The tunnels pressed inward the deeper Ren moved.

  Walls bowed overhead, pipes sagged low, the air grew colder with each cautious step.

  The ruin thickened too, the threads winding tighter, clinging to surfaces like spiderwebs spun from ash and rot.

  His skin crawled under his clothes.

  The markings had spread further overnight, crawling up his arms, black spirals twisting beneath his skin like living tattoos.

  He didn't need a mirror to know they’d climbed his collarbone now, maybe his neck.

  He could feel them there — a faint pulsing warmth, in time with the heartbeat he wasn’t sure was entirely his anymore.

  Ren tightened the straps of his scavenged pack and pressed onward.

  The alternative was staying still.

  Waiting to rot.

  Waiting to be found.

  He moved through the underground ruins like a shadow, following the paths of least resistance — narrow gaps between collapsed buildings, twisted stairwells plunged into endless dark, the crumbled skeletons of subway tunnels.

  Signs of old life clung stubbornly to the broken structures.

  Crumpled signage in dead languages.

  Faded murals of faces long forgotten.

  Crumbling marketplaces frozen in time, their wares scattered across cracked stone.

  Memories of a world that had eaten itself and died.

  He didn't linger.

  The ruins were beautiful in the way dead things sometimes are — strange and tragic — but they were also dangerous.

  Everything here hungered.

  Everything here whispered.

  Near midday — or what he guessed might pass for it underground — he stumbled across the entrance.

  An archway carved into the cracked foundation of a sunken building, its surface covered in worn symbols.

  Chains.

  Thorns.

  Broken crowns.

  The same patterns he'd seen growing along his skin.

  The same marks he'd seen cut into old bones and burnt stone deeper in the ruins.

  The air beyond the archway vibrated faintly, the ruin-thread woven so tightly that it almost formed a solid barrier.

  Ren hesitated.

  Everything in him screamed to turn away.

  But the hunger inside whispered otherwise.

  It wasn't just urging him to destroy anymore.

  It was pulling him forward.

  Toward understanding.

  Toward power.

  He ducked his head and stepped through the arch.

  The world changed immediately.

  The whispering began.

  At first, he thought it was the ruin.

  The constant low hum he’d grown accustomed to underground.

  But this was different.

  Clearer.

  Sharper.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Voices.

  Dozens. Hundreds.

  Whispering across each other in a thousand broken languages, none of which he understood, but all of which scraped across his mind with razor precision.

  He stumbled forward, one hand pressed to the side of his head.

  The corridor beyond the arch was long and narrow, the walls covered in intricate carvings that shifted when he looked at them directly — scenes of war, of kings and queens crowned in thorns, of cities swallowed by living chains.

  The ruin-thread here pulsed more vividly, flowing through the carvings like blood through veins.

  He pressed onward, boots scraping against ancient stone.

  The whispers grew louder.

  More distinct.

  He caught fragments as he moved.

  "—fell for pride—"

  "—burned by ash and oath—"

  "—bound to the hollow stars—"

  He didn't understand.

  Not fully.

  But the meaning seeped into him like rot through old cloth.

  This place was not built by survivors.

  It was a tomb.

  A monument.

  A record.

  The world had ended once before.

  And something had made sure it wouldn't be forgotten.

  The corridor opened into a vast, domed chamber.

  It took Ren’s breath away.

  The walls soared up into darkness, their surfaces covered in layer upon layer of carvings and symbols, glowing faintly with ruin-light.

  A single structure dominated the center of the room — a massive throne carved from black stone, draped in chains that shimmered with barely-contained energy.

  The throne was empty.

  But the ruin-thread twisted around it like worshipers around a dying god.

  Ren approached cautiously, every instinct screaming that he didn’t belong here.

  That no one did.

  The whispers rose in a chaotic crescendo as he neared the throne.

  Images flooded his mind — too fast to hold onto, too sharp to ignore.

  Cities burning under black suns.

  Armies tearing each other apart with bare hands.

  Great beasts wreathed in ruin roaring across dead oceans.

  Chains binding titans to crumbling mountains.

  He staggered to his knees, clutching his head.

  The shackle on his chest burned, pulsing in rhythm with the whispers.

