The Long Dark Beneath the Mountain

The king demanded a railway line between Oakheart and Malguinem Port.

The only way was through the mountains. A tunnel so deep it had never been attempted before. A straight line carved across the kingdom. When finished, it would carry goods that would make the king even richer.

In the dark, and the cold, we dug.

I didn’t take the job just for the money. Coin can take you far in the kingdom, but respect can take you further. The digging was long. The stone unyielding, even against the new Zayne-tech drills. We struggled.

And then something happened.

Something wonderful.

Something awful.

We broke through into a hollow within the mountain, an ancient dwarven city. Vast. Pre-Fall. Bearing the scars of nearly fifteen hundred years of decay. Left to rot. Its beauty forgotten. Its magnificent architecture lost when the Fall took not only lives, but knowledge itself.

It stretched for miles in every direction.

We had torn through a wall. Below us, perhaps thirty feet down, what had once been the city’s base: an expansive tiled floor, still intact. A masterpiece.

We were so stunned we didn’t hear the cracks.

The tunnel collapsed behind us.

We were trapped.

Me. James. Kirin. Leaya. Pete.

Five of us. In the dark.

“Altogether, we’ve got water for eight days,” James announced. “But the lights’ll only last three, if we keep them on.”

James was head of team C. Winners three months running.

“Three days?” Leaya snapped. Ever the pessimist. She was the drill technician, sent straight from the Etherdow Academy.

“Light won’t matter if we’ve got no grub,” Kirin said. A driller like me. Sensible. Even for a Raimex, he knew the score.

“Hmmm.” Pete sniffed, as he always did. The team’s surveyor. A real smart arse, but he knew his stuff. “Might be something down here.”

“Something?” I asked.

“Reports mention fungal cultures in old water systems.”

“Fungus?” Kirin scoffed. “Ain’t no mushrooms growing in this dark.”

“Not mushrooms,” Pete said. “And not just fungus.”

“Just say it,” James growled.

“After the Fall, algae and fungi adapted to feed on the bodies left behind. The dead.”

“You can’t be serious,” Leaya said. Technical as she was, she was still devout. Raised religious. Her brother was a priest of Sol.

“I am,” Pete replied. “Once the bodies were gone, so was the food source. Some of it adapted. Developed bioluminescence. To attract—”

“Attract what?” I asked, though I already knew I didn’t want the answer.

“Creatures,” Pete said quietly. “Things that live deep.”

Silence.

“I’m afraid it may be our only option,” Pete continued. “If we find the glow, something living will follow. Something we can kill.”

“We cook it,” James said. “Leaya, can you rig the drill? Get heat out of that broken thing?”

“I might,” she said. “And I can stretch the light. But we’ll have to be very careful.”

I swear that last part was directed at me.

“Good,” James sighed. “Then we move.”

None of us liked it. But no one had a better idea.

We agreed no one would die down here.

The city stretched for miles. Or maybe it only felt that way. In the dark, distance is generous. The ruin became a maze. Collapsed corridors. Broken spans. Progress measured in backtracking and guesswork. I think two days passed before we saw the glow.

Blue light coated the corridor. Ancient carvings drowned in bioluminescent growth. Rusted supports curved like the ribs of a dead giant. Stone replacing structure. Cave overtaking city.

And then they came.

Insect-like things. The stuff of nightmares and children’s stories. Horrors you hear about and hope never exist. One was as large as a dog. Drawn by vibration.

It struck my leg.

I drove the drill, reshaped into a spear, into its carapace. It cracked. Beneath it, soft flesh. Three strikes loosened its grip. A fourth silenced it.

I bled, but I stood.

James wrapped my leg himself. Tight. Professional.

“You’re no good to us limping,” he said.

I watched Kirin’s hands while he worked. Steady. Unhurt. None of them had so much as a scratch. Funny, considering how close they’d been. How close I’d been.

I was just grateful someone else was taking charge.

We ate it. Raw. It was vile. I ate everything. Even the shell.

“We did it!” James cheered.

“Now we do that until they break through,” someone said.

I was sure it was James.

Later, I wasn’t.

“How long?” I asked.

No one answered.

“You remember the river,” Pete said.

“There was no river,” Leaya snapped.

“There was,” Pete insisted. “Underground. We crossed it.”

I remembered crossing something. Cold. Wet. Or maybe just the sound of it.

In the end, it didn’t matter. We were past it.

James always checked the tunnel behind us before sleeping.

“Never turn your back on the mountain,” he used to say. “It remembers.”

I slept. Or maybe, just a moment of away from it. Waking up only felt optional.

The lights should have died by now. I thought it had been a day. James said it had been two.

We focused on surviving.

The first creature tasted like copper and ash. I gagged. Ate anyway.

By the third, I didn’t notice the taste. That worried me.

I noticed James wasn’t eating as much. I didn’t ask why.

Someone suggested we ration. I disagreed. I don’t remember raising my voice. But none answered, none argued.

We hunted efficiently now. The creatures avoided us after a while. They fear us. Fear me.

The tunnels felt narrower. The walls seemed older. The silence was—

…

Tap.

…

I thought, I heard voices.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered.

James nodded immediately. Always the optimist.

Kirin smiled. “Told you they’d come.”

Leaya closed her eyes, relief washing over her face. It was good to see her that way.

I stood. My legs shook. My heart raced.

None of them moved. Still in disbelief. The dark shifting.

…

Tap.

…

“Sir, we found him. The fifth member of team C. Are you alright?”

“Me?” I said. “We’re all here.”

“Son… you’ve been down here three months. We assumed you were all dead!”

“We are,” I whispered. “We’re all here.”

They exchanged looks.

“Sir,” one said quietly, “we found the others. Under the collapse.”

“How did he survive?”

One of them kept staring at my hands.

I curled my fingers into my palms and pretended not to notice.

“Sir,” another murmured, “he’s… he’s not malnourished.”

“We survived,” I mumbled. “We made it. This city gave us what we needed.”

“What City?”

“Why is he whispering?”

“The marks on your leg,” the medic said. “Are those bites, or—”

“Argh! The light,” I said, squinting. “It’s so bright.”

“Son,” the officer said gently, “you’ve been in the dark a long time. It will be hard to adjust. How did you survive. We found the others. Their bodies broken. All in the tunnel.”

I pictured them then.

Not searching.

Not fighting.

Just lying there.

Facing the tunnel.

Looking into the dark, where the light should have been.