United States, Philadelphia.
A cold drizzle fell from the sky over the dark, damp streets.
Ten-year-old Billy Batson pulled his somewhat shabby jacket tighter around himself and hurried through the alleys with his head down.
Just moments ago, he had once again managed to slip out of his new foster home.
To him, so-called foster homes were nothing more than cold, temporary lodgings. His only goal in life was to find clues about his birth mother in this vast, indifferent city.
"Tap, tap, tap..."
Rain soaked his shoes as Billy turned into a narrow, deathly quiet back alley, panting for breath.
Yet barely a few steps in, the temperature around him plummeted, and an utterly eerie silence instantly swallowed all the traffic noise outside.
Billy instinctively sensed something was wrong and whipped his head around.
The alley entrance he had come through had vanished without a trace at some point!
In its place stood an enormous granite wall, cold, hard, and weathered with age, blocking every possible retreat.
"What's going on?!"
Billy jumped in fright, his little face instantly turning deathly pale.
In a panic, he spun back around to look for another exit, only to discover that the narrow alley once crammed with garbage cans had completely changed as well.
Ahead was no longer a dim street, but an ancient corridor, deep and long, stretching underground into the unknown!
Strangely shaped torches stood along the stone walls on either side. Their ghostly green flames danced soundlessly in the still air, casting the entire space in an eerie, sinister light.
"Is anyone there? Wh... where is this?"
Little Billy's voice trembled, his heart pounding violently in his chest.
Faced with this scene that defied all reason, his legs went weak with sheer terror.
But with no way back, he