The Man Beneath
1283 Words
The floor split with a sound like thunder beneath them.
Elena stumbled backward as the stone broke away beneath her, the room rocking alarmingly. A vast chamber opened beneath them, and the figure climbing up and out of it was revealed. His hair was white, his face sunken, and his clothes hung loosely from his bones, as if he'd been starved and shriveled within the deep tunnels.
But his eyes were the same.
Elena's breath caught in her throat.
He looked at her as if he'd been waiting for this moment for eternity. His mouth trembled, and whatever controlled him gave way. "Elena."
"Dead?" The voice behind her was Maris's. "You told her that you were dead. You told us all that."
"Thomas," the man said, stepping up and out of the opening in the floor. A strange, sad smile touched his lips. He looked from Maris to Thomas before settling on Elena again. "I'm sorry."
Elena opened her mouth and nothing came out. The room seemed to constrict around them, growing too hot, then too cold. Something beneath them shifted, deep and slow, making her flesh crawl.
"You should not have come up," Maris whispered hoarsely.
"I didn't have a choice," he said, looking at her. "I don't have any choice." He turned back to Elena. "You told me to let you grow up in peace. I was willing to leave you alone. But I couldn't live like this."
"It wasn't your choice," Nathan said grimly. He squeezed her hand until she winced. "You're really her father?"
The man nodded, his features paling. "Thomas never told you?"
"I made sure he never did," Thomas growled.
"By burying me," the man said softly. "I made him promise. I made all of our promises."
Elena looked at him, searching his face, trying to see the ghost she'd imagined for so long. The man was real enough, with eyes as tired and frightened as her own. But the face was foreign, an alien mask, and she wanted to look away. She wanted to fall to her knees and scream. Instead, she forced herself to look into his eyes and ask the question that had haunted her every night since she'd run away from home. "Who are you?"
His face contorted as if the words were physically painful to say. "My name is Daniel Holloway."
The name rolled through her, a foreign sound striking at the very core of her being. She couldn't breathe. Daniel. Her father was not a ghost. He was not a legend. He was real, and he was standing right in front of her. Hard, worn lines marred his face, and ancient shadows clung to his every movement. But she knew him. Somehow, she knew him.
The figure in the doorway clapped slowly. "There. That's better."
No one paid him any mind. Daniel's gaze was fixed on Elena's face, his expression desperate. "Listen to me. We don't have much time."
"Much time for what?" she demanded. "To explain to me why you ran away? Why did my mother lie to me all these years? Why does my name mean any of this?" Her voice shook. "Is that what all of this is about?"
He flinched at each word, but said nothing in return. "Yes," he said finally. "It's all of it."
Elena let out a bitter laugh. "Is that really enough?"
"That's all I have," Daniel replied quietly.
The monster in the doorway leaned forward, making the air around them thrum with tension. The charm on her wrist flared with white-hot pain, and the clock hands spun wildly. "You should leave us be," Maris said softly. "You don't understand what you've done."
"The seal is failing," Daniel told her. "The deeper chamber opened when your name was spoken. Don't you see what that means?"
Maris's face fell. That seemed to be the answer enough.
"Explain it to us," Thomas snapped.
Daniel looked from Thomas to Ingrid, to Nathan and Lila, as if he was measuring how much they could stand. "The first Holloways weren't wardens of the threshold. Not truly. They were caretakers. They took vows to protect the city from the entity buried beneath it. This place is its prison, but it wasn't always. The Holloways bound it with their memories and blood. This chamber is its lock, its seal. A name was part of the warding. If it was ever uttered in the wrong room, the seal would break, and the entity would seek its heir."
Elena's stomach twisted. "Me."
Daniel nodded. "The power within you is its tether to the living world. It can't exist within this realm alone."
"What about me?" Nathan demanded.
Daniel looked at him, something dark and unreadable in his expression. "You were its bridge, willingly or not."
The creature in the doorway chuckled, its smile widening. "Told you all along, didn't I? This one has a mind like a knife."
Lila shook her head, pulling away from the hole in the floor. "I hate how much all of you have in common with this ancient monster."
No one said anything to that. The room was silent but for the low thudding coming from deep below them. Dust filtered from the ceiling, and the chamber seemed to pulse like a great, slow heart. The opening in the floor was widening, taking shape. Something huge and many-legged waited beneath them.
"What is it?" Elena asked. "What is down there?"
"Weapon," Daniel said after a long pause. "The first Holloway keeper. You called it a thing."
"No," Maris said hoarsely. "No, I don't want to hear this."
"I thought it was dead," Thomas muttered.
"It was buried," Daniel replied grimly. "There's a difference."
The creature in the doorway laughed. "Now it wakes."
Nathan put himself in front of Elena. "If it wakes, what does it want?"
Daniel's voice was barely audible over the rising murmur of the chamber. "A bearer."
Elena stopped breathing. "A what?"
"A bearer of its memory," he repeated. "It cannot exist outside of this realm unless there is someone to carry its memories beyond the veil. Once it finds the right vessel, it can pass through."
Her father's voice chilled her to the bone. "And you think that vessel is me."
"It knows it is," Daniel said quietly. "I think it's right."
"But I'm not going to be anyone's vessel," she said sharply. "I'm not going to die here."
"You may not have a choice," Maris said softly.
Elena turned on her. "Don't."
Maris's eyes were wide, wet. "I am trying to save you."
"By keeping me ignorant of my own name?" Elena's voice cracked. Maris's face fell, but she didn't have time to do more than blink before the creature in the doorway pulled her skin back from her cheekbones. Shadow threaded the muscle and sinew, exposing something delicate and pale beneath it. It watched Elena with eyes exactly like hers and spoke with a voice that was suddenly two tones deep.
"Daniel Holloway," it said, almost delighted. "You were late."
Daniel went rigid. Elena caught the look on his face, the sudden understanding, the deep, all-consuming fear. "You know what it is," she said softly.
He didn't deny it.
"Dad."
Whatever he was about to say was lost to the sudden groan of the chamber above them. Another sound joined it, coming from the very depths of the earth, like the breath of something ancient and vast and terribly lonely. It smelled of wet stone and iron and rotting things. The air in the chamber was thick and vile. The creature in the doorway smiled, revealing rows of sharp teeth.
And from beneath the floor, another voice answered Daniel Holloway's name.
- Writer
