# "They gave us one rule in the mine. Never to go below Level 7" Creepypasta

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 14 May 2025, 32 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/66084019/they_gave_us_one_rule_in_the_mine_never_to_go_below_level_7_creepypasta.mp3

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by goosejpg: / dig-128604896 Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO- SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd... iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS- ►"Good Places to Start"- • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep ... ►"Personal Favourites"- • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher... ►"Written by me"- • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creep... ►"Long Stories"- • Long Stories FOLLOW ME ON- ►Twitter: / creeps_mcpasta ►Instagram: / creepsmcpasta ►Twitch: / creepsmcpasta ►Facebook: / creepsmcpasta CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪ ►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪ This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: I'm not saying the money made it worth it, but
[0:05] Speaker 1: it did keep me faired. The kind of job I had, hell,
[0:09] Speaker 1: the kind of place we worked was the sort of
[0:12] Speaker 1: thing you didn't exactly talk about at family gatherings. I
[0:16] Speaker 1: never brought it up with my brother when he called,
[0:19] Speaker 1: didn't post about it, didn't take photos. I wasn't even
[0:23] Speaker 1: allowed to keep a journal, not a real one anyway,
[0:28] Speaker 1: only the pocket logs they issued, the kind where every
[0:31] Speaker 1: page was marked confidential in bright red. And even then
[0:36] Speaker 1: we weren't supposed to write anything more detailed than shift
[0:40] Speaker 1: notes and tool sign outs. But if you're the type
[0:43] Speaker 1: who's ever stared down the barrel of a second eviction
[0:46] Speaker 1: notice or wondered if that noise in the ceiling meant
[0:49] Speaker 1: you couldn't afford the exterminator again, you'll understand why I
[0:54] Speaker 1: took the job. I got the call through someone who
[0:58] Speaker 1: knew someone, a guy had contract rigging work with out
[1:01] Speaker 1: in Arizona. He didn't tell me what the job was,
[1:06] Speaker 1: just that it paid triple and they needed people who
[1:09] Speaker 1: could keep their heads down. The phone call was short.
[1:14] Speaker 1: I didn't even give a formal yes, just silence long
[1:17] Speaker 1: enough for him to say all right, I'll pass that on.
[1:24] Speaker 1: Two days later, I got a message on my old
[1:26] Speaker 1: work email that was still connected to my phone. I
[1:30] Speaker 1: hadn't used it in years. There was no subject line,
[1:34] Speaker 1: no sender list, just a set of coordinates, the time,
[1:38] Speaker 1: and instructions to bring id and steal toe boots. It
[1:44] Speaker 1: felt off every part of it, but I was behind
[1:49] Speaker 1: on rent and the other job I'd lined up fell through.
[1:53] Speaker 1: I told myself it was probably some private sector contract gig,
[1:58] Speaker 1: maybe security or survey were nothing legal, just quiet. I
[2:05] Speaker 1: drove five hours to a truck stop in the middle
[2:08] Speaker 1: of nowhere, an unmarked van already waiting. The driver didn't
[2:13] Speaker 1: say a word, just pointed to the back like he'd
[2:17] Speaker 1: done it a hundred times before, and I climbed in,
[2:22] Speaker 1: because desperate people do strange things. When the numbers finally
[2:26] Speaker 1: stopped working in their favor, we drove for what felt
[2:31] Speaker 1: like hours. The windows were blacked out and my phone
[2:35] Speaker 1: was taken and sealed in a lead lined pouch, the
[2:38] Speaker 1: kind you could only release with a strong magnet. Nobody spoke,
[2:43] Speaker 1: and when the van finally stopped, we were at a
[2:46] Speaker 1: small private airfield, bare concrete, a single floodlight and a
[2:51] Speaker 1: plane waiting on the tarmac. Too small to be commercial,
[2:58] Speaker 1: The plane wasn't marked, just a featureless charter jet. Inside
[3:03] Speaker 1: were half a dozen other guys, spaced out like strangers
[3:07] Speaker 1: at a funeral. The windows were frosted over. The only
[3:11] Speaker 1: thing they served us water in sealed bags like ivy fluid.
