The Teeth of Silence
The rain hadn’t stopped. It rattled the rusted roof like bones shaken in a gambler’s cup, each drop a ticking reminder that time was running out.
I could still feel Max’s breath in my ear from before. Hot. Damp. Like the whisper of a grave cracking open. He had left me choices that weren’t choices knife-point riddles dressed up as mercy. And I had spat them back in his face.
Now the price was coming due.
The hall stank of mildew and rot. The kind of rot that seeps into walls, into lungs, into the marrow. Water crawled up the stone like it wanted to taste us, hungry, patient. I watched it lap at the ankles of the limp man chained to the pillar. His skin looked waxy in the dim light, as if he’d already drowned, just waiting for the water to catch up.
Evelyn was beside him, eyes glazed, head drooping, a doll broken at the joints. My sister shivered in the corner, small hands clutched around herself, lips blue, a prayer caught between her teeth but never released. The air pressed down on us heavy with silence. Not ordinary silence no, this one had weight. A silence with teeth. The kind that waits to bite.
I moved first. Always move first. Waiting gets you killed.
My hand closed around the jagged pipe I’d scavenged from the floor. Not much of a weapon, but steel is steel. It was heