Sophia carried Yuuta through the tunnel she had spent years digging. Her arms ached, her legs burned, and her breath came in short, sharp gasps that clouded the cold air before her, but she did not stop. She could not stop.
The sounds of the nightmare creatures echoed behind her, the screams of the guards, the roar of the monsters, the wet, tearing sound of flesh being ripped from bone. The facility was dying, and if she did not escape now, she would die with it.
The tunnel was narrow, barely wide enough for her shoulders to pass, and the walls were rough, scarred by years of patient scraping with a sharpened bone. Her fingers were bloody, her nails broken, her palms calloused and cracked.
She had spent years digging this tunnel, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, year after year. She had dug through stone and soil and roots, through layers of rock that should have been impossible to penetrate.
