Chapter Two

Chapter Two – The Wailing Below

I used to think silence was my comfort.

Now I know it's only the space before something terrible begins.

The research camp sprawled across the foot of the mountain like a wound stitched together in haste.

White tents crowded the clearing, cables snaked through the mud. Portable generators groaned beneath the weight of too many machines.

Above the cave entrance, drones hovered in the mist, their blinking red lights resembling watchful eyes.

And reporters clustered near the barricades.

I caught fragments of conversation as I passed.

"Magnetic resonance..."

"Acute hallucinations..."

"Mass psychological trauma..."

Nobody sounded certain and nobody sounded brave.

I shoved my hands into my hoodie pockets and stared at the mountain.

Honestly? It didn't look like much.

It looks just like a jagged opening carved into the stone.

Although dark, and heavy like an eye refusing to blink.

"You really think you can handle this?"

I glanced over.

Dr. Vellan stood beside a folding table littered with equipment logs and consent forms.

He wore clean shoes and pressed shirt.

The kind of man who looked like he'd never made a reckless decision in his life.

His gaze drifted toward the guitar case strapped across my back.

His eyebrows climbed.

"You can't seriously be bringing that inside."

I looked over my shoulder at the case.

"It's my weapon."

A few younger researchers nearby snorted upon hearing my answer.

"Weapon?" one of them echoed. "Against what? Ghosts?"

I adjusted the strap.

"Against whatever's waiting."

They laughed even more, I shrugged.

"A gun won't stop a sound."

I rested my hand against the worn surface of the guitar case.

"But maybe a song can."

That made them speechless, as if they somehow realized something as their laughter eventually faded.

Dr. Vellan can't help but to stared at me, while the others exchanged uncertain looks.

I wasn't sure if they stopped because they thought I was joking...or because they couldn't tell that I wasn't.

Truthfully, neither could I.

I didn't know why I'd brought it, I just knew I couldn't leave it behind.

It had belonged to my father, after all.

When everything else had been taken from me, his house, his savings, the pieces of a life that should have been ours, the guitar had remained.

Sure it is a little battered now, and slightly out of tune yet it still stubbornly intact just like me.

Suddenly, movement beyond the safety fence caught my attention.

I froze when I saw who was it, it was Aunt Lora.

Her hair was pinned neatly in place and her smile was sweet enough to rot teeth.

She stood beside a reporter, dabbing at dry eyes as though she were already rehearsing for an interview.

She's acting like a grieving aunt, portraying like the worried family member.

But I'm not dead yet, you're too excited.

The woman who had demanded grocery money while wearing jewelry bought with my father's inheritance, she really is trying to boil my blood.

Then my gaze shifted, if Aunt Lora was here then his good-for-nothing husband must be here as well.

The corner of my lips lifted into an smug smirk. Uncle Ren stood beside Aunt Lora, he met my eyes across the crowd.

His bruised jaw tightened, the corner of his mouth curled upward.

Understanding settled heavily in my stomach.

So that's how it is.

If I died down there, they would cry for the cameras.

Of course, they would talk about family, as if they even considered me one even once.

And afterward, they'd collect whatever compensation my death left behind.

For a moment, I imagined the look on Aunt Lora's face if I walked back out of that cave alive.

The thought almost made me smile.

"You'll have to wait," I murmured beneath my breath.

I tightened my grip on the guitar case.

We entered the cave at noon, or at least, that's what time it was outside.

Inside, time felt different.

The first thing that hit me wasn't the darkness...it was the sound.

A low hum vibrated through the air, so faint I almost thought I imagined it. It wasn't loud enough to understand, but it settled beneath my skin anyway, like standing too close to a speaker and feeling the bass in your bones.

The cave walls were damp, the stone slick beneath our gloved hands.

My flashlight barely cut through the darkness ahead before the black swallowed it whole.

"Keep formation!" Dr. Vellan called. "Everyone check your comms."

So we did, static crackled through the headsets.

"Comms are good."

"Copy."

"Still here."

The replies came one after another, a little too fast, but despite that, I could still sense their tense breathing.

I stayed near the back of the group.

My fingers brushed against the strings of my guitar.

Honestly, I still didn't know why I'd brought the guitar.

Maybe it was fear, not of the cave, exactly.

But the kind of fear that made you think about stupid things at the worst possible time.

If I didn't make it out of here alive, then at least my guitar wouldn't end up getting wrecked by my aunt and uncle while they fought over whatever I left behind.

And since I'd already carried the thing all the way up the mountain, I might as well play something.

I wasn't being superstitious nor was a genius.

But if those whispers, that mourning, were really just sound, some kind of frequency messing with people's heads then maybe another sound could interfere with it.

Counter it and disrupt it.

Or maybe I was just making things up so I'd have an excuse not to panic.

Either way, sitting around screaming didn't seem very productive.

Besides...I was curious about what was hiding down here.

And if this place really was as ancient and strange as everyone claimed, then who knew?

Maybe there were treasures buried beneath all this creepy underground nightmare nonsense.

I plucked a single note then another, soft and steady.

A quiet rhythm against the hum filling the cave.

I know it maybe was ridiculous or was insane. But for me personally, I needed this sound.

I needed something familiar to remind me where I ended and the darkness began.

"Why the hell are you playing that?"

Kai glanced back at me, his voice lowered beneath the echo of our footsteps.

He looked to be around my age, though his nervous energy made him seem younger.

I shrugged.

"To keep us from losing our minds."

He snorted.

"You really think music's going to help?"

"No idea."

I plucked another string.

"But if this place starts whispering sweet nothings in my ear, I'd like to have something louder to listen to."

Kai let out a shaky laugh.

