Sen carried a tank of fuel into the bus.

It was fresh from a car, torn right off from the underside with help of Mortal Commandment and brute force. The gas inside glugged with every step, sloshing and splashing about, until Sen set it down near the back of the bus.

Most of the seats inside were gone, now. Over the last day and a half, Sen and Em had dismantled the interior completely, stripping the bus of most of its seats. In the place of those seats were their looted supplies. Bags upon bags of scavenged clothes, pieces of car snacks, fuel containers, and various odds and ends. They littered the inside of the bus. It looked like a hoarder’s home in there—cluttered, messy, but organized in a sort of chaos that only he and Em understood.

Sen set the fourth and final jug of gasoline down inside the bus’s interior. As he did, he looked around inside. He checked if everything was there.

They had enough food for two more days and more clothes than they needed. They had tools in case anything broke down, spare tires from the other buses, and enough air fresheners to choke a baby to death with the smell alone.

There hadn’t been a second gun after the first, but…

He nodded at the interior.

They were ready.

As Sen checked over the supplies, he saw Em pop her head inside from the corner of his vision, her face covered in grime. “Is everything here?” she asked, looking around. “Because I swear, if we miss something and have to drive back through the death tunnel to get it, I’m going to shoot a pigeon.”

Sen turned to her with an eyebrow raised. “You’ve been a lot more talkative since yesterday. Is your side healed already, Minion One?”

“It’s all patched now, Chief. M’ready.“

“Alright. Let’s get this thing going.”

Em boarded the bus at his nod, and the two of them made sure everything was in order. All the supplies were strapped up now. Their seats were okay, and thanks to Sen’s gratuitous use of Mortal Commandment, they’d been able to weld car hoods onto the bus windows, covering almost all of them with armor.

As it was, they no longer stood inside a bus.

They stood inside a patchwork tank.

Naturally, with it being so fortified, the inside of the bus was dark without any windows. But thanks to the Darkvision Skill Orb that both he and Em had, they had no troubles navigating the inside. Sen strapped himself down onto the passenger’s seat, right next to the bus door, and Em started up the engine.

It purred to life.

August 21st. The Sun has released excess Odd into Earth. Next discharge in 00 days, 01 hour, 31 minutes, and 09 seconds.

The timer counted down in the corner of his vision, as if it were a second sendoff to get them out of this dead end. They’d been trapped in it for the last two days, and Sen found himself looking out of the bus door and into the parking lot.

By now, all thirty-two of the cars inside sported broken windows. Outside the armored bus, Sen glanced over the pile of eviscerated seats, pulled out by their guts and left strewn away from the bus they were taken from. Sen saw them roll past him as the bus moved forward across the lot, moving past the looted cars and the crumpled SUVs, past the essence vampire’s corpse and down the line of pillars marking the parking space.

D3 – L49… D3 – M49… D3 – N49—

The numbers passed them, and the bus took a turn. It traced the paths along the walls in one final patrol. Sen watched for any exits, any easy way outs, but there were none. Nothing but dead ends, just like the past few days had been. Sen watched the bus make a U-turn around a pillar, before heading down the opposite way.

A massive, gaping mouth loomed ahead. It was the fleshy, arterial tunnel from before. The unexplored throat leading down into an abyssal gullet, lined with pulsating veins that throbbed with essence and blood.

They were trapped here. And down into the darkness was the only way out. Em pursed her lips.

“You know, there’s a saying about staring into the abyss.”

Sen nodded. “Look into it, and it looks back?”

“No. The saying goes that you can’t bloody see into it,” Em muttered, turning on the headlights. It flashed forward, down into shadows so thick that Tier 0 Darkvision failed to pierce far into its black, wispy flesh. Em scowled. “It’s a stupid, bloody abyss and it’s stupid, bloody dark. Why can’t we just have a sunshine biome instead of this dreary place?”

“Maybe we could’ve. But if we did, we wouldn’t have to deal with vampires. We’d have to kill demonic Teletubbies.”

“Alright, yeah. I'll take the vampires. Though 'demonic Teletubbies' is a little redundant."

"True. The normal kind are scary enough."

Sen stood up from his seat and walked up to where Em was, driving carefully towards the tunnel. They were creeping into it, now. They were crossing into the line where the ground was more flesh than it was concrete, and beneath the low hum of the engine and the rumble of the wheels, Sen heard the faint sound of wet flesh squelching under tires.

He peered out of a gap in the fortifications; a slit where one of the windows was, allowing him to stare into the arterial highway. Sen narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the darkness. “You said you were attacked when you went down here last time?”

“I was. Farther down from here; where it’s more flesh than parking lot.”

“Did you get a good look at what it was?”

