The Bridge of No Return

There was no sky.

No sound of wind. No moonlight.

Only red, pulsing like veins through the walls of the underground crypt Maya had fallen into.

She lay there, shivering, ankle bruised, knees scraped, and heart racing like thunder inside her chest. The walls... they weren't stone anymore. They were flesh. Breathing. Beating. Alive.

She touched it.

Warm. Wet. Pulsing.

The moment her fingers made contact, a scream echoed inside her skull—not from outside, but within her mind.

> "WELCOME, SACRIFICE."

She stumbled backward, landing in a puddle. Not water.

Blood.

It dripped from the walls. From the ceiling. From nowhere and everywhere.

Maya stood, and slowly, she saw them.

The faces.

Dozens. Hundreds. All around her.

Human faces — half-rotted, some with eyes sewn shut, others with mouths wide open in silent, eternal screams.

They were part of the wall. Melted into the structure like paint on canvas.

Their eyes followed her.

And then, one moved.

"M-maya..." it whispered.

She froze.

That voice.

It was her father.

One of the faces, twisted in agony, spoke again.

"Don't stay here... The bridge... it feeds... on the living."

"Dad?" Maya knelt before it, trembling. "Is it you? Are you alive?"

The face wept blood.

"No, child... But you still are. RUN!"

Too late.

A loud crack echoed.

The ground split open, and from the black pit below, something ancient rose.

It was taller than a house, crawling with dozens of human arms — some holding construction tools, others clawing at the air. Its head was made from a skull wearing a hardhat, and inside its ribcage, spines were stacked like trophies.

> "We built the bridge with bones."

"Now it wants hers."

The creature lunged at Maya.

She ran. Through the tunnel of blood. Past the screaming faces. Past her father's cries.

She could hear them behind her:

Hammering.

Drilling.

Sawing.

But no machines.

Only hands. Teeth. Screams.

She burst into a chamber lit by flickering candles.

And in the center...

A mirror.

Old. Cracked. The frame made of human spines.

But the reflection wasn't hers.

It showed a girl—Maya herself—pinned to the same black slab. Bleeding. Eyes wide. Screaming.

Behind the reflection stood the stitched-mouthed woman from before... only now, her mouth was open. And she was smiling.

> "Welcome to the Underbridge. You're already dead, Maya."

The candlelight snuffed out.

Everything went black.