William heard the screams—raw, desperate screams from the sailors behind him—scattered by vibrations that shook the rock layers, like the Cold Current snuffing out a torch and drowning those tiny voices. The nearest scream caught in his throat. He realized it had come from him, rising from the hair on the back of his neck and echoing inside his skull.
The rock passage crackled like a strip of dry powder, then began to undulate like a wave, swaying back and forth like frozen fish. He fell to the ground as cracks split open beneath him. Displaced slabs of rock jutted up against his shoulder blades, and his fingers felt the ground crumbling beneath them.
The source of the tremors was still approaching. Its rumbling waves rolled on and on, recklessly grinding at the sturdy tunnel—a tunnel that had existed long before humanity arrived, and which had seemed destined to last forever.
One side of the cave wall suddenly tore apart. The source of the tremors burst through the rock into the air, shot across the space, and slammed into the opposite wall, as if the rock layers weren't even there. Like a fish leaping out of the sea, breaking through the water's surface, then plunging back in.
Something like a mountain ridge passed through the space. Its shape was invisible in the darkness, but the clattering, grinding sounds suggested a segmented, jointed body, scraping away the extra protrusions from the newly formed cavern.
A horn blast from hell swept stone fragments past his nose and eyelids. The Cold Current stabbed beneath his skin like the fingernails of death. Warm trickles ran down, quickly losing their heat before drying at his hairline and congealing beside his ears, crusting over his eyes. Fine stinging pains spread across his exposed skin, revealing where