“There’s a saying about the abyss.”

“It’s bloody dark,” he sighed. “Right. Stupid question. So you didn’t see anything at all, then.”

“Naw. I was too busy bleeding out from a hole next to my left kidney.”

“That does tend to be a little distracting.”

The bus drove deeper into the tunnels, down until the stench of blood thickened further. It blasted through the bus’s air conditioning; a haze of coppery, shredded scents. Like pulverized meat and bone, mushed into a bloody pile and left to steam under the sun. But despite that, it stayed quiet. The tunnel continued onward, waiting, all looming walls and dark ceilings.

Sen and Em turned quiet the farther they went inside. It felt like a completely different world here. Over the lights, Sen saw these bumps rising from the side of fleshy road. Like little tumors, throbbing with a steady, pulsing beat.

And from the walls, long, severed arteries hung like vines. Their shredded ends dripped with blood, splashing down onto the windshield as they passed. Tap, tap. The droplets plopped against the bus.

The wipers moved. They smeared red across the glass.

And yet, despite the macabre display, the most unnerving thing of all was the quiet. The cold, waiting thrum of silence in the air. It was like the entire tunnel was holding its breath for them, forcing a stillness in itself that felt engineered. Creeped out, Sen rummaged through the bags behind them, before taking a sip of water from one of the bottles.

When he returned to the driver’s seat, he handed Em a mint to chew on. Something to stave away the aroma of death and congealed blood that hung in the air.

Sen heard it, then. Tapping. Em was tapping her finger against the wheel.

“You’re better at this than I thought,” he told her, and Em scoffed.

“All I’m doing is holding down the wheel and pressing on the gas,” she said, despite still looking stiff in the driver’s seat. “Not even a kid could mess up going in a straight line. Did you expect me to crash?”

“Honestly, I expected the bus to spontaneously combust the moment you got behind the wheel.”

“Yesterday’s practice didn’t go that badly, Sen. At least try to have some faith.”

“Don’t worry, I have plenty. Just not the good kind.”

She gave him a withering look. “You’re an absolute sweetheart, you know that?”

“I’m aware. Try not to swoon while driving.”

Em smiled and rolled her eyes, the humor diffusing some of the tension in the air. As the bus crawled deeper into the tunnel however, Sen found himself standing straighter, reaching into himself. He felt for his Flow—as if to tell himself that it would still be there when he needed it.

As the seconds passed, the conversations between them died, and nothing but the silent tapping of Em’s fingers against the wheel remained.

Sen brought up his status to distract himself.

Status

Name: Sen Salazar – Tier 1 Human [16/30]

Ability: Mortal Commandment [Spirit] – Tier 1

Attributes

(0) Mind – Rank V [0/500] (+)

(1) Body – Rank II [0/100] (+)

(0) Spirit – Rank IV [0/250] (+)

Essence: 288

Skill Orbs [6/6]

Psionic Force (Tier 1 – Purple) [Spirit] – Defensive Augment Bone Armor (Tier 1 - Yellow) [Body] – Shatterburst Augment Claw Fighting (Tier 0 – Orange) [Spirit] – Upgrades Available Darkvision (Tier 0 – Blue) [Mind] – Upgrades Available Fiendish Physique (Tier 0 – Yellow) [Body] – Upgrades Available Predator’s Tongue (Tier 0 – Blue) [Mind] – Upgrades Available

It was tempting to save his essence until he had enough to upgrade Fiendish Physique with the Demonic Resilience Augment. It would make his strengths even stronger. Adding shock-absorption and additional defense was already great by itself, but combined with his Bone Armor and the defensive membrane from Psionic Force?

He would be a tank. Unstoppable. Sen wasn’t sure how he’d do in a fair fight against the essence vampire now, but he was certain he’d be able to hold his own. It wouldn’t be nearly as deadly of a battle as before

Yet, he knew it would be stupid to save essence on that upgrade now. He’d already been holding off on it, but seeing the tunnel confirmed his hunch.

It would be better to squeeze as many advantages as possible now.

Sen poked at another one of his Attributes.

Spirit [Tier 0] Increased! Rank IV -> Rank V

He felt the change immediately. The small puddle of Flow soaking inside his heart expanded, crawling outward. It flowed through his veins in a cool, minty wave. And while it wasn’t anything as impressive compared to reaching Tier 1 in Body, it was enough.

If they got into another fight, Sen wanted to make sure he would never run out of Flow again. He waved the interface away and released a long, calming breath.

“You mentioned hunting whatever monsters are out there for essence,” he said, turning his eyes to Em. “But I don’t see anything yet. It’s eerie. Should we park the bus for a moment? I can come outside and check.”

