CHAPTER 8: THE LIGHT BELOW
697 Words
Rain continued crashing against the hills.
But nobody moved.
Every pair of eyes remained fixed on the darkness beneath the collapsed ground.
The weak light below had vanished as suddenly as it appeared.
Only blackness remained.
One of the older villagers stepped backward first.
“We need to leave,” he said immediately.
“No,” Hoa replied.
The old man grabbed his arm tightly.
“You don’t understand what this place is.”
“I understand enough.”
“That tunnel was sealed for a reason.”
The tension between them sharpened instantly.
Linh suddenly turned toward the others.
“Everyone go home.”
Nobody argued.
That frightened me more than the collapse itself.
People here weren’t confused.
They were afraid.
And fear like that only came from something already known.
Within minutes, most of the villagers disappeared back down the hill, their flashlights fading slowly into the rain.
Only four of us remained near the opening.
Me.
Hoa.
Linh.
And the old man.
Rainwater continued sliding into the collapsed tunnel.
The deeper darkness below seemed endless now.
I stared at the wooden beams buried beneath the mud.
They looked old.
Far older than wartime storage tunnels.
“Who sealed this place?” I asked quietly.
The old man avoided my eyes.
“No one alive should be reopening it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Before he could respond, Hoa crouched near the edge carefully and aimed his flashlight deeper below.
The beam shook slightly in his hand.
“There’s definitely a passage down there,” he muttered.
Linh stepped closer immediately.
“Hoa.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
She lowered her voice.
“My grandfather worked here before the collapse.”
That caught my attention instantly.
“You never mentioned that.”
“Because nobody talks about it.”
The rain softened slightly around us, turning into a cold mist drifting through the tea rows.
For several seconds, only the sound of water remained.
Then Linh finally spoke again.
“There were rumors after the accident.”
“What kind of rumors?”
Her eyes stayed fixed on the darkness below.
“That the workers found something under the hills.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“No one knows exactly.”
The old man answered this time.
“But after they dug deeper into the tunnels… people started disappearing.”
The wind moved sharply across the slope.
Even Hoa looked uncomfortable now.
“That’s enough,” he said quietly.
“No,” I replied immediately. “It’s not.”
I pointed toward the collapsed opening.
“You all knew something was buried here.”
Nobody denied it.
And that silence told me everything.
A sudden metallic noise echoed again from below.
Clang.
Closer this time.
All four of us froze instantly.
Then—
another sound followed.
A dragging sound.
Slow.
Heavy.
Moving somewhere beneath the tunnel.
Linh grabbed my sleeve tightly.
“We need to leave. Right now.”
But Hoa remained near the edge.
His flashlight focused downward into the darkness.
“What are you doing?” Linh snapped.
He didn’t answer immediately.
Then his expression changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
“There’s stairs,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Stone stairs.”
Part of the mud had shifted enough to expose something beneath the collapse.
A staircase.
Old stone steps descending into darkness below the tea hills.
My heartbeat quickened.
The structure beneath us was much larger than abandoned storage tunnels.
The old man suddenly backed away completely.
His face had turned pale.
“No,” he whispered.
“Hoa—cover it back up.”
Hoa slowly stood.
“You knew.”
The old man said nothing.
“You knew this place was still here.”
The man’s breathing became uneven.
“I thought it was buried forever.”
Another metallic clang echoed below.
This time followed by something else.
A faint vibration beneath our feet.
The tea bushes around us trembled lightly in the rain.
Then—
from deep below the staircase—
a voice echoed upward.
Weak.
Distant.
Almost impossible to hear.
But unmistakably human.
“Help me.”
- Writer
