into the black room.
"Sweet dreams, Kieran.Dream well till I am back! "
The door shut with a soft thunk.
Then came the sound of a lock turning.
Click!
Outside the corridor stretched long.It was dim, lit only by a few weak torches flickering against the stone walls.
Selene stepped into it carefully.
Her posture had changed completely.
Gone was the relaxed confidence.
Now she moved cautiously — almost nervously.
Her eyes darted left.
Then right.
Listening.
Watching.
She gathered her long hair in both hands and twisted it into a rough knot, tying it back quickly. Loose strands clung to her neck as she worked.
"Hurry... hurry..." she whispered to herself.
Her footsteps became faster, but still light — the quiet, controlled steps of someone who did not want to be heard.
She hugged the shadowed side of the corridor, pausing once at a corner.
Again she checked both directions.
Empty.
Only the distant howl of wind followed.
Selene exhaled slowly, lifting one hand up. Out of the darkness was formed a pitch black cloak that fell right into her open arms. Then she pulled the cloak around herself, tight and began moving again — faster now, almost rushing.
Stone steps appeared ahead as she hurried towards them, glancing over her shoulder one last time as if expecting someone to call her name.
No one did.
Her figure disappeared into the deeper darkness of the passageway as she moved quickly through the spiraling stone stairwell.
Down.
Further down.
Each step carried her deeper beneath the surface — past the levels where animals walked, past the levels where worms crawled, past even the levels where the earth stored it’s ground waters.
Here, the air changed.
It grew colder.
Damp.
Heavy with the smell of ancient stone and something older... something that had not seen sunlight in centuries.
Her boots echoed softly with every step.
Tap... tap... tap...
Selene slowed.
She glanced over her shoulder again, eyes sharp in the low light.
No one.
Only the endless curl of stairs disappearing upward.
"Good," she whispered under her breath.
She turned forward again and continued downward.
The torches along the wall grew fewer the deeper she went, until finally there were none at all. Darkness swallowed the stairwell completely.
But Selene didn’t stop.
A faint ripple of dark energy shimmered around her fingertips, casting just enough shadowy glow to guide her steps.
At last the stairs ended.
Selene stepped into a wide circular chamber carved into the rock itself. The ceiling was lost somewhere high above in darkness.
At the center of the chamber...
Nothing.
Just a massive opening in the ground.
A perfect black circle.
No railing.
No steps.
Just emptiness.
Selene approached it slowly, peering down.
Darkness stared back.
An endless, bottomless void.
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed.
"For the love of—" she muttered nervously, pacing once around the rim. "Why couldn’t this place have a door like a normal lair?"
She stopped at the edge again.
Wind rose from the pit below, cold and hollow, brushing past her face like the breath of something sleeping deep underground.
Selene placed her hands on her hips.
Then sighed.
"Well..."
She took one step back.
Then another.
Her fingers flexed at her sides as faint tendrils of dark magic flickered along her palms.
She rolled her shoulders once.
"Here goes nothing."
Selene inhaled deeply.
And lunged forward.
For a moment—
there was only weightlessness.
Then gravity seized her.
She dropped.
Falling.
The circular opening above her shrank rapidly, the faint grey ring of the chamber ceiling vanishing into a distant speck.
Wind roared in her ears as the darkness swallowed her whole.
Her hair whipped violently around her face.
Still she kept falling.
And falling.
And falling.
The drop felt endless.
Selene clenched her teeth.
"Okay... okay..." she muttered through the rushing air. "Anytime now would be great—"
Suddenly—
The ground rushed up towards her.
Stone.
Solid.
Coming fast.
Selene thrust her hands outward.
Dark energy burst from her palms like liquid shadow, spreading beneath her body in a thick cushioning wave.
The impact came a second later.
WHUMP!!!
The magic absorbed the force, rippling outward across the floor like ink spilled across water.
Selene landed in a crouch.
Her boots scraped across the stone before she steadied herself.
The darkness slowly settled again.
She exhaled.
"Still got it," she whispered with a small, relieved grin.
But the grin faded almost immediately.
Her head snapped up.
Selene straightened slowly, eyes narrowing as she began scanning the vast underground chamber around her.
The place was enormous.
Far larger than the one above.
Jagged pillars of natural rock stretched toward the unseen ceiling. Strange ancient carvings ran across the walls, half-eroded with time.
And the silence...
It was wrong.
Too thick.
Too watchful.
Selene turned slowly in place.
Her gaze swept across every corner.
Every shadow.
Her fingers twitched with dark magic again.
"Hello?" she called softly.
The word echoed faintly across the cavern.
But no voice answered.
No footsteps.
No movement.
Nothing.
Yet the feeling refused to leave.
The feeling that she wasn’t alone.
Selene swallowed.
Her eyes darted toward one of the deeper shadows near the far wall.
Then another.
Then another.
Every corner of that underground space seemed to be staring back at her.
Watching.
Waiting.
Even though—
there was no one there.
