The Hollow Below

Chapter Three: The Explosion

Richard had never truly understood the meaning of silence until now. It wasn’t the peaceful kind of silence—the type you got when you lay on a field staring at clouds. This silence was alive. Heavy. Pressing. It hummed against their eardrums like a warning, whispering threats from the shadows around them. They’d been walking for what felt like hours. Their torches were growing dim, batteries dying slowly. Ife limped heavily on her bad ankle, supported now by a stick Davis had found and broken to size. No one had spoken in ten minutes, not since the last sound—the creature’s clicking—faded behind them.

The narrow corridor finally widened into another chamber. This one was different—less alive, more... constructed. The walls were flat stone, engraved with more symbols. Beneath their feet were lines, grooved into the floor like tracks. “I think this used to be some kind of transport route,” Jake whispered, kneeling to inspect the grooves. “Like old mining carts. Or maybe even a pulley system.” “From when?” Davis asked. “The Stone Age?”

“Longer,” Loret muttered, his voice tight with pain. “These markings—this isn't Latin. It’s older. Proto-symbolic. Pre-colonial. My grandfather would have loved this.” Richard ran his hand along the wall. Unlike the rest of the Hollow, this chamber didn’t feel abandoned. It felt dormant—like it was waiting. His eyes landed on something half-buried under rock—an old metal casing, cylindrical, with a rusted valve. “What’s this?” he asked, brushing it clean. “Looks like a blasting charge,” Jake said, eyes widening. “But not the kind the mine uses now. This is ancient—like, decades old.” “You think someone tried to blast their way out?” “Or in,” Jake said.

Davis raised his torch, and its beam caught something glinting high up the wall—a metal box, tucked into a crevice. A wire ran from it, broken halfway. “Is that a detonator?” They all looked at each other. Richard stepped forward slowly. The ground shifted slightly under his feet. “Don’t—!” Jake started. Too late. Richard’s boot pressed against a sunken tile. There was a click. A metallic whine. Then a low rumble. The floor shook again—more violently this time. Stones tumbled from the ceiling. Dust poured from cracks. The walls groaned as if waking from a long sleep.

“What did you touch!?” Davis shouted, diving for cover. “I didn’t mean to!” Richard yelled, grabbing Loret and pulling him backward. From above, a giant stone slab slid sideways with a grinding screech, revealing a gaping tunnel they hadn’t seen before—black and deep. And then the charges went off.

BOOM.

A shockwave tore through the chamber. The pressure knocked them to the ground. Flame shot from one corner of the cave, the old explosives igniting in sequence. One of the walls shattered into chunks, sending rocks tumbling dangerously close. Smoke filled the air. Coughing, choking, and disoriented, the four of them scrambled away from the epicenter, deeper into the newly revealed passage. “RUN!” Jake screamed.

They bolted through the tunnel as the collapse continued behind them. The path sloped downward sharply, like a stone slide. They couldn’t stop even if they tried. The floor dropped again. And they fell—again. But this time, they landed in something soft. Slimy. Richard’s hand sank into a thick gelatinous substance, and he almost gagged. His torch flickered wildly, the beam slicing through fog and revealing walls covered in sticky threads—like spider webs, but denser. Glowing strands pulsated with a dull purple light.

“What is this place?” Loret groaned, pulling her leg free of the goo. “Looks like an underground ecosystem,” Jake said, brushing slime off his face. “One that adapted to survive in darkness.” “Great,” Davis muttered. “Let me guess. Giant insects?” As if summoned by the words, something clicked in the shadows. Not the same clicking from before. This was faster. Numerous. A skittering sound joined it—many legs on stone. Richard spun with the torch just in time to see shapes scattering across the walls. Insects—larger than his hand, their carapaces gleaming. One darted toward him and he swung instinctively, knocking it into the slime. “MOVE!” he shouted.

They dashed through the corridor, brushing through curtains of glowing web. The deeper they went, the thicker the air became. It smelled like rot and minerals. Every few steps, more of the insects dropped from the ceiling or darted out from cracks. Jake pointed ahead. “There! Light!”

They burst through an archway into a vast circular chamber. The walls shimmered faintly, coated with some kind of mineral deposit that refracted their torch beams like mirrors. In the center of the room stood a stone column, waist-high, with a bowl-shaped indentation at its top. “I’ve seen this in mythology books,” Loret gasped. “It’s an altar.” “Don’t touch it,” Davis said. “Everything we touch explodes or tries to eat us.” But Richard stepped forward slowly.

Inside the indentation, nestled in dust, was a small crystal—glowing faintly. Not with light, exactly, but with something… energy. The same energy they’d seen pulsing through the moss and webs. He reached out. “Richard, no—” Loret started. But the moment his fingers brushed the crystal, the room hummed. The walls responded. The mineral veins lit up. A distant echo rolled through the corridors—a deep tone, not sound exactly, but vibration. The insects scattered instantly, as if afraid. Then something incredible happened.

A map formed in the air above the altar—lines of light drawing themselves mid-air, forming a network of tunnels, chambers, and symbols. The glowing trails pulsed, converging on one central point—marked with the same spiral-eye symbol they’d seen before. “Is this…” Jake gasped, “a navigation system?” “A layout of the Hollow,” Loret breathed. “We must’ve activated it.” Richard traced one of the glowing lines with his finger. It led from their location upward—zigzagging through tunnels, chambers, and what looked like blocked paths. But one route, thin and winding, blinked brighter than the rest. “Maybe that’s the way out,” he said.

The crystal dimmed and the map vanished. They were alone again. But something had changed. A deep, metallic rumble echoed through the chamber. Dust shook from the ceiling. From the corridor behind them, wind rushed in—unnatural, rhythmic, almost like breathing. “We need to move,” Loret said. Richard pocketed the crystal. “Let’s follow the blinking path.” Jake hesitated. “But what if we’re heading straight toward the thing that built this place?” Richard turned, face hard. “Then we’re going to find it.”