Dry, stale air gently brushed her cheeks as Anne slowly walked down the dark concrete corridor. The dead silence was only disturbed by the soft crackle of dried blood beneath her feet.

A small frail boy was closely following her trail.

  “T…Tom?”

The boy lifted his head. His dark brown eyes stared blankly from under his muddied fringe. The smallest of smiles flashed across his face.

  “Where… are we? It’s all so dark.”

Tom shrugged and took her hand as they looked around, unable to distinguish anything but the long and seemingly endless corridor.

  “We have to get out of here.”

With another small nod, Tom glanced back into the darkness behind them before they carefully made their way further down the passage. It was only after almost an hour of walking that doors and other paths could be seen branching off the sides and into the distance, devoid of any movement or signs of life. Blood that covered most of the floor and walls was the only evidence that anyone was there before. The now soppy mass of scarlet pushed out between their toes in big clots as they walked on. A thick lingering stench made the journey nauseating, and breathing became more difficult as they continued further down the corridor.

An abrupt wave of dread swept through Anne’s mind and gripped her senses when Tom looked up at the ceiling high above them. Deep gashes, like claw marks, were etched into the concrete.

Anne reactively spun around and grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “Look at me!” she squeaked.

He lowered his gaze to meet her eyes, his face still strained with fear. She cupped his face and pressed her forehead against his.

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  “It will be ok. We will be OK” she whispers with a trembling voice. “I need you to be strong, ok? For both of us.”

With a nod and soft sighs, they pressed on.

After what seemed like an eternity of clamoring ahead into nothingness, they paused at one of the many doorways barely visible in the looming darkness.

A slight breeze blew through Anne’s hair, tugging a curly strand into her face. She tucked the stubborn lock back behind her ear.

  “Over there!” she pointed inside and pulled Tom into a run. Hope was building up inside them as they neared a big hole in the wall from which the breeze seemed to originate.

Tom slid in a puddle as they reached the hole, falling forward into the unknown and pulling Anne in with him. They hit the ground with a hard thud.

“That hurt,” was all Anne could mumble.

Startled and slightly dazed, they jumped up and looked around them. Moonlight was casting a dim glow through the dead branches of a once-dense tree canopy, and cold dirt was now sticking to their blood-soaked feet.

“We... we made it out. Are you ok?” Anne breathed, brushing grime off the orange rags she wore. Tom replied by dropping down into a crouch and running his fingers through the ground, digging up small rocks in the process. A warm, simple, yet happy feeling flowed from him and Anne shivered at the sensation.

They were in what looked like a forest, yet all the plants and trees were dead and stripped of all but a few lonesome dry leaves. The silence persisted even though they escaped their mysterious confines, and the landscape was bereft of any signs of life. Anne turned to the hole they fell through, where the moonlight now revealed the bent and ripped edges of steel plating and reinforcement protruding from the pale grey concrete wall. It was clear that someone, or something, also escaped this way.

“C’mon Tom. We can’t stay here. We need to find someplace safe and… food. When was the last time we ate? I… I can’t remember.” Tom jumped up and held out a small round pebble, clearly hoping it would make her feel better.

“You keep it,” she said, ruffling Tom’s dirty hair.

She led them a few steps away from the hole and onto a small outcrop, where they could see over the dead forest that stretched out before them.

“Where are we?” Anne whispered.

Tom stared down at his feet to fight the anxiety that had been building up again, but to no avail, because the next question on their minds sent tears running down his cheeks and onto the ground.

“…Who are we?”

iron pyramid surrounded by dead forest, moonlight [https://mj-gallery.com/d236e0b1-f0a7-47f6-9afb-29ee473cd351/grid_0.png]