Skylyn Valentine's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Skylyn pressed her cat mask tight to her face and stepped deeper into the fungal hallway. The laughter rolled past her again, flat at the end, the way it always was. She gripped her flashlight and listened. The sound bounced off the spongy walls and came from everywhere at once. She stopped at a fork where the corridor split into branching tunnels of vine and pale stalk, each one curling upward like a clue she couldn't yet read. Left. Right. Straight. The laughter teased from all three. Her plan had ended at the front door, and she knew it. Then her flashlight caught color. A small red and blue jacket hung crooked from a knot in the wall, half-swallowed by creeping fungus. She touched the sleeve. It was a child's size. Hers, she thought. One of theirs. Below the jacket, slumped against the wall, sat what she first mistook for a statue — an old figure in a pointed hat, beard long and white, eyes half-closed as if dreaming. He did not move. But when she leaned close, he whispered one word: "Listen." She listened. The laughter swelled from the left tunnel now, louder, drawn toward a huge box-shaped growth pulsing at the far end like a living throat. Skylyn lowered the mask, picked a direction for the first time, and walked toward the sound.