The light did not reveal a shape, but an outline—something curved and large, nestled deep within a space that should not exist. And nestled against that dark, breathing curve, reflecting the light with a stark, clean whiteness, was something unmistakable. Something human.
A skeletal hand, fingers curled slightly as if in sleep, rested against the organic wall. A wedding band, tarnished but intact, circled one bony finger. The black veins crept over the wrist bones, embracing them, grown into and around them like ivy on a trellis.
Daniel’s breath stopped. The world narrowed to the circle of light, to that hand, to the band. Megan saw it too. A high, thin whine escaped her, the sound of pure, uncomprehending dread.
The membrane swelled again, pressing the skeletal fingers outward for a moment before receding. The thing was not just growing in the wall. It was growing *around* what was in the wall.
They descended further, the dirt floor compressing beneath his boot with a soft, muffled crunch, like walking on damp mulch. Megan’s nose wrinkled. “That smell… it’s stronger down here,” she whispered. It was the same earthy, fungal rot, but now laced with a sharp, metallic tang that coated the back of the throat. Daniel lifted the flashlight and aimed it at the metal door. It wasn’t just rusting; it was bowing, ever so slightly, inward.
The black, root-like veins weren’t just clinging to its surface; they seemed to be the only thing holding its warped panels together. They crisscrossed the metal in a dense, fibrous net, pulsing subtly where they plunged into the seams around the frame, as if feeding on the corrosion. “It looks… organic,” Daniel murmured, the word feeling utterly inadequate. The growths had a sick, wet sheen in the light, not like plant roots, but like something vascular.
He took another step, and Megan’s hand shot out, gripping his forearm. “Wait.” Her voice was a taut wire. “Listen.” They stood, straining against the profound silence. Then they heard it—a faint, almost imperceptible sound from behind the door. Not a scrape or a knock. A slow, wet, fibrous *creak*, like the sound of a great weight settling on old, sodden timber. It was the sound of the door itself, of the metal and the veins and whatever pressure was behind it, breathing.