The dire circumstances dawn as the crew readies their packs. There isn’t time to sit in the stew of terror, they must be swift. The Angels have already begun to sing. It’s faint this far from the sanctum, but they can hear it through the floor, the stacks of rock and debris beneath them humming but illegible.
It isn't sound. Not really. More like something breathing under the stone.
Ricket touches his fingers to the tile, his other hand rested upon the hilt of his barbed-wire bat. His eyes are foggy and his braids are loose and tangled, knotted in places and torn out completely in others. He’d tried his best to care for them himself after Mouse had died, but the boy had never paid much attention while she twisted his curls into locks. He mostly liked how it felt — how her hands had been tender whilst parting his hair, how she worked knots out gently. He liked the colour that she added, the beads she’d stolen from some other garment.
He’d torn them out the night before, wrenched them alongside strands of thick hair in his sleep. When he woke, he gathered it all up again, watched fat tears split over colour and seep into detached pieces of himself. Pieces of Mouse, too. The last braids she’d ever plait through his hair, the last beads she’d fasten to the ends. Years upon years of growth and friendship gone, torn away in a nightmare. She wasn’t coming back — she’d never appeared in his dreams, never once and especially not now that she was truly dead and he missed her, he missed her terribly—
“You okay, bud?” It’s Roach that asks, busying herself at his side. “Lookin’ a bit pale. You gonna be good?”
Ricket looks up but his movements are slow, what’s left of his fringe falls in front of his eyes. “This is them?” His voice is soft. Faraway. The girl turns to face him fully, crossing her arms over her chest. Her brow is furrowed. Wary. She nods. Ricket returns his gaze to the floor. The vibration is subtle but very real against his fingers. He whispers, “they help me dream.”
The boy looks fixated, his whole palm now flat against the surface. Roach breathes heavily through her nose, glancing about the room. The others are getting ready. Similarly silent. Slink’s already equipped in his gear, a graffiti mural of skulls and bones painted across a reworked chest-plate, the Seraph sigil scoured off and replaced by a welded steel wing-patch. Chip, by his rifle, counts whatever bullets they managed to scrape together and by the crease in his forehead, it’s not enough.
The girl sighs before crouching low. To Ricket’s level. He doesn’t look up. “Why’d you call it the pit?”
The question blooms from nowhere, enough so to get the boys attention. He blinks once. Twice. “Huh?”
Roach props her elbow against her knee and rests her chin within the palm of her hand. “You guys called this the pit.”
He nods. “Yeah. It’s where we —”
“Why?” She tilts her head. “Why the pit? I mean.. It looks like a pit, but…” She smiles and the cheek that isn’t smooshed against her palm dimples. “Why that name?” Ricket’s hazel gaze flickers towards Rivin who takes inventory by the doorway, half-filling a pack, absentmindedly thumbing the hilt of his nearby blade.
“For Riv.”
Her eyes follow his path. “Why?” She asks again.
“Mouse said it’d keep him away from the other kind.”
A pause, before, “has it?” Ricket nods. When his eyes return to her, she’s making an expression he can’t read, copper orbs still glued to the eldest by the entry. “This Mouse girl left some hole, huh?”
The child softens, “mice are good at that.”
She faces him once more. “You dream of her?”
Ricket is quiet for a moment. “No,” he admits. “I only dream about—”
“The future?”
Something starts in his heart. Hard like poorly swallowed stew. “I-I can’t—”
“I see it too.” Her eyes are striking. Boring into him. “The future.”
“Y-Y-You—?”
“It’s whatever we chose, Ricket.” Again, he stops. Unable to find the right words. She takes his hand and removes it from the tiles. Her palm is warm. Rough and calloused, sharp like cat tongue. “It’s whatever we make it.”
His face becomes still and in the dull light his eyes are wide as saucers, glimmering and present — he’s youthful as a babe in that moment, vying for something to cling to and never let go. “You think we can change the future?”
Her free hand ruffles his hair, gently smooths over tender skin, the pads grazing a welt where fiber once lived, she catches the last braid still clinging to life, a single gold bead still fastened to the bottom. She’s smiling again. “I think we are the future.”
