The silence in the collapsed tunnel was unnatural. Dust still hung in the air, the scent of charred flesh and scorched rock thick in their lungs. Mia's hands trembled as she reloaded her weapon, eyes fixed on the ruined passage behind them.
Lucas leaned his head against the cold metal of the maintenance door. "Tell me that worked." His voice was hoarse, hopeful.
Evelyn didn't answer.
Instead, she pressed her ear against the wall.
A slow, wet sound, like something viscous seeping through cracks.
Mia noticed it too. "Oh, hell no."
Leon groaned, still slumped against the wall. Blood soaked through his torn sleeve, his arm broken beyond recognition. Evelyn knelt beside him, assessing the injury, but her mind was elsewhere.
Something wasn't right.
The laughter had stopped.
Lucas straightened, noticing her hesitation. "Evie?"
She didn't respond. A shadow shifted in the dim light.
The moment the word left her lips, the ceiling exploded.
A horrific screech tore through the air, and from the darkness above, the Maw descended.
But it was no longer the same.
Its body had mutated, stretched horribly thin—flesh peeled back, exposing a mass of tendrils where its torso should have been. Its skull split apart, revealing not one, but three writhing tongues, each ending in gnashing fangs.
The fire hadn't killed it.
It had transformed it.
Mia opened fire, her bullets ripping into its malformed flesh, but the Maw didn't flinch. It moved too fast, its elongated limbs skittering across the walls like a grotesque spider.
Lucas grabbed Leon and hauled him up, dragging him toward a rusted service ladder. "Go! GO!"
Mia tossed a grenade.
The explosion sent the Maw reeling, its horrific screeching shaking the tunnel. But before they could celebrate, the creature lunged again, its tongues whipping out like barbed spears.
One nearly pierced Evelyn's skull, grazing her cheek.
Leon barely held on, groaning as Lucas pushed him up the rungs.
The Maw clawed at the ladder, its mouths snapping just inches from Mia's boots.
The steel beneath them shuddered.
Mia's stomach dropped.
The ladder was coming loose.
Evelyn reached the top, grabbing a loose gas pipe. Without thinking, she twisted it open.
Gas **poured into the tunnel below.
Mia looked up. "Evelyn, what are you—?"**
Evelyn flicked her lighter.
A fireball erupted, engulfing the Maw in an explosive inferno.
Mia barely leaped clear before the shockwave blasted them out of the shaft.
The world spun—then, darkness.
Somewhere, in the burning depths below…
The laughter began again.