[3:17] Speaker 1: When we landed, it was dark again, and I was
[3:21] Speaker 1: left disoriented. Everything felt wrong in a way I couldn't
[3:27] Speaker 1: quite name. My body. Knew I'd crossed too many time
[3:31] Speaker 1: zones or altitudes or both, but no one ever told
[3:35] Speaker 1: us where we were. The air outside was thin and sharp,
[3:40] Speaker 1: and the men who met us wore plain gray jackets
[3:43] Speaker 1: and carried clipboards. They handed us gear bags at the
[3:48] Speaker 1: staging facility and told us strip out everything we came
[3:52] Speaker 1: in with, clothes, wallets, and anything from the outside, with
[3:58] Speaker 1: the exception of our boots. Our ideas were stuck facing
[4:03] Speaker 1: the outside so they could easily identify the owners, and
[4:07] Speaker 1: they stuffed it all into a heavy plastic bin that
[4:10] Speaker 1: was wheeled away. Without a word. They handed us jumpsuits
[4:14] Speaker 1: and blank eyed ee badges. All I know was that
[4:19] Speaker 1: it was up high somewhere. It was not quite mountain
[4:23] Speaker 1: range level, but definitely past the tree line. The air
[4:28] Speaker 1: was thin and cold enough that your nostrils cracked and burned.
[4:33] Speaker 1: You couldn't see anything outside the fence but gray sky
[4:37] Speaker 1: rock and snow smooth hills that never changed no matter
[4:41] Speaker 1: how long you stared. I don't think it was on
[4:45] Speaker 1: any map. I say that because I've locked. God knows
[4:51] Speaker 1: I've locked. The sight itself looked like a prison complex,
[4:57] Speaker 1: everything built from prefab concrete and modulus. Thee right orange
[5:01] Speaker 1: floodlights on timers that ran like clockwork, a mess hall,
[5:06] Speaker 1: four DRN buildings, a machine shop, and the shaft are
[5:10] Speaker 1: itself a series of structures built into the slope like
[5:14] Speaker 1: a scar that hadn't healed right. They couldn't shake the
[5:19] Speaker 1: feeling that there was a small chance this was a
[5:22] Speaker 1: trick and I was never getting that money they promised.
[5:29] Speaker 1: They called it the dig despite it being a mine.
[5:34] Speaker 1: Our job was to keep it operational. Cruise rotated in
[5:38] Speaker 1: and out every lunar cycle for exactly twenty eight days.
[5:43] Speaker 1: We didn't work by month. Instead, we worked by the moon.
[5:49] Speaker 1: What we were digging for wasn't exactly clear, not to
[5:53] Speaker 1: me officially. We cleared debris, stabilized support columns, and tested
[5:59] Speaker 1: gas level. The actual excavation was handled by remote systems
[6:04] Speaker 1: deeper down, All we ever saw would contain us being
[6:08] Speaker 1: brought up and loaded into sealed trucks, the guys unloading them.
[6:13] Speaker 1: More radiation gear. We won't given any, told we didn't
[6:18] Speaker 1: need it. The only rule that mattered, they told us
[6:22] Speaker 1: during induction was this, No one goes below level seven.
[6:31] Speaker 1: They made this clear. There was no reason to go
[6:35] Speaker 1: past there, not even to retrieve a lost tool or
[6:38] Speaker 1: follow a cable run. Even if people called for help,
[6:43] Speaker 1: we were told to ignore it. If you detect unauthorized
[6:47] Speaker 1: comms from restricted levels, log and escalate, do not engage.