Ricket tries to smile in return, but the light doesn’t quite reach his eyes like she’d hoped. Swiftly, his youth is stolen — replaced by a wisdom that sits in the hollows of his cheeks, weighing them down. He looks pitying and sad, and his hand, far softer than hers, gently squeezes.
“I hope you’re right, Roach.”
They leave in silence, disappearing into plumes of hot steam spewing from the evening vents — this time of night, the Lowrealm plummets into freezing territory; to mitigate this, gaping vents were installed generations ago. It’s not known to the children where the heat comes from, where it’s sourced — only that there’s striking white particles spread throughout the mist. Roach catches it in her hands, microscopic crystals showering her palm at first, and then her wrist and whole sleeve. Like snow, it appears to melt away.
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None of the children dwell, only move. Time is a strict mistress after all. Roach leads, precise with her movements and less like a manic smoke cloud — for once easy enough to tail. Rivin follows closely behind, teeth gritted, heart hammering with exhilaration. “Keep low,” she instructs as they bypass The Spine and its Seraph patrol — they’re headed away from the Staircase this time, deeper into the tunnels and past a maintenance shaft flocked with sentry Saints. They follow her obediently. Quietly. There is no arguing. Even Slink bites his tongue.
Before long, the landscape begins to grow damp again, as it so often does when you go up or down. River can hear water running through distant tunnels — a wild current deep in the stone. Roach descends down a rickety bridge, darting ahead to check the perimeter as the others follow suit.
The underpass funnels out to a wide three winged chamber devoured by moss and algae. In the murky depths and within the dim light of red neon strobes, is what’s left of several decayed temples, most mounted into ancient heaps now thriving with plant life.
To the right, the floor gives way completely to reveal the expanse of the Sanctum below — a mighty steep drop that opens up like a terrible picture — darkness, down and unending, before, further out and hallowed in light, the Loambridge looms, arches threaded with strings of pearl lights, it’s stolen marble statue still holding up a broken world.
Rivin can spot the shapes of preachers draped in rags guiding nearly-there-corpses past the cathedral gates. The singing is louder now. Immeasurably so. Hundreds of voices must chime in and the very walls themselves seem to shake. The cavern echoes the haunting melody across the vast emptiness, funneling the sound up and towards them. Ricket searches for a hand — he finds Rivin’s.
They move on ahead. The climb is somewhat grueling but mostly sharp, mostly long. Finally, she stops. Copper eyes scan their surroundings with keen intent, glinting over jagged rock and narrow corners; most of this part of the Lowrealm has fallen in; lost alongside the collapse of the Upper Stacks, but there’s some familiar markers on the walls every few paces — not Roach’s. Her dibber.
After a long moment of caught breath, the girl darts behind a beam and begins to swiftly fossick within the dust. “Bingo,” she mutters before standing upright. The others peer over the edge where a slate steel door can be seen — just barely — peaking through thick dirt.
Rivin tilts his head. “Where does this lead?”
“In.” She shrugs.
“Where in?”
Roach grins. “Let’s find out.”
The door is enormous and stuck closed, rusted from years of neglect. Roach, pre-prepared, reaches into her pack for lubricant, dumping a generous amount on the parts that look most like her eyes, even then, it takes all of their participation (and an improvised pulley system) to pull the hatch free. Once opened, it reveals a drop into deep, dense darkness and dilapidated steel ladder — missing several rungs — fastened to one side of the concrete tube.
Hesitance is ignored, for one after the other, they descend. It’s another long climb before they’re deposited into an old ventilation system. They check the map and keep moving, Roach cracking a glow-stick to pitifully light their way. Before long, they’re forced into crawling on their bellies through an air duct, the metal devoured by rust and black fungi, the air pungent with iron and rot.
Finally, they come to a dead-end where much of the shaft has been blown away and burnt — metal torn up and down in the areas scarcely visible beneath rock and collapsed ceiling. Beneath, a partially-ruined stone latrine lies cracked and turned over on the floor alongside an ornate tub with brass feet.
The song is deafening now. Close. So close.
Quickly, they drop down and into the room.
