The butcher was still tied to the wall behind them. Red strings glowing faint in the dark, holding it there. But the sound didn't stop. Even muffled, even bound, it kept saying it.
Kyle wiped blood off his arm. "We can't stay here."
Yua nodded. She looked tired. The life entanglement took a lot out of her. "The tunnel splits up ahead. One way goes to the escape chamber. The other..." She sniffed. "The other smells worse."
"Then we go that way," Elara said. Her voice was quiet but steady. "If it's worse, that's where they're hiding things."
No one argued.
They walked. The handmade earth passage kept going down. The air got colder. The smell got worse. Not just rot now. Something chemical. Something clean and wrong at the same time.
After about ten minutes the tunnel opened up.
And it wasn't an escape chamber.
The root crystal deer in Kyle's chest went still.
