The air smelled of rust, shit, and recycled despair. Every step Lucy took on the tunnel's mud echoed as if he were walking inside a giant, depressed intestine. The walls were damp, covered in a viscous substance that clung to his palm with repulsive stubbornness.
"Is this… a sewer?" he asked with disgust, pressing his hand against the slippery wall as he moved blindly forward.
"And what did you expect? A hotel with breakfast included?" Mira answered from a bit ahead. "Welcome to the world's gutters."
Her voice echoed through the tunnel like a tired snake. Every now and then, dirty drops fell from some unseen pipe. Lucy slipped three times, hit his head twice, and nearly fell into a puddle that suspiciously smelled like intestine soup.
"Fantastic," he muttered, wiping his hand on his clothes.
Finally, the passage opened into a wide chamber. There was light. But not magical, bright, or comforting light. It was a faint mix: makeshift campfires, crystals embedded in the walls emitting a dying glow, and floating energy orbs flickering like asthmatic fireflies.
The place had the structure of an old, abandoned underground station. The remains of a buried civilization intertwined with the misery of the present. Torn mattresses, scrap metal, and tattered cloth hanging like cursed curtains. A persistent stench permeated everything.
"Where are we…?" he murmured, frowning.
"This is the bottom. The real bottom," Mira said, stopping to look at him with a serious expression. "This is where the world dumps those it doesn't want. Failed summons. Mistakes. The ones who don't fit."
Lucy fell silent. Not because he lacked the urge to mock, but because something twisted inside him. It wasn't fear or sadness. It was that uncomfortable silence that settles when someone says something too true.
As they moved on, human figures—or what was left of them—began to appear. A toothless woman, sitting in a floating chair with telekinetic wheels, gave them a crooked smile. No sound came from her mouth, but letters floated in the air:
"Hello, new trash."
Further ahead, a boy without arms peeled a fruit using three floating knives dancing around him. The knife handles glowed faintly red, as if they'd been in the sun too long.
"That's Boro," Mira whispered. "He never talks, but if you get too close, he cuts something. Sometimes things that shouldn't be cut."
Lucy looked at him with a mix of respect and alarm.
"Charming."
A bent old man covered in metal patches wandered around narrating everything he saw as if he were in a cheap video game.
"The protagonist has entered the hidden refuge! Level: depressive. Status: pathetic. Survival chance: 12%. Next mission unlocked!"
Lucy raised an eyebrow, doubtful.
"And that old guy… is he okay?"
"Is any of us?" Mira shrugged.
There were more. Many more. Some had bandages over their eyes, others wore prosthetics made from wood and rusty metal. A group of kids played with bones of some exotic animal. A young woman with crystalline skin played a flute with no holes. A man without a tongue wrote insults on the ground in red chalk.
They all shared something: the lost look, patched bodies, the scar of being brought by the same ritual. Seen, measured… discarded.
Though Lucy couldn't see them, he could feel them and the gloomy atmosphere.
"Were they all… summoned?"
"Yes. Like you. Like me. But they saw no use for them. Or they didn't fit the 'hero' mold. So… they threw them here."
"And no one looks for them?"
Mira let out a bitter laugh.
"Look for trash? No. Nobody recycles what's annoying."
Lucy stopped next to a pile of rat corpses by a fire. A boy with empty eyes cooked them like delicacies. The whole place pulsed with organized misery, like a city built from emotional ruins.
"I guess… I fit here," Lucy said, sitting on a stone.
Mira sat beside him. She said nothing, but neither did she leave him alone.
For a moment, the silence was almost comfortable. Then, a strange vibration cut through the air. Not physical, but… internal. Like an invisible thread tightening at the back of his neck.
Lucy frowned.
"Do you… feel that?"
"What?"
"I don't know. It's like a buzz. Something inside my head. Like someone's watching me from the inside."
Mira tensed, just a little, but Lucy noticed.
"Maybe it's just your conscience. It's not used to working."
Lucy let out a soft laugh. More reflex than humor.
"Does this happen to you often?"
"Sometimes. There are things down here… that shouldn't be. Presences. Echoes of what we are. Or what we were."
"And no one does anything about it?"
"Would you do something if you were blind, lame, and deaf, living among the remains of what the world discards?"
The question hung in the air like an arrow with no target. Lucy didn't answer.
They moved a bit further until they reached an improvised altar. A sphere floated in the center, like an artificial core of corrupted energy. It pulsed. It breathed. It wasn't a machine, but it wasn't alive either. The eyes of some refuge dwellers fixed on it with devotion; others with terror.
"What is that?"
"The Heart of the Hollow," Mira said. "No one knows who brought it or what it does. But since it appeared, this place stopped being just miserable. It started to… change. Sometimes, we hear voices. Sometimes, someone disappears. Sometimes, something comes back."
Lucy felt a chill that didn't come from the cold.
"And you don't… want to leave?"
Mira looked at him. For the first time, her face seemed tired in a more human way.
"Wanting is useless when you've lost everything."
Lucy looked down. For a few seconds, he felt like a child again. Blind, scared, alone. Not because of what was outside… but because of what was growing inside.
And then, for the first time since falling into that hell, he said something without cynicism.
"Thanks for… not leaving me alone."
Mira nodded. Didn't smile. Didn't hug him.
And that, for now, was enough.