"Walker!" William hurried forward, eager to bring his returning companion back to the group so they could leave this dangerous place as soon as possible.
The flames moved with him, their glow wavering as the shadows retreated like water, revealing a new cavern. It was made up of countless small, sharply cut surfaces, as though carved out by enormous hammers, with a uniform, round tunnel forcibly excavated between the edges and corners.
It was no different from the caves they had seen before, so familiar that it was impossible to be more familiar—and that was precisely what made it so deeply unsettling. It was like all those repeated details, casually mentioned again and again throughout a story, suddenly erupting in raucous laughter at the revelation of the truth, applauding the culprit who had planted them.
Had that thing disguised its path as a rocky cavern? Or had none of these unnatural caves been formed by geological forces like wind, sand, or flowing water, but instead been made by it, no matter their size?
If so, they were walking in the footprints of a giant, insignificant crawling things treating them as heavenly gifts, oblivious to what might pass by at any moment.
[There had never been such a thing as a "safe" mine.]
The witness could not escape this obvious fact. He was standing in one such "footprint." That thing might turn back on a whim at any moment and bury them forever beneath foreign soil. Then this mine, too, would be sealed up like the Old Mine, leaving behind some senseless rumor of an "accidental collapse."
Fear of an insurmountable presence slowed his pace, but then he realized he had walked far farther than he thought.
The darkness had closed behind them after the underground crossroads. They had walked at