[6:53] Speaker 1: The safety officer told us during the briefing that was
[6:57] Speaker 1: the only time the room went quiet. At first, it
[7:05] Speaker 1: all felt strangely normal. Sure, the job wasn't typical, but
[7:10] Speaker 1: for me it was easy work. The only thing that
[7:14] Speaker 1: bothered me was that my sleep didn't feel RESTful, like
[7:17] Speaker 1: my brain didn't have time to relax. Our schedule was simple,
[7:23] Speaker 1: wake up at six am, eat, do safety checks, grab tools,
[7:28] Speaker 1: and work. We spent eight hours down in the dark,
[7:32] Speaker 1: with only the hum of light and the grumble of
[7:35] Speaker 1: machines for company. Most of the dig was reinforced with
[7:40] Speaker 1: old concrete and steel. Everything beyond level three had that
[7:45] Speaker 1: pressure cooked look, with walls bowed in places and support
[7:49] Speaker 1: beams rusted but still technically intact. There was dust in
[7:54] Speaker 1: the air that never settled, so we wore respirators, but
[7:58] Speaker 1: the air still tasted like blood and chalk. By level five,
[8:04] Speaker 1: the stone changed. You could feel it under your boots.
[8:09] Speaker 1: Everything sounded different, too. Your steps didn't echo the same way.
[8:15] Speaker 1: It was like the walls swallowed sound. People talked less.
[8:20] Speaker 1: The deeper we went, probably from the thinner oxygen. Level
[8:25] Speaker 1: six had the worst of it. The air got warmer,
[8:29] Speaker 1: tighter in the chest. Even the lights struggled down there.
[8:34] Speaker 1: The bulbs glowed dimmer, always flickering. Some of the guys
[8:38] Speaker 1: swore they saw things in the far corners of the shaft,
[8:42] Speaker 1: just shadows, probably tricks on their tired eyes. But occasionally
[8:49] Speaker 1: someone would shine a light into the dark and claim
[8:52] Speaker 1: it bounced off something reflective, like cat eyes. And you
[8:57] Speaker 1: could always hear something beneath your feet. He didn't sound mechanical,
[9:03] Speaker 1: he was slower, heavier, something more like a breath or
[9:08] Speaker 1: a pulse. Sorenson didn't say much his first week, but
[9:14] Speaker 1: one day, when we were cleaning an old spill by
[9:16] Speaker 1: the lockers on six, he paused mid scrape, just staring
[9:21] Speaker 1: at the floor for a while. Then he said, almost
[9:25] Speaker 1: to himself, I think my dreams know more about this
[9:29] Speaker 1: place than I do. They showed me tunnel systems I
[9:33] Speaker 1: haven't been in, but when I get there, I recognize them.
[9:39] Speaker 1: What I asked, but he went back to scraping the
[9:44] Speaker 1: floor like he hadn't heard me. There was something off
[9:48] Speaker 1: about him that day, more than usual. He'd been getting
[9:53] Speaker 1: stranger all week. I heard other workers whisper things when
[9:59] Speaker 1: they thought no one was listening. Stuff that didn't make sense,
[10:04] Speaker 1: like the mine wasn't built here it was reopened. One guy,
[10:09] Speaker 1: Thompson saw he saw markings in the stone that didn't
[10:13] Speaker 1: match any of our tools. I couldn't help but find
[10:17] Speaker 1: the whole thing ridiculous. Being stuck in artificial life for
[10:21] Speaker 1: eight hours a day clearly impacted these guys, and I
[10:26] Speaker 1: wasn't about to let that happen to me and through
[10:30] Speaker 1: it all. Level seven just waited. The first time I
[10:36] Speaker 1: saw the door up close was during my rotation on
[10:39] Speaker 1: safety checks. Level six was on my route and one
[10:44] Speaker 1: of the daily tasks was to confirm the seal integrity
[10:47] Speaker 1: on the level seven door. Every shift, someone had to
[10:51] Speaker 1: take the elevator down, scan the world lines with the
[10:54] Speaker 1: handheld thermal unit, and log the readings manually. The Level
[11:00] Speaker 1: seven was solid steel, welded in three places, painted yellow
[11:05] Speaker 1: and black like a wasp's nest. No keypad, no lock,
[11:11] Speaker 1: just a placard restricted do not open. I marked it
[11:20] Speaker 1: off of my checklist and realized I was holding my
[11:23] Speaker 1: breath the entire time, as if something on the other
[11:27] Speaker 1: side might hear me, and I swear I heard someone
[11:32] Speaker 1: whisper from the other side, but I never told anyone
[11:37] Speaker 1: how to fear of admitting I was catching whatever mental
[11:41] Speaker 1: bug the other guys seemed to have. Sorenson disappeared on
[11:49] Speaker 1: day nineteen, but we didn't realize straight away. We got
[11:55] Speaker 1: used to guy's crashing early or skipping mess to sleep
[11:58] Speaker 1: off of migrain. Nobody kept track of anyone unless they
[12:03] Speaker 1: were your tool body for the shift. But when we
[12:06] Speaker 1: lined up for checking the next morning, he didn't show.