"You think this is some kind of horror movie?"

"Maybe."

I glanced ahead into the endless darkness, I can't help but gulped whatever saliva I had.

"You'd better hope I'm right."

His laughter died quickly.

After that, no one else spoke.

The deeper we walked, the louder the hum beneath the earth seemed to become.

As if something far below had noticed we were there and was listening back.

I closed my eyes, and tried to remain plausible.

~~~🦋

A kilometer in, the first scream cut through the static.

It wasn't from the cave but from one of us.

"Mika!" someone shouted.

I spun around and saw Mika had dropped to her knees.

Her hands were clamped over the sides of her helmet as she shook violently.

"Stop whispering!" she screamed.

Her voice begun to crack.

Everyone froze.

But no one had said a word?

"Stop it! Stop—!"

"Mika, look at me," Dr. Vellan ordered, moving toward her. "Stay calm."

She didn't seem to hear him, her eyes darted wildly through the darkness.

"They won't shut up," she sobbed. "Please... please make them stop."

Just as before anyone could reach her, she lunged sideways, hitting the damp wall with her head.

The impact echoed through the tunnel.

The sound of bones breaking and her helmet hitting the ground.

The sound made my stomach twist.

"Mika!"

Her flashlight rolled across the cave floor before flickering out.

Darkness rushed into the space it left behind.

"Sedative!" Dr. Vellan barked. "Now!"

Someone fumbled through their pack, another dropped the injector.

Their hands shook, as people started talking over each other, citing silent prayers.

"It's the stress—"

"Get her restrained!"

"But she hit her head—"

Behind me, Kai suddenly stopped moving.

"Kai?" I called out to him.

He stared ahead, his face had gone pale.

Beside him, Juno's breathing also turned shallow and uneven.

My gaze caught Arelai slowly lowered the scanner in her hands.

Their pupils were blown wide, bloodshots meanwhile the hum around us grew louder.

At first, I'd thought it was just a sound.

Just background noise or cave acoustics.

Now I wasn't so sure.

The mourns that was at first, were just whispers now, it as if blaming us for trespassing their domain with such conviction.

It settled beneath my skin.

The grief and desperation were like carving itself into my mind.

A sorrow so deep it felt less like hearing and more like remembering something I'd never lived through.

The mountain mourned, I could feel it in my bones.

My pulse stumbled, faster than ever before.

For one horrible second, my heartbeat didn't feel like mine.

Then, a metallic clatter echoed through the cave, one of the researchers had dropped his tablet.

Then he started laughing wildly, wrong and shaking. He dug his fingers into his own chest as if trying to claw something out.

"They're crying," he gasped between broken laughs as tears streamed down his face.

"Why are they crying?"

His voice rose into a scream.

"Make them stop!"

Around me, people crumpled one by one, each digging through their heads, scratching their skins as if trying to get rid whatever were controlling them.

The sedatives and prayers didn't work.

Nothing worked.

"Fall back!" Dr. Vellan shouted.

The command cracked through the chaos.

"We're retreating! Move!"

They stumbled toward the entrance, some dragging others, some remained sobbing and some too frightened to look back.

I should have gone with them.

I should have listened.

Instead, I stood there.

Because beneath the panic...

Beneath the screaming...

There was something else.

A sound not of mourns, it reached toward my ears.

Not a voice but more like a vibration brushing against the edges of my thoughts.

Impossibly familiar, it called to me without words, without sound neither breath.

*Dahlia*.

I stopped breathing.

It didn't feel like the mourns from the cave, it felt older and lonelier.

I tightened my grip on my guitar.

Then, while everyone else ran, I walked deeper into the darkness.

The further I walked, the quieter it became.

There's no longer the mourns, or whispers that distorted the minds of my companions.

Just the sound of my own breathing and the occasional pluck of guitar strings beneath my fingers.

I hadn't even realized I was playing, the melody came on its own.

A lullaby my mother used to hum when I was little, before hospital bills and funeral flowers and relatives who smiled while taking everything you had.

I couldn't remember the lyrics anymore, just the tune.

It drifted through the darkness, soft and familiar.

And strangely...the cave seemed to settle.

The pressure pressing against my skull eased, the cold loosened its grip.

Even the endless hum faded back, as if listening.

I stopped when I noticed something ahead, something there is shimmering.

I narrowed my eyes.

At first, I thought it was metal or glass being reflected by my faint light of my flashlight.

No, the surface was too smooth and too perfect.

My flashlight swept upward.

Stone arches emerged from the dark, tall and ornate.

It looked less like a cave and more like the entrance to an underground cathedral.

My heart kicked against my ribs.

"Okay," I whispered.

"That's not concerning at all."

The air felt different here, it's heavier.

It carried the sharp scent of salt and something else I couldn't name.

And beneath the silence...I could still hear it.

The weeping, begging... the mourning.

It didn't come from ahead of me or behind me, it came from everywhere.

I tightened my grip on the guitar.

"Alright, old man," I muttered into the darkness. "Whoever you are, you're not scaring me."

For a second, nothing happened, then the sound shifted.

I was startled upon hearing it again, but it's still faint.

It sounded different and ancient almost like...

I frowned.

"...Was that a laugh?"

The cave fell silent again, I stopped walking.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Something had changed, I couldn't hear it, couldn't see it.

But I knew.

The same way you know when someone is staring at you from across a crowded room.

Something in the dark had noticed me.

Every sensible part of me said to turn around.

Go back and find the others, pretend none of this had happened.

Instead, I adjusted the guitar strap on my shoulder.

"...Three hundred thousand dollars," I reminded myself.

Then I took another step forward, there's nothing going to stop me from making that money mine.

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