“Alexa, is that you!?” a man’s voice screamed.

Plain-Man groped through the darkness and felt the rectangular shape of his phone on the ground and picked it up. The light brightened the vicinity, which displayed a man on the floor cowering against a crate, kicking with his eyes closed. Plain-Man then swung his phone light around to where he saw the wolf head and found nothing. He could’ve swore he saw something.

“Are you okay?” he asked, turning to the frightened man.

The man opened his eyes and looked like he was about to run, but instead stayed, saying, “I- I- I don’t know what’s going on! My girlfriend’s missing and there are these things everywhere around here!”

“Things?”

“Yeah! Like- Like monsters, or something! And now… Oh, God, they have Alexa!”

The man burrowed his face into his arms and sobbed.

Plain-Man stood up and checked his immediate surroundings again to make sure nothing was there.

Keeping one eye on what was around him, he turned his attention back to the sobbing man and asked, “Tell me, do you know what this place is?”

“Down here… I don’t know… it looks like it goes on for miles. But above is Blackstar Ranch. We thought we could find shelter here from whatever was attacking us up there, but instead…”

“When was the last time you saw your girlfriend?”

“A half-hour ago. We were in this room when a stack of crates fell and we turned, I swear to you, I saw this glowing… thing that had horns and teeth and was making growling noises, coming right at us… It was like living electricity... I ran through that doorway, thinking Alexa would be right behind me, but when I turned to look, she wasn’t there. And when I mustered up enough courage to come back here, she was gone.”

Scanning the room, Plain-Man shone his light and illuminated several doorways.

“Do you think she ran into one of these?”

“I- I already checked two of them. One is a dead-end room full of old computers and the other… I wouldn’t go in there… It’s like a labyrinth. Every turn I made, there was another one of those things waiting for me. I just can’t imagine Alexa would go through there, unless… Oh God!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out and find your girlfriend.” Plain-Man said, wondering to himself how this guy had survived so far.

Just then, the sound of a crate falling was made on the other side of the room and Plain-Man and the guy looked at each other with widened eyes.

Desperately swinging his phone light around to find the source, a body was illuminated, alien at first and then took a somewhat recognizable form of some green skinned, pointy eared, goblin-looking thing that came shambling towards them. The goblin raised its hand out with long, pointy claws while Plain-Man and the boyfriend turned their backs on it, running through one of the doors.

Alexa’s boyfriend turned out to be right when he said the underground facility went on for miles because him and Plain-Man ran for a good while through what looked like a sewer, with rats and water dripping from the ceiling until they were forced to catch their breath.

“Hey! Let’s stop…” Plain-Man said, gasping.

Above them, a bang rang out and the spiderweb hanging from the square vent began to lift.

“Well, it looks like whoever owns this place still likes to keep the air-conditioning on…” Plain-Man observed.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I just don’t know how we’re going to find Alexa…” Alexa’s boyfriend said despondently, sitting down against the wall and grabbing onto himself.

Not knowing what to say, Plain-Man checked his phone.

“No signal, obviously… let’s check the local area… Alright, I think I got something.”

Lifting his head up excitedly, the boyfriend asked, “What did you find?”

“See?” he showed him his screen that displayed a blinking dot on low grade map of the immediate area with the word ‘Alexa’ above it. “We just need to head… in that direction.” Plain-Man pointed down the tunnel.

The man looked into the continuous darkness, and then back at Plain-Man, and nodded nervously. Both of them commenced on a hesitant trek through the subterrain passageway.

After waking a while, the man spoke up, saying, “You- you know, I always heard ru- rumors about this place being haunted, bu- but I never thought they would be true.”

“Yeah, sometimes it turns out that way, doesn’t it?”

“And now, Alexa might have been killed, and we could be next, I just don’t understand how this is possible!”

“It’s okay, we’re getting close to Alexa and I’m sure she’s alr-“ They stopped and both noticed something lurking in the darkness ahead.

“What is that??”

“I don’t know…”

Emerging from the shadows, not a dog this time, down on it four legs, but a man upright with a huge wolflike face and razor sharp claws ran straight at them.

They both turned to run, with Plain-Man in front, until he turned around and noticed Alexa’s boyfriend had fallen.

“Ahh!” he cringed on the ground as the wolfman streaked right at him, but right at what would’ve been the expected moment of impacted, the figure passed right through him. Now, the wolfman was headed directly at Plain-Man.

Within seconds of impact, he quickly tried to decide whether to embrace the thing or jump to the side but before he did anything, it disappeared, passing right through him.

“…Huh?”

He watched the back of the wolfman run off, back into the shadows and vanish.

“A hologram?”

Plain-Man stood frozen holding his phone light out, trying to make sense of what was going on, and snapped back out of it.

“Are you okay?” he asked the man still laying on the ground with his head covered.

“Is it gone?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He helped Alexa’s boyfriend to his feet. “Here, let’s continue on, we’re almost there…”

They came to another doorway leading to what looked like a water treatment facility with huge tanks and pumps next to waterless canal and peered over the railing. Plain-Man pointed.

“Over here…”

They stopped in front of a tall broom closet pantry that was up against the wall.

“What if one of those monsters attacks us again??”

Suddenly, one of the double doors of the closet swung open and a broom came flying out and whacked the boyfriend on the head.

“…John? Is that you?” a feminine voice asked.

After rubbing his head, John looked up and exclaimed, “Alexa!” before hugging her and pulling the woman out of the closet.

“I’m so glad, we found you!”

“I’m touched by your guys’ reunion, but we should get out here, asap.” Plain-Man tried saying as politely as possible.

They both nodded and all headed back to the tunnel.

Emerging on the other side, Plain-Man calmy entered the storage room with stacks of crates while the couple, holding hands, followed behind, a little more caution.

“Don’t you want to be more care-“ John whispered to Plain-Man before trailing off.

“I’m telling you, everything’s fine. You don’t hav-“

“Behind you!”

Plain-Man turned around and witnessed the goblin creature from before bounding towards with his claws out. Our hero stood motionless as the creature passed right through him and headed directly at the couple, who then began screaming.

“Look! See? Nothing happened!”

John and Alexa looked at each other and then themselves and realized they were unhurt.

“Hey… I guess you were right…

“What are these things supposed to be anyways? It’s like we’re in a haunted house or something…”

“Beats me… I don’t want to stick around and find out either.

The cellar doors flung open and the night air rushed underground. All three emerged from below, stepping onto the dewy grass in front of the house. A light was now on. Plain-Man looked at the couple, who were looking at each other, when suddenly the backdoor on the porch swung open. A man came out.

“Ah! What you all doing on my property!? Get! Get out of here! You’re not allowed on my land!”

Plain-Man stepped forward and tried to explain.

“You see sir, something attacked us-“

“I don’t care what you done, I just want you off my land, You hear?!”

Stepping back now and heading towards the property line, Plain-Man said as the man continued screaming, “Fine, fine… alright, let’s go guys!”