[12:12] Speaker 1: Someone joked that he'd finally quit and maybe he'd hiked
[12:15] Speaker 1: out in the night. We all knew he'd been unraveling
[12:20] Speaker 1: little things At first, he'd stand too close to the wall,
[12:24] Speaker 1: as if listening for something. He started skipping mess and
[12:28] Speaker 1: keeping food in his bunk, as if he didn't trust
[12:31] Speaker 1: the kitchen. Once I found him standing in the equipment hallway,
[12:36] Speaker 1: just staring at the rust stains on the floor. I
[12:40] Speaker 1: remember he said they reminded him of a pattern, but
[12:44] Speaker 1: he couldn't remember from where, maybe his dreams. Once again,
[12:50] Speaker 1: he'd never expand on what he was saying. He started
[12:54] Speaker 1: keeping a journal in his pocket. Log I caught glimpses
[12:58] Speaker 1: of sketches of Spirali like shit apes and some teeth
[13:01] Speaker 1: as well. One page had a date circled three times
[13:05] Speaker 1: with the words do not follow underlined hard enough to
[13:10] Speaker 1: tear the paper. He had been stationed near the freight
[13:13] Speaker 1: elevator on six and said he kept hearing voices over
[13:17] Speaker 1: the intercom even though no one was broadcasting. Said the
[13:21] Speaker 1: signal was from seven. They said they pulled security footage
[13:26] Speaker 1: to the check, but they never shared it with us. However,
[13:31] Speaker 1: word got around. One night he bypassed the maintenance override
[13:36] Speaker 1: and forced the service lift down. He'd taken a breathing tank,
[13:41] Speaker 1: a work light, and one of the old crowbars that
[13:45] Speaker 1: was it. He went down alone when everyone was sleeping.
[13:50] Speaker 1: When we woke up and got to work, I noticed
[13:54] Speaker 1: the lights across the lower levels started flickering in rhythm
[13:57] Speaker 1: in a slow timed pulse four seconds on, four, off,
[14:03] Speaker 1: over and over. The morning after that, Sorenson's name was
[14:09] Speaker 1: gone from the manifest. The side supervisor wouldn't let any
[14:13] Speaker 1: one descend below five for the next two days. Safety concerns,
[14:18] Speaker 1: they said structure review. There was no mention of him
[14:23] Speaker 1: in the bunk records. His gear locker was empty. Even
[14:28] Speaker 1: his plate and cup from the mess were missing, like
[14:31] Speaker 1: he'd never been there at all. That's when it really
[14:36] Speaker 1: started to go wrong. On day twenty two, Wyatt took
[14:41] Speaker 1: the emergency ladder between four and five after the main
[14:45] Speaker 1: lift locked up again. It was the second time that week.
[14:50] Speaker 1: He was furious, muttering about how the maintenance crew should
[14:53] Speaker 1: be fired, and decided not to wait. He slept thirty
[14:58] Speaker 1: feet and cracked two ribs on the landing. Said the
[15:02] Speaker 1: rungs were slick with something, but when we checked they
[15:06] Speaker 1: were spotless, like they'd been scrubbed. One day twenty three,
[15:13] Speaker 1: Briggs had a seizure in the mess hall. Full tonic
[15:17] Speaker 1: cronic he bit through his tongue, blood everywhere, and he
[15:21] Speaker 1: took six guys to hold him down. He didn't remember
[15:25] Speaker 1: it afterward, but he kept asking where the lights had gone.
[15:30] Speaker 1: The lights were still on. Not long after that, a
[15:36] Speaker 1: soft rattling started in the ventilation system. Constant like metal
[15:41] Speaker 1: beads rolling around inside the duct work kept some of
[15:45] Speaker 1: us up at night. We asked maintenance to check it out.
[15:50] Speaker 1: They sent a guy. He climbed into the crawl space,
[15:54] Speaker 1: came back down an hour later and said there was
[15:57] Speaker 1: nothing there. Wouldn't meet our eyes when he said it.
[16:04] Speaker 1: By day twenty four, our radio stopped working reliably. We'd
[16:09] Speaker 1: hear our own voices looping back on a delay. Sometimes
[16:13] Speaker 1: they came back distorted. Sometimes they said things we hadn't said.
[16:19] Speaker 1: Someone asked to leave early and was denied. They said
[16:22] Speaker 1: there wasn't transport scheduled until the next cycle, and breaking
[16:26] Speaker 1: protocol would void its payment. He packed anyway and disappeared
[16:32] Speaker 1: during the night. Nobody saw him again. The rest of
[16:39] Speaker 1: us stopped asking questions. I started seeing shadows move where
[16:44] Speaker 1: they shouldn't, first in the elevator reflection, then the corners
[16:48] Speaker 1: of the dorm showers. They always disappeared when I turned
[16:52] Speaker 1: to lock, and then there was the door to level seven.
[17:00] Speaker 1: Every morning, during safety check on six, some one would
[17:04] Speaker 1: swear the welds looked thinner, just a little like heats
[17:08] Speaker 1: dress had started to pull them apart from the inside,
[17:13] Speaker 1: but none of us wanted to be the one to measure.
[17:17] Speaker 1: We didn't want to get close enough to prove it.
[17:25] Speaker 1: It happened on day twenty six, midshift. We were down
[17:31] Speaker 1: on Level five clearing out some half collapse support corridors
[17:36] Speaker 1: when the tremors started. It didn't seem unusual at first,
[17:42] Speaker 1: the place groaned all the time, but then a chunk
[17:45] Speaker 1: of ceiling came down and took out our primary lift,
[17:48] Speaker 1: an emergency ladder. One second we were tagging a busted pipe.
[17:54] Speaker 1: The next second alarms were blaring and the whole tunnel
[17:58] Speaker 1: was filled with dust and blinding us. We had five
[18:02] Speaker 1: of us down there emergency protocol radio to use the
[18:06] Speaker 1: service access shaft by the old pump station. It went
[18:10] Speaker 1: around the main shaft, but was deeper and looped down
[18:14] Speaker 1: through old maintenance corridors before connecting back up above the
[18:19] Speaker 1: only working one left, which meant to go up. We
[18:25] Speaker 1: had to go down first. That meant passing near seven.
[18:31] Speaker 1: I remember standing at the base of the ladder and
[18:34] Speaker 1: thinking how bad it had been for them to root
[18:37] Speaker 1: us through that level despite the warnings. But the supervisors
[18:41] Speaker 1: had radioed it, so he climbed. We hit level six,
[18:48] Speaker 1: out of breath and wired. Deeke was coughing so hard
[18:52] Speaker 1: I thought he'd pass out. Elson kept looking down at
[18:55] Speaker 1: the shaft like he was paranoid. I couldn't help but
[18:59] Speaker 1: think about my three remaining days, that after all of this,
[19:05] Speaker 1: it would be worth it. Then we reached seven. The
[19:12] Speaker 1: change was instant. The temperature spiked like we'd stepped into
[19:16] Speaker 1: a sealed room with no ventilation. It clung to us,
[19:21] Speaker 1: hot and humid, like a sauna, but instead of wood,
[19:25] Speaker 1: the air tasted of rot. It hit the back of
[19:28] Speaker 1: the throat and stayed there, and breathing felt like inhaling
[19:32] Speaker 1: through a soaked rag. Pressure built in our ears and
[19:36] Speaker 1: sweat started pooling inside the masks. Jeez, it's like breathing soup,
[19:43] Speaker 1: I muttered, Why is it so hot down here, Deeke said,
[19:48] Speaker 1: yanking at the strap of his mask. It's supposed to
[19:51] Speaker 1: get colder the teeper we go. It's not just the heat.
[19:56] Speaker 1: Nelson said, something's off. The air's thick. Then the lights
[20:04] Speaker 1: behind us went individually, like someone was following and flipping
[20:08] Speaker 1: a switch as they came. Deeke Slamp started to cut out,
[20:13] Speaker 1: flickering to the rhythm of his footsteps. Nelson stopped climbing
[20:17] Speaker 1: altogether and just froze. Do you hear that? He asked.
[20:24] Speaker 1: I didn't want to, but yeah. There were voices in
[20:29] Speaker 1: the walls, murmuring somewhere deep in the rock. Gomez dropped
[20:35] Speaker 1: his bag, trying to reach for his emergency beacon. It
[20:39] Speaker 1: tumbled down the shaft, climbing off steel until the sound
[20:43] Speaker 1: just stopped. We kept going. At the next landing, we
[20:53] Speaker 1: left the shaft and headed down the corridor that led
[20:56] Speaker 1: deeper into seven. Inside was a chamber that felt almost alive.
[21:02] Speaker 1: The walls weren't stone so much as tissue, dense and
[21:06] Speaker 1: wet looking, with a surface that glistened in the lamp light.
[21:11] Speaker 1: They flexed in slow waves, like muscles of a throat
[21:14] Speaker 1: mid swallow. Every step squelched faintly, and the smell was
[21:21] Speaker 1: worse than before. Then we saw him. Curled near the wall.
[21:29] Speaker 1: Was what was left of Sorenson. He was dead. No question.
[21:36] Speaker 1: His body was slumped like it had been dropped, but
[21:39] Speaker 1: the chamber hadn't let him go. Something had fused him
[21:43] Speaker 1: into the floor. His back was half sunk into the
[21:47] Speaker 1: wet surface, skin stretched thin where it met the tissue,
[21:51] Speaker 1: as if the walls were slowly pulling him in. The
[21:55] Speaker 1: Film across his body pulsed faintly. One eye was still open,
[22:00] Speaker 1: dried and glazed over, like a dead fish, while his
[22:04] Speaker 1: jaw hung slack in a way no living person could hold.
[22:09] Speaker 1: You could see where the veins are darkened, branching into
[22:12] Speaker 1: the floor like roots. The stench of raw meat left
[22:16] Speaker 1: out in the sun invaded through our respirators. Gomes whispered,
[22:23] Speaker 1: that's why they redid the world. Geez Deeke muttered, voiced
[22:29] Speaker 1: tight and higher than usual. He had one arm half
[22:33] Speaker 1: shielding his face, like that would help. What the hell
[22:37] Speaker 1: is this? This is sick, Gomez gagged behind his respirator.
[22:45] Speaker 1: His voice was hollow. It feels like we're inside something's body.
[22:53] Speaker 1: Nobody corrected him. Elson was shaking. I remember how his
[22:58] Speaker 1: helmet light jetted across the walls like he couldn't keep
[23:02] Speaker 1: his head still. We shouldn't be here, he kept whispering,
[23:07] Speaker 1: We're not supposed to see this. I didn't say a word.
[23:14] Speaker 1: I was trying not to breathe to get through it.
[23:17] Speaker 1: No way, I was cracking. With just a few days left,
[23:22] Speaker 1: the ground beneath us throbbed. Go Miss said something about
[23:26] Speaker 1: a lighter head. I didn't see anything at first, just
[23:31] Speaker 1: shadows stacked on shadows. But then something shifted, and I
[23:38] Speaker 1: caught the shape of another shaft, lined in rusted brackets
[23:44] Speaker 1: and half buried conduit. It looked like another access tunnel,
[23:49] Speaker 1: smaller than ours, stretching straight up. Is that the old vertical?
[23:56] Speaker 1: Deak asked, squinting, his voice cracked. He goes all the
[24:00] Speaker 1: way upright top side. I nodded. We all knew the
[24:06] Speaker 1: layout from the emergency map. This one was a backup
[24:10] Speaker 1: escape route, sealed decades ago, supposedly useless, But there it was.
[24:18] Speaker 1: Then the light shifted again. Whatever comfort that shaft offered
[24:24] Speaker 1: disappeared when I realized it wasn't just exposed, It was open, unsealed,
[24:31] Speaker 1: like it had been used recently, as when the skin
[24:35] Speaker 1: of my arms crawled. The heat pulsed again, thicker than before,
[24:41] Speaker 1: and the walls began to breathe slower, heavier. I felt sick,
[24:47] Speaker 1: like I was fighting a childhood fever. There was something
[24:51] Speaker 1: in the center of the chamber, massive and still carved
[24:55] Speaker 1: with ridges, like the roof of a mouth, only wider
[24:59] Speaker 1: than anything should be. He didn't move, but I swear
[25:04] Speaker 1: it felt like it was waiting. I stepped closer to
[25:07] Speaker 1: get a look, and the thing in the center didn't move.
[25:12] Speaker 1: Behind me, someone whispered my name. I turned, but no
[25:18] Speaker 1: one else had moved. The light posted again, not a flash,
[25:24] Speaker 1: more like a deep rhythmic contraction. Everything flexed, The floor
[25:30] Speaker 1: dropped half an inch beneath my boots, and the film
[25:33] Speaker 1: rippled like it was breathing harder now. Deeke shouted something,
[25:39] Speaker 1: but his voice didn't carry right. It came out bent
[25:42] Speaker 1: and muffled, as if we were underwater. Nelson started backing
[25:47] Speaker 1: toward the exit, stumbling over his own boots. That was
[25:53] Speaker 1: when the tunnel behind us began to close in a
[25:57] Speaker 1: slow tightening. I don't know what made me move first,
[26:03] Speaker 1: maybe instinct, but I ran, leaving the others behind, pushing
[26:09] Speaker 1: through the thick air, and I didn't dare look back.
[26:13] Speaker 1: I threw myself into the old vertical, dragging with my
[26:16] Speaker 1: elbows behind me. The corridor dimmed, swallowed by that pulsing heat.
[26:24] Speaker 1: I remember the way the metal of the vent burned
[26:27] Speaker 1: against my palms, the way the air changed, less heat,
[26:31] Speaker 1: more cold, thinner again. I kept crawling, didn't think, just crawled.
[26:41] Speaker 1: When the tremors started again, I thought the whole shaft
[26:44] Speaker 1: would give, but it didn't. I kept climbing, hand over hand,
[26:50] Speaker 1: forcing myself up through the shaft. It wasn't built for
[26:54] Speaker 1: this kind of escape, too narrow and extremely old, but
[26:59] Speaker 1: I didn't care. I just needed to get above level seven. Eventually,
[27:07] Speaker 1: the tunnel curved and connected to a collapsed service hall
[27:10] Speaker 1: at the back end of level six. I had to
[27:13] Speaker 1: crawl over the rubble that had caved in earlier. My
[27:17] Speaker 1: legs scraped against rebar and broken stone. Every movement felt
[27:22] Speaker 1: harsh in my body. That's when everything tilted. I felt
[27:30] Speaker 1: something shift in my head. When I woke up, I
[27:41] Speaker 1: was in the infirmary on level one. The lights were
[27:44] Speaker 1: too bright and everything smelled like bleach. My throat was dry,
[27:50] Speaker 1: and someone had shaved part of my scalp for electrodes.