“Something’s wrong..” Ricket’s voice sounds faraway, too quiet and quickly lost amongst the choir. He’s looking towards the open doorway where an eerie hallway creeps slender into darkness. Together, they peek around the corner where artwork crookedly lines the walls, mishappen and defaced. Cobwebs curtain the entire ceiling but appear disturbed at head-height. There’s several metal doors on either side of the hall, some chained, others open, plenty fastened closed.
Roach strokes the walls, curling web around her fingertips before turning back towards Rivin — she speaks directly into his ear. “I’ll go first. Stay here.”
His brows crease in the center. “You sure?”
She nods. “Pass it on.”
He does, but the moment he tells Ricket, the boy harshly tugs on his hand. “Tell her no.” Hazel eyes flicker towards the girl before he grasps her sleeve instead, tugging once more. To her this time, “Roach, no. Something’s wrong.” It’s hard to shout above the sound without shouting above the sound; he must press his nose against her temple to warn her.
Her smile is crooked once she understands. “Of course something is wrong, Ket. You’re in God’s house.”
Her hands slips free from his own as she darts on ahead. Ricket gasps behind her, stepping forward before Rivin grips his hood to hold him back, sternly shaking his head. The message is clear. Wait.
In her absence, Rivin tries to make sense of the song. Even this close the words do not make sense, if they’re words at all. It’s not even synchronized, rather hundred of individual howls dipping low and high and random intervals. There is no unity here, only deconstruction of the self. The loudest voice is shrill, squealed from somewhere deeper, closer to the bridge, tinny as though sung directly into the pipes.
He’s growing impatient by the time she returns, face flushed and eyes adrift. Her hand nudges his shoulder as she leans close, hot breath fanning against the side of his face. “Straight ahead, we follow this hallway. Last door.”
Rivin mulls over the words. “Any Angels?”
She nods. “I marked their doors.”
“You see the shipment?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Something appears to snag at her. “That and more. C’mon, pass it on.” He hesitates, steely eyes passing over her face — she’s already fiddling that bone again, smoothing her thumb over what’s left of her last comforter. Still, he turns to pass on the message.
Silence reigns between them bar footfalls as the crew continue onward. Several of the doors lining the hallway are blown right off their hinges while others and bolted or chained, marred with strange symbols that look too close to old blood to be anything else. The one’s marked with a faint chalk ‘X’ hold Angels. No one dare look through the grates to check.
Much of the surviving artwork clinging to the walls depicts quaint seaside cottages tucked across bays of deep cerulean, balconies and staircases wrung by pink and red flowers — most of the paint has molded behind shattered frames, many bare deep gouges, all appear to be painted in daylight.
Soon enough, they reach the end of the sloping hallway and come face to face with a huge cell door, bent in the middle, a large lock still latched into bracket but bulging at the seams — something had once tried to burst it open and failed.
Roach pauses. The others come to stand by her side. No one moves towards it just yet. The next step lies beyond this door after all. The next risk. Rivin feels something brush his side — there’s no one there. No one but ghosts.
He sucks in a breath. His hand hovers over the lock. “Ready?” he mouths to the others.
His family nod. Trying on encouraging smiles that don’t quite fit when they’re all so afraid. His heart lurches. He’s afraid too. This might be it. This mi— Roach’s palm softens over his own.
Perhaps her smile is more convincing and while the fear doesn’t dissipate (it never does) it does indeed sink. Her eyes are bright. How are they so bright down here in the darkness? He watches her lips.
“Ready, Riv.”
Together, they unbolt the lock and open the door.
The Hallow
The chains are gone. The hunters aren't.
Because freedom was only the first step.
Update Schedule:
?? Mondays & Wednesdays
Content Warnings (please read before starting)
- Sexual assault references & scenes – non-gratuitous, not written for titillation, but potentially triggering
- Violence & battle scenes (including injury detail)
- Death and trauma themes
What you can expect:
- A slow-burn character-driven fantasy
- Emotional recovery, quiet resilience, and buried trauma
- Elemental magic with real cost and consequence
- Dual POV
- Subtle sparks of romance that grow with the story
- One very strong MC and another who’s progressing