“That’s too dangerous. We messed up the bus to make it as safe as possible, remember?”

Sen nodded. They’d removed most of the windows by shattering them, and Sen had used Mortal Commandment to weld different bits of car material onto the bus. Now, the windows were plated murderholes, opening into slits that they could shoot out of. Sen had tested Psionic force and Shatterburst on it, and the results were a promisingly brutalized car a few feet away from the bus.

Their venture into the tunnels was then supposed to be a quick ride, with Sen and Em shooting and killing whatever came near.

But so far, nothing had come. It was making him fidgety. Careless.

“I know it’s strange I want something to happen, but—”

Em cut him off with a tap. Sen blinked and turned to her, but only found the girl equally confused. Her hands were on the wheel, her fingers gripping it firmly, and yet—

Tak, tak, tak.

The sound kept coming.

Sen moved away from the front of the bus and looked around, searching the murderholes outside. Darkness. But then, as he stopped over near the back, the sound came again. Sen froze. Above. He looked up, and the sound came there, tapping, as if something were probing the roof.

He turned around and saw Em glancing at him, frowning as pushed the bus forward.

Sen motioned her to go faster.

She did.

The bus’s speed climbed. Thirty miles an hour. Forty. The clunky abomination ran down the flesh-stricken highway, and whatever was on the roof disappeared. Sen took a flashlight out from one of the bags and shone it outside—towards the back of the bus. He stared into the darkness…

And something stared back.

It was a long, coiling creature, hanging low from the ceiling. It looked like a barnacle, split open down the middle, with a long, sinewy tongue the size of Sen’s arm tasting at the air. The tongue had a lamprey’s mouth at the end. Full of evil, serrated teeth. Then, from deep inside the fleshy appendage, a massive barb jutted out from its throat like a lance.

The spear receded back into the lamprey's mouth as the bus drove away. It reared up, receded into the fleshy barnacle, and disappeared. Sen moved the light up towards the ceiling.

There were dozens more. The barnacles latched onto the flesh overhead, waiting, wriggling and twitching as their bus passed.

They were waiting for prey.

A shudder rolled down his spine. Sen walked back to Em near the front of the bus, as she stared out into the darkness ahead. He shook his head. “Good thing you talked me out of going out,” Sen muttered. “I don’t think it knows we’re in the bus, but if I went out there…”

It wasn’t hard to imagine himself looking like Swiss cheese. Em nodded quietly as they proceeded onward, all humor gone. They’d relaxed considerably over the last two days, resting, joking—trying to keep the danger and the death out of their minds. But now that they were here, that faraway threat was now very real and very close. Danger loomed over them in the most literal, intimate sense.

Sen watched the road pass, and occasionally, parts of the wall would open into more huge, gaping mouths. Passages, twisting and turning, creating a maze of titanic veins beneath the earth. It was as if they were traversing through the body of titan; hidden. Unnoticed. They were intruders in a place that wasn’t theirs to enter, and the walls around them seemed to breathe. Unseeing, but aware. As if it knew there was something inside of it, and it was only a matter of time before its invaders were found.

“I’m going to go faster,” Em whispered. Sen nodded.

“Go.”

The bus sped up. Fifty miles an hour, now. Enough that their ride rocked and bumped over the small bulges on the ground, passing over what looked like giant taste buds below. Their lights stabbed ahead, and only the sound of the engine, the tires, and the pumping of Sen’s own heart echoed in his ears.

Farther, they traveled. Farther in.

Sen could hear the breathing, now. It wasn’t something he’d imagined. The air would quiet, then rush down the highway in a stream of faint, crimson mist. An exhalation. A breath. The blood dripping from the ceiling painted their bus a crusted, dirty red. In the stillness that followed, Sen imagined things coming out of the gloom, seeking their skin and flesh. His mind conjured these quiet, creeping forms—they were the whispers of something evil; of a thing in the darkness unseen. It was the feeling of seeing a shape in the pause of still water; of a shade deeper than shadow; of a painting on the wall, following them with its eyes and smiling with a mouth full of bitter, black teeth.

Em reached one of her hands out to grab his arm. She squeezed—hard, hard enough that her nails threatened to bite into his flesh. She looked forward, pale, as she spoke with gritted teeth.

“It's not real,” she whispered, her eyes bloodshot. “The skill you gave me... it’s letting me feel it. This isn’t normal. These thoughts aren’t ours.”

Sen nodded and clenched his jaw, closing his trembling fingers into fists.

“When I first entered, it said this was a Nightmare’s territory.”

Em nodded quietly. “A newborn. But where is it?”

Sen felt his voice grow weak, as if afraid to come out. He looked out into the darkness and swallowed.

“I think we’re inside of it.”