Skeletal remains were sprawled all the way down, sitting, lying, some slumped against the handrails, their flesh long since wasted away. Many still wore clothing, albeit most were rags or strips of cloth and artificial materials. I almost tripped over one who still wore a pair of steel toe capped boots.

"We need to be careful going down," I cautioned. "The stairs are cluttered with remains, and we'll have to navigate through them. Stay close."

Matching my words with action, I carefully stepped over a corpse and began the slow descent. We moved cautiously, wary of tripping. The thought of losing my footing and cascading into the darkness below, a flurry of bones accompanying my fall, sent shivers down my spine. After what seemed an eternity, we reached the bottom without mishap, finding ourselves on the train platform. More bodies were strewn about, but the shock of seeing so much death had begun to dull. Trevor was right—this place was a tomb, a final resting place for thousands.

"There's a train on the tracks up that tunnel," Trevor pointed out, his flashlight illuminating the way. The train, stretching at least nine carriages long, disappeared around a bend. I pondered the fate of those aboard. Were they commuting or heading home when disaster struck?

"Which way out?" Ethan's whisper cut through the silence, his eyes wide with apprehension. It wasn't just the sight of bodies that unnerved me—as a scavenger, death was a common find—but the oppressive silence here felt almost sinister. I consulted the map under my flashlight. The city's metro system, vast and complex, was as foreign to me as Greek. Spotting a faded sign marked 'Central District,' I located our starting point on the map and traced our proposed route with a finger. "Shit."

"If we take this tunnel," I indicated the passage opposite the one with the train, "it should lead us to the southern edge of the city."

"Distance?" Beth inquired, her demeanour all business. Any fear she felt was well hidden, increasing my respect for her.

"The downside is it's about three miles."

"Three miles?" Ethan's voice cracked, his distress palpable.

Ethan nodded, his gaze shifting away from mine, a clear sign of his fear. And who could blame him? Our day had been a relentless string of encounters with Marauders, Machines, and Mutants—surviving such odds was nothing short of miraculous. I glanced at my watch; it was now two in the afternoon. We needed to move quickly, avoiding any obstacles, to make it back to the surface before nightfall.

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"Come on, let's get moving," Beth urged, stepping down from the platform onto the tracks. We all followed suit. The air in the tunnel was cool and damp, our flashlights struggling against the oppressive darkness. Our footsteps echoed, a solitary sound in the shadowy underworld. With each step, it felt like we were moving deeper into an abyss, a sense of foreboding growing with the silence and the sensation of unseen eyes upon us. Noticing gaps in the tunnel wall, I directed my flashlight towards them, revealing another set of tracks.

"There's another tunnel," I observed, my voice echoing oddly in the confined space.

"It must be the eastbound tunnel," Beth surmised, her flashlight steady on the path ahead.

A sudden noise halted us. We froze, listening intently, but only silence followed.

"You all heard that, right?" Ethan's whisper broke the silence. I nodded.

"It's probably just the tunnel settling, or some machinery still functioning," I suggested, more hopeful than convinced.

Reassured, for the moment, we quickened our pace, eager to leave the tunnels behind. Even Beth, usually composed, held her rifle a little tighter. The tunnel stretched on, and after covering what felt like a mile without incident, our hopes rose.

Then, Trevor stumbled over an obstruction on the track, his curse echoing through the tunnel as his flashlight tumbled from his grasp. Rushing to his aid, we discovered the source of his fall—a body, unmistakably fresh, no more than a day old. Ethan returned Trevor's flashlight as I knelt beside the corpse. It was a young woman, her face hidden by tangled brown hair. Pushing the hair aside, I was met with a visage twisted in horror, her eyes wide, mouth agape in a silent scream.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Trevor exclaimed, "what could make someone look like that?"

Ignoring his comment, I examined the body, uncovering a sharp, clean wound through her torso. The dried blood suggested a violent end, and shining my flashlight through, the beam passed clearly through the hole.

"I don't think we're alone down here," I whispered. Rising to my feet, I swept my flashlight across the tunnel walls, revealing them to be enshrouded in webs. These weren't the delicate threads spun by common house spiders; these webs were thick, expansive, suggesting their creators were of a considerable size.

"Oh, no," moaned Ethan, standing frozen in the middle of the tracks, his flashlight illuminating the path ahead. The tunnel was strewn with bodies. Some appeared recent, their deaths a matter of hours ago, while others were desiccated, their life essence drained by the architects of this macabre setting. My beam joined his, highlighting a gruesome trail of human remains and a mutant, both ensnared and desiccated within the webbing.

My gaze shifted to Beth. She was staring upward, and my heart dropped. I knew instinctively what awaited our eyes above, yet I couldn't resist the urge to look. There, against the ceiling, lurked a monstrous, eight-legged silhouette. As her flashlight crept closer to its head, I held my breath. The beam finally met its gaze, and a multitude of eyes gleamed back at us menacingly.

"Oh fuck!" Ethan's scream pierced the silence as he too caught sight of the spider. Then all hell broke loose.