  He pressed a hand against the stone floor, breathing hard.

  The hunger inside him howled with recognition.

  With need.

  He gritted his teeth, fighting the pull.

  Not now.

  Not yet.

  He forced himself back to his feet, swaying.

  The throne loomed ahead, patient and eternal.

  Waiting.

  No.

  He wasn't ready.

  He wasn't anything yet.

  He turned away, heart hammering, and fled into the side tunnels branching off the main hall.

  The side tunnels were narrower, the air thicker with ruin-thread.

  Here, the carvings were less grand — smaller, more intimate.

  Scenes of ordinary life.

  Farmers harvesting fields of thorns.

  Children playing with woven chains.

  Families kneeling before broken altars.

  The normalcy twisted his gut harder than the grand apocalypses of the main hall.

  Whatever had destroyed the world hadn’t started with monsters.

  It had started with people.

  Choosing.

  Changing.

  Surviving.

  Just like him.

  He stopped at a smaller alcove, its walls covered in newer carvings — crude and hurried compared to the others.

  Survivors, maybe.

  Those who had lived through the fall and tried to make sense of what remained.

  One image caught his eye.

  A figure standing alone before a towering throne.

  Chains wrapped around its arms, its chest, its throat.

  Above it, a symbol carved deep into the stone — a circle split by a spiral thorn.

  The same mark that now marbled Ren’s skin.

  He touched it without thinking.

  The stone shuddered under his fingers.

  A low, grinding sound echoed through the tunnels.

  He stumbled back as a section of the wall slid aside, revealing a hidden passage descending deeper into the earth.

  The whispers surged into a deafening roar, the ruin-thread pulsing bright as flame.

  Ren hesitated at the threshold.

  The hunger inside him throbbed with desperate anticipation.

  Whatever lay below would change him.

  Forever.

  He clenched his fists until his nails — harder and darker now — bit into his palms.

  He could walk away.

  He could survive, scavenge, rot a little slower.

  Or he could go deeper.

  And find out what was already carving itself into his bones.

  He stepped into the dark.

  The passage spiraled downward, the walls slick with condensation and pulsing threads of ruin.

  The air grew warmer as he descended.

  He didn’t know how long he walked.

  Time blurred.

  Steps fell into patterns.

  Breath into rituals.

  Down.

  Down.

  Down.

  Until at last the passage opened into a cavern unlike any he had seen before.

  A garden.

  Or what might have once been one.

  Twisted trees grew here, their bark black and cracked, their branches bare but for thorned chains that hung like dead vines.

  Pools of stagnant water dotted the cracked stone, reflecting the faint glow of ruin-thread twisting through the cavern ceiling.

  And at the center, half-buried in ash and bone, lay a broken altar.

  Chains wrapped tight around it. Symbols etched deep into the stone.

  The hunger surged so violently Ren staggered, dropping to one knee.

  His vision blurred.

  Shapes moved at the edge of sight — shadows without substance.

  The whispers became words.

  "Take."

  "Bind."

  "Become."

  He crawled toward the altar without thinking, fingers digging into the ash and bone.

  The shackle on his chest blazed like a brand.

  He reached out — and stopped.

  At the last moment, sanity clawed its way back through the haze of ruin.

  Not yet.

  Not like this.

  He forced himself back, gasping.

  The altar pulsed once, a low, disappointed thrum.

  Ren stumbled away, retreating into the broken trees, heart slamming against his ribs.

  The hunger growled low, frustrated.

  But it retreated too.

  For now.

  He found another passage leading out of the cavern, smaller and steeper.

  He climbed, hands raw against the stone.

  Climbed until the whispers faded back into silence, and the ruin-thread dimmed to a faint tremor beneath his skin.

  When he finally emerged back into the tunnels, he collapsed against the wall, shaking.

  Alive.

  Still himself.

  Mostly.

  He pulled back the sleeve of his jacket and stared at the markings creeping up his arm.

  They pulsed faintly with his heartbeat.

  No.

  Not yet.

  He pushed himself to his feet and pressed on, deeper into the ruin-choked veins of the dead city.

  The ruin remembered.

  And now, so did he.