Chapter – The Silence Between Breaths

I stumbled forward, my legs numb, my breath caught somewhere between my lungs and throat.

“Lucien,” I called again, weaker this time. The silence that met me was thicker than the dust. It swallowed my voice like he’d never been here at all.

Gone.

I spun in place, panic clawing its way through my chest. The overturned chair. The broken monitor. A smear of blood along the concrete floor leading toward another dark passageway I hadn’t seen before. My heart pounded louder than my footsteps as I ran after the trail.

“Please,” I whispered to no one.

The passage twisted and narrowed, walls closing...