The lanterns along the gallery died one after another, each flame swallowed whole by a dark that felt hungry. Juna froze, nostrils flaring, as something on the thin draft smelled like old pelts burning on a cold night.
"Nobody panic, it's only a dark hallway," Hajin called from somewhere ahead of her.
"Who snuffed my forge-lamp?" Ferra demanded, her hammer clanking against a wall.
"It was not snuffed, the light is simply gone," Didi said, her voice tight, "I felt it leave."
"Tap twice on my shoulder if you're still alive," Ferra grumbled, hammering a short rhythm against the wall, "I'll know the difference between a tap and a scream."
"Clever, give me a map," he said, then waited.
Nobody answered him, so Juna listened to his sleeve rustle as he patted his own shoulder. Once, twice, then a third time more slowly, his fingers finding nothing but cloth and cold.
"Clever?" he said again, quieter, his heartbeat jumping so loudly in the black that she nearly flinched.
[Stream]
