Nora and I walked shoulder to shoulder, the only light in the entire cavern coming from the small flame hovering above her palm. It floated like a tiny sun, warm, steady, and very judgmental whenever I stepped too close and nearly singed my eyebrows.

Our footsteps echoed.

Soft splashes reverberated every time our feet touched the ground.

The ground was damp, slick enough that every few steps I nearly slipped to my dramatic death.

"So," I said, because silence always made my imagination invent horrors. "What do you think we'll find down here? Gold? Artifacts? Ancient treasure? A legendary sword? Maybe a hidden door that leads to a secret boss fight?"

Nora snorted. "Treasure? Really? No. We're going to find dead bodies. Old skulls. Maybe a ribcage or two."

"What kind of mindset is that?"

"A realistic one," she replied. "And if you've learned anything by now, it's that the universe hates you."

"…Fair."

We shook on it.

Her palm was warm.

Mine was cold.

Sacha, curled around my neck now that she got bored of being a hat, purred softly like she was placing bets too, probably on who would scream first.

We kept moving. The damp floor made that awful splash-squelch noise with every step, like we were stomping through the world's saddest puddles.

The air was heavy.

Thick.

Old and the deeper we went, the more the walls changed.

Large slashes dug into the stone.

Three at a time.

Evenly spaced, as if some giant cat, or something worse, had clawed straight through the cave.

I paused next to a particularly deep set and ran my fingers along the grooves.

"These look… fresh," I murmured.

"Awful," Nora said. "Terrible. Great choice, Sebastian. Fantastic place to wander into."

"I know. Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

I chose not to respond.

It kept my ego intact.

We continued walking for what felt like an hour, maybe more. Time had dissolved into the monotonous rhythm of damp steps and faint crackling flame. Eventually, though, the tunnel widened, and the walls pulled back like curtains being drawn open.

We stepped into something different.

Something new.

A den.

The stone here wasn't smooth like before. It was shredded, marked, torn. Piles of fur gray, wiry, were scattered across the ground. Bones lay in heaps, cracked open, hollowed out. The ceiling arched high overhead, forming a natural dome that trapped the cold air like a freezer.

Even Nora's flame flickered, shrinking against the oppressive gloom.

"This…" she whispered, eyes scanning everything. "Looks like…"

"A wolf den," I finished.

Or something close to a wolf.

Something big.

Something with claws like the ones behind us.

Sacha tensed around my neck, tiny paws digging into my shoulder.

I swallowed.

"Well," I said, voice a little quieter than normal, "good news, Nora."

"What," she asked carefully.

"No old people skulls."

She glared at me, as if trying to make a hole in my head with just her gaze, which wasn't possible.

But she didn't deny the tremor in her eyes.

And neither did I.

Sacha suddenly shot upright on my shoulder like a startled house cat discovering the concept of taxes.

One second, she was curled up, purring faintly into my collar.

The next her entire body turned into a fuzzy explosion. Every strand of fur stood on end, her tail puffed into a terrified exclamation point, and she pointed into the darkness with a trembling paw.

"Sister Nora! Cut the fire! Cut the fire right now!" she squeaked in her sugary, singsong voice still cute, still third-person, still somehow making panic sound adorable.

Nora froze mid-stride. "What? Why? What's wrong with her?"

Her confusion was justified.

Sacha didn't spook easily.

You don't get to act that adorable while perched on a man's shoulder like a fashion accessory unless you have confidence in your survival rate.

But Sacha's voice held none of her usual playful lilt.

"Just, just do it! No more light!" she insisted, shaking.

Nora hesitated for only a moment, then flicked her wrist and severed the mana connection.

The fireball in her palm sputtered and went out like a candle in a hurricane.

Instantly, total darkness swallowed us. A blanket of black. A void so thick I could've sworn it had mass. I couldn't even see my own hand in front of my face not that I was waving it around or anything. Probably.

A long silence hung between us.

My eyes adjusted to absolutely nothing.

"…Okay," I whispered, sensing the sudden shift in the air. "Sacha, talk to me. Do we have company?"

She pressed her tiny paws into my cheek, trembling.

"Papa… listen."

That was all she said.

No jokes.

No cutesy fluff phrases.

Just listen.

So I nodded, shut my eyes, pointlessly, but dramatically and focused.

At first there was only silence. Heavy, thick, and suffocating.

Then faint sounds emerged.

Subtle.

Repetitive.

Too regular to be dripping water.

Thump.

Thump-thump.

Thump.

Hearts.

My own heartbeat quickened not out of fear, but because, well, this was interesting.

I listened harder.

One heartbeat became two.

Two became five.

Five became ten.

They kept multiplying. A steady, layered rhythm that grew in clarity the longer I focused.

"…You've got to be kidding me," I muttered as the number rose.

Nora shuffled nervously beside me. "What? What do you hear? Why is there that deranged smile on your face? We're in complete darkness, how am I seeing it?!"

Good question.

Terrible timing.

Because I was smiling.

Grinning, actually.

In the dark.

No idea how she perceived that. Maybe princesses came with night vision. Or maybe my smile simply radiated smugness.

Finally, I counted the last distinct rhythm.

Twenty.

Twenty heartbeats.

All around us.

All steady.

All close.

I let out a low breath. "Well… that checks out."

Nora hissed, "What checks out?!"

"The place looking like a wolf den," I whispered back. "And the giant claw marks. And, you know… all of that."

She made a strained noise that might've been a suppressed scream. "You think there are wolves around us right now, AND YOU'RE SMILING?"

I shrugged in the darkness. "It's an improvement. I was expecting skulls."

Sacha whimpered and dug her claws lightly into my shoulder. "Papa… don't move."

Which, naturally, made me want to move.

And so, because I am very smart, very responsible, and definitely not theatrically overconfident, I shifted my foot forward.

One step.

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