I was trapped in a pocket of space created by a fallen slab of obsidian. It hovered inches above my face, held up by the wreckage of Sibal’s machine. Dust choked the air, thick and gray, tasting of pulverized rock.
I couldn't move. My right arm was shattered. My left arm, the one I had ripped the needle from was a bloody mess, throbbing in time with my fading heartbeat.
But I could hear.
The silence that followed the collapse was short-lived. It was broken by a sound that made the stone beneath me vibrate.
They weren't Sibal’s shuffling gait. Sibal had scurried away like a rat into the tunnels the moment the roof gave way. I had heard him scrabbling in the dark, cursing my name as he fled.
These footsteps were different. They were the sound of a predator entering a slaughterhouse.
"L