[27:54] Speaker 1: The medic didn't say much, just clipped a monitor to
[27:57] Speaker 1: my finger and asked if I felt nauseous. His tone
[28:01] Speaker 1: was practiced flat, like I was a routine checkup, as
[28:06] Speaker 1: if nothing unusual had happened. I asked, what happened to
[28:11] Speaker 1: the others. He said, I must be confused the service shaft.
[28:17] Speaker 1: I said, we took the one near the pump station,
[28:20] Speaker 1: as the supervisor said that was the way out. The
[28:26] Speaker 1: menic didn't even look up, just said there were no
[28:30] Speaker 1: orders given over the radio. That channel's been dead for days.
[28:36] Speaker 1: I didn't say anything after that, just let him finish
[28:40] Speaker 1: what he was doing. But I couldn't stop thinking about it.
[28:45] Speaker 1: The calm in the voice that told us which way
[28:47] Speaker 1: to go, the exact timing of the tremors, and the
[28:51] Speaker 1: fact that the radio hadn't crackled or cut out like
[28:54] Speaker 1: the others. How stupid we were to just follow the
[28:58] Speaker 1: commands without questions. They said I'd been unconscious for five days,
[29:04] Speaker 1: long enough that they'd already processed my dismissal. I went
[29:09] Speaker 1: home like nothing had happened. I followed their itinerary, bordered
[29:14] Speaker 1: the plane and tried not to think about what I'd seen.
[29:18] Speaker 1: I didn't remember going through the terminal. I barely remember
[29:22] Speaker 1: the flight, everything between the infirmary, and my front door
[29:27] Speaker 1: felt dull, like I was moving through underwater. The next
[29:33] Speaker 1: day the deposit hit and I received double hazard pay.
[29:39] Speaker 1: As if that squared the books. I haven't slept through
[29:46] Speaker 1: the night since. The dreams are always the same, that soft,
[29:51] Speaker 1: flexing pressure of walls that breathe, the taste of metal
[29:55] Speaker 1: and sick in the back of my throat, sometimes from above.
[30:01] Speaker 1: Other times I'm crawling. Since I returned, I've been waking
[30:06] Speaker 1: up to find dirt under my finger nails and I
[30:10] Speaker 1: didn't know how it got there. Then muder my slippers,
[30:14] Speaker 1: and eventually there were calluses in my palms. Turns out
[30:21] Speaker 1: I'm digging back yard mostly. Then it was the patch
[30:26] Speaker 1: of dirt in the alley behind my apartment, and at
[30:29] Speaker 1: one point I woke up in a drainage stitch places
[30:34] Speaker 1: I shouldn't have been. I don't remember walking out there,
[30:39] Speaker 1: but I always wake up near a pit with raw
[30:42] Speaker 1: and blooded hands and dirt packed tight under my nails.
[30:48] Speaker 1: It was never the same hole. I called the guy
[30:52] Speaker 1: who got me the job to ask him what the
[30:55] Speaker 1: hell kind of thing he dragged me into and whether
[30:58] Speaker 1: he was digging too, But his voice on the other
[31:01] Speaker 1: end was flat confused. He didn't sound tired or haunted
[31:07] Speaker 1: like I was. Oh, I never gave him your name,
[31:13] Speaker 1: he said. I meant to. I drew Ino pulled up
[31:16] Speaker 1: and everything, but I got distracted and forgot. The job
[31:20] Speaker 1: I was going to recommend was a Nevada warehouse gig,
[31:24] Speaker 1: graveyard shift, but good pay. I swear I never passed
[31:31] Speaker 1: it on

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