Scene 40: A Door That Opens Only Once
Carter couldn't breathe.
His chest tightened as he stood in the sterile hospital room, blinking against the harsh white lights above him. His eyes flickered to the walls, to the corners, to the edges. Everything seemed to move out of the corner of his eye. In the silence that had wrapped around his existence since the mine, he felt disconnected from the world. As though his own body wasn't his anymore.
His hand trembled as he reached up to touch his face. His skin felt foreign, his breath shallow.
But worse was the feeling inside him-the gnawing emptiness, as if he were missing something vital. Something stolen.
"I'm going to check his vitals," the nurse said softly.
The door to the room creaked. Carter jerked at the sound, his head snapping toward it.
"Stop," he whispered. But the words barely reached his own ears.
She didn't hear him. She couldn't.
---
Scene 41: The Drums of Silence
Far away, in an underground chamber, Arjun sat in the dark, staring at the wall. The room was suffocating, air thick with a palpable weight.
He hadn't slept in days. His mouth was dry. His mind was a blur of static and fragmented memories.
He thought of Elise. The last image of her before she vanished-her face in the darkness, mouth open, her eyes pleading.
Her eyes were still there, somewhere, trapped in his memory.
Suddenly, a vibration rippled through the floor, unsettling him. The buzzing in his ears intensified, but this time, it wasn't just a hum.
It was a beat.
A rhythm.
A drum.
He stood and stumbled toward the source, his feet dragging over the cold stone floor. It was coming from deep within the mine. He knew that pulse, that rhythm. It was alive. It was calling.
And it had never stopped.
---
Scene 42: The Whisper of the Past
Outside, Elise's camera lay abandoned, its lens cracked and dust-covered from the night it was left behind. But as the wind moved, the camera flickered back to life. The footage was shaky, dark. But on the screen-distorted, flickering-was the face of Elise.
Not the way she had looked before.
She was different now.
Her features were blurred, her body writhing beneath the skin, as though she were being pulled apart by the darkness itself. Her mouth opened-no, not her mouth. Not really.
It was something else.
Then, through the static, a voice crackled:
"We have to listen."
---
Scene 43: In the Wake of Echo
Carter's hand shot out, gripping the bed rail. The air around him felt thick and dense, pushing down on his chest as though the room itself was trying to swallow him. His pulse raced as he glanced toward the window.
There, standing in the reflection, was Arjun.
Not physically. Not in the way that made sense.
But something about his presence. Something about the way the reflection of the room shifted when Carter's eyes flicked to it-he knew. It was him. It had to be.
"Arjun?" Carter whispered hoarsely.
The reflection remained motionless, its face locked in a frozen scream. His jaw hanging wide.
Carter's heart hammered in his chest.
He reached for the door, stumbling, desperate to escape the suffocating grip of the room. But just before he touched the handle, a voice reverberated inside his head-a voice he knew too well.
It was Elise's.
"Carter, you can't leave. Not yet."
His stomach twisted.
It was a warning. But also an invitation.
---
Scene 44: The Echo of Truth
Arjun's fingers gripped the edge of the desk in the dark room. He couldn't sit still. He couldn't rest.
The whispers were everywhere.
They had followed him.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. In. Out.
The sound in his ears had changed again. This time, it was more distinct. Like words. Like commands.
He pressed his palms against his ears, trying to block it out. But the whispers cut through his defenses, rising louder and louder.
Then, he heard it.
The Mine.
The door to his room creaked. Not just the sound of an old door.
The sound of something opening.
And he knew.
It was the same door that had opened long ago.
It was the door they had never shut.
---
Scene 45: Crossing the Threshold
The camera footage flickered once more, a small, pale light gleaming in the dark. The blurry figure of Elise appeared again-her lips moving, her eyes hollow with the empty gaze of something that had seen too much.
But as she whispered, the words broke through the static:
"It isn't just the silence that calls us. It's what waits for us inside."
The whisper echoed. A voice. But not Elise's.
Not anyone's.
Carter's eyes widened as the voices spiraled together, growing louder in the space between them, melding into a single entity.
It was alive.
His hand moved without him. He was already walking, heading for the door. He had to see it for himself. He couldn't wait any longer.
He had to find out what was beneath the surface. What had been calling them all.
It wouldn't wait.
---
Scene 46: The Point of No Return
The screen in front of Reaves flickered with images from Carter's field tapes. She watched in silence as his last moments unfolded, watched as his eyes darted between shadow and light. As his last breath rattled in the empty air.
But the real message wasn't in his voice.
It was in the footage.
Something moved.
A shape within the shadows, like a mouth opening-wider, deeper than any man should be able to comprehend.
And it was waiting.
Reaves slammed her hands onto the desk.
"We need to find the others. Fast."