Everything in the director's office had changed. In just a few weeks.

  Heavy velvet curtains were gone, replaced with metal blinds. The antique oak desk had given way to a glass surface on chrome legs. Even the air itself reeked of something synthetic.

  I stood before the desk, constantly clenching and unclenching my wounded hand. Phantom pain was a real bastard. Across from me sat the director, and beside him sat a stranger in a gray business suit with a Nexus logo on his breast pocket.

  The director tapped a stylus against his electronic tablet.

  "Caers, we've found an excellent opportunity for your class to prove its usefulness. Abandoned mines north of the academy. Low-level demonic activity. Nothing serious."

  The Nexus guy said nothing. He just drilled me with his stare, not even blinking, like he'd forgotten how. His pressed suit and pale face seemed mechanical. Inhuman.

  I tried to keep my voice even, though memories of our recent "training" mission wouldn't let me relax.

  "Standard cleanup?"

  "Reconnaissance and elimination. The mines were closed five years ago, but patrols recently noticed activity there."

  The man from Nexus finally spoke.

  "The academy must demonstrate its effectiveness. Especially those divisions that... require additional resources."

  The director's face twitched almost imperceptibly. Then he continued.

  "Your class departs tomorrow at dawn. Standard equipment, three days' rations."

  He handed me a sealed scroll.

  "Map of the area and mission details. Discuss specifics with your group."

  At the door, the director called after me.

  "Caers, not everyone is meant to finish their education. The academy values only the useful. The rest get... written off."

  The threat was too obvious to ignore.

  I gathered everyone in the room. Mira perched on the windowsill, swinging her legs. Val leaned against the wall, looking detached. Tara rummaged through her herbs, muttering under her breath. Kyle polished his blade like he couldn't care less. And Aris stood in the corner as always, melting into the shadows like part of the furniture.

  Tara dropped her herbs.

  "A mission?! They nearly killed us during training! Your hand hasn't even healed properly, and they..."

  If nothing else, our class was united in one thing: objecting. After everyone calmed down and voiced their complaints, I raised my hand.

  "We can't wriggle out of this. It's been two months of training already. Unfortunately, neither my connections nor even the princess's can keep delaying missions that all special classes get assigned."

  Then chaos erupted. I spread the map out, and everyone started shouting at once. Plan, route, equipment. Everyone had an opinion, and everyone was sure theirs was the one to follow.

  Tara insisted.

  "We're not taking the road! I'm an herbalist. I can find a path through the forest! On the road we might walk into an ambush, and then what?"

  "What ambush? You want the local wildlife to pick us off one by one in the woods?"

  Val shot back before she could respond.

  They argued louder than the rest, like opposing forces of nature.

  "Alright, enough. I heard you all. I'll think about the best approach, and the day after tomorrow we head out. Everyone rest and prepare."

  Aris left with the others but paused at the door, looking at me questioningly.

  "Luten, be careful. This mission... My shadows are uneasy."

  When the room emptied, I spread the map on the table, studying the route. The abandoned mines lay in the northern foothills. Several hours through the forest, then a climb up a mountain path. Too far from the academy to count on help. Too isolated to look like coincidence.

  The map was old. Edges frayed, creases worn thin. Notes scattered across the margins in different ink and different handwriting. Coordinates, depth markers, strange symbols. Whose? I ran my fingers over the paper, trying to feel its history the way Mira did.

  A drop of blood fell from my wounded hand onto the map, spreading along the ancient lines. For a moment, I thought the ink moved, as if alive. I blinked. The illusion vanished.

  That night, sleep wouldn't come. I lay listening to the quiet breathing of my roommates, thinking about what awaited us in those mines. Something told me it wasn't just demons.

  Dawn greeted us with fog creeping along the ground. Gray mist wrapped around our legs as we gathered equipment in the academy courtyard. The silence was so complete that the sound of tightening straps seemed deafening.

  Tara raised her gaze to the pale sky.

  "Forecast says clear. The fog should lift by noon."

  Her backpack bulged with herbs and vials. Natural magic was her only weapon, and she was clearly worried about its effectiveness in the enclosed space of the mines.

  Val checked his supply of bandages and small knives, essential for his blood magic. He clenched and unclenched his fist, mentally rehearsing his spells. A few paces away, Mira and Kyle double-checked navigation instruments.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Aris was nowhere to be seen until he materialized from shadows pooling beneath a tree, literally emerging from darkness.

  "Ready. Though my shadows would rather stay behind."

  We set off with the first rays of sunlight. I decided to follow Tara's advice and take forest paths, avoiding the main road. The route was longer but safer, away from prying eyes.

  The forest greeted us with grim silence. The usual chorus of birds that accompanied any traveler was absent here. Only the rustle of our footsteps broke the oppressive quiet.

  Tara whispered, pointing at strange tracks in the soft forest floor.

  "Animals avoid this place. Even large game gives this area a wide berth."

  By noon we'd pushed through the dense undergrowth and emerged onto a rocky slope leading to the mine entrance. The sun burned the backs of our necks, but we felt cold instead. The closer we got, the colder our chests grew.

  The mine entrance gaped like a black maw among gray rocks. Massive wooden supports, blackened by time, held up the vault. On one of them hung a faded sign: "Northern Lights Mine. Mining Development Consortium."

  Stone blocks and wooden beams partially blocked the entrance, but someone had recently cleared a narrow passage. Deep caterpillar tracks from heavy machinery marked the ground. Thin metal shavings glinted in the torchlight.

  Kyle crouched, examining fresh chips in the stone.

  "Judging by the lack of dust, something was happening here two or three days ago."

  I picked up a fragment of a thin metal component.

  "Otherworlder machinery. They were here."

  Tara rubbed a clump of soil between her fingers.

  "The soil... it's strange. Oily somehow. And this reddish tint. I've never seen anything like it."

  "They mined crystals here for magical artifacts. Closed it down because of accidents."

  Kyle's tone was flat, matter-of-fact.

  "How many people died here?"

  Mira closed her eyes, concentrating. After a moment, she answered.

  "Many. But not from cave-ins. Something was waiting for them inside."

  Aris shifted uneasily from foot to foot. His shadows, usually obedient, thrashed around him as if in panic.

  "Down there... emptiness. The shadows don't want to go."

  I pulled a torch from my pack and lit it.

  "We didn't come here to turn back. Stay together, everyone. Val and Kyle up front, Tara and Mira in the middle, Aris in the rear."

  We squeezed through the narrow passage and found ourselves in a spacious cavern. The mine's supports, which once held up the vault, had partially collapsed, but the walls looked strangely smooth, as if polished.

  The torch illuminated the first meters of the tunnel. Strange tracks marked the floor. Not human, not animal. Something heavy had passed through here recently, leaving deep grooves in the stone dust.

  Val tensed, ready to use his blood magic.

  "Demon tracks?"

  "No. Demons don't leave such uniform prints. This is..."

  He trailed off. I finished for him.

  "Machines. Robots."

  I followed the grooves with my eyes as they disappeared deeper into the mine.

  Abandoned tools littered the walls: picks, shovels, lifting mechanisms. Some looked ancient, others relatively new. Here and there, parts of modern equipment glinted.

  Mira crouched beside one of the old picks. Her hands trembled as she carefully touched the rusted metal.

  "I'll see what happened here."

  She cried out and flung the pick away like a venomous snake. Her face went pale, almost blue. Tara rushed to her, offering support.

  "What did you see?"

  Mira gasped.

  "Blood. So much blood! They weren't... They weren't just digging. Something woke up. Tore them apart from inside."

  We exchanged wary glances.

  "Demons?"

  "I don't know. But that miner... Before he died, he saw the walls. They were moving, breathing."

  We pushed deeper into the tunnel, and with every step the air grew thicker. Not from dust or humidity. From tension, hanging almost tangibly. The torch burned steadily, but its light couldn't seem to penetrate more than a few meters, as if the darkness here were solid.

  Tara shook one of her vials.

  "Strange. My potions are dimming."

  I watched the emerald liquid in the bottle gradually lose its sheen, turning to murky sludge.

  Val cut off her thoughts with a sharp gesture. Ahead, the tunnel widened into a spacious cave. In the center, strange symbols marked the stones. Not runes, not letters of any known language. Something more ancient and primitive.

  Mira cautiously approached the nearest symbol, not touching the stone, only running her fingers through the air above it.

  "Wait. I need to check."

  She studied the markings for a long moment.

  "These aren't human writings. Not even elven. Something much older."

  Kyle frowned, scanning the mine's branches. Three tunnels split off from the central cave: two narrow, one wide and central.

  "We need to split up. This area's too large for one group."

  Val objected.

  "Bad idea. If there really are demons here..."

  I intervened.

  "We won't go far from each other. Distress signal is three flashes of light. If you see or hear it, return to the central cave immediately."

  We split up. Aris, Val, and I took the central tunnel. Kyle, Mira, and Tara handled the side passages.

  Our path led deeper underground. The walls here looked strange. Not just smooth. Somehow organic.

  Aris touched the wall.

  "Did you notice?"

  Val drew his dagger and ran the blade along the surface. Instead of stone chips, a viscous dark substance clung to the metal.

  "Strange. Never seen anything like this."

  We advanced another twenty meters when the floor beneath our feet began to give strangely. Not collapsing. Springing. Like an elastic membrane.

  Aris grabbed my arm. His silhouette was surrounded by thrashing shadows, as if he stood in the center of a tiny tornado of darkness.

  "Stop! Something's coming. Something hungry."

  At that moment, a sound came from deep in the tunnel. Like a massive jaw opening and closing, chewing.

  "Back. Slowly."

  It was already too late. The floor beneath us shuddered, then suddenly sagged. We barely jumped clear as part of the floor bulged upward, rupturing.

  Something rose from the tear. Not a demon. Not like any we'd seen. A massive body bristling with dozens of tooth-filled maws. Its skin pulsed in dark red shades.

  Val slashed his palm. Blood sprayed out, twisting into a crimson shield between us and the creature. But his blood should have burned. Instead, it soaked in. The thing shuddered and hissed. Not from pain. From pleasure.

  Val cursed.

  "The fuck?"

  He yanked us into a side tunnel we hadn't noticed before.

  "This way! We need to get back to the others!"

  We ran, hearing behind us the wet chewing of the creature in pursuit. Beneath our feet, the floor began to softly spring, as if something was altering the very structure of the mine.

  At that moment, Tara and the others burst from a side shaft. Their faces were twisted with terror.

  Tara gasped for breath.

  "The tunnels there... they're wrong. Everything feels alive!"

  Mira clutched a strange object: a metal plate covered in symbols. She'd torn it from the wall when she realized what was happening.

  "The otherworlders were studying this place. They were looking for something."

  A crash behind us made clear we had no time for conversation. We sprinted toward the exit, but another creature blocked our path. Human-shaped. But the limbs were wrong, bent in ways they shouldn't be.

  Aris whispered.

  "That's not just a demon. It's something else."

  The creature made a gurgling sound and lunged at us. Intelligence showed in its movements. It wasn't simply attacking. It was choosing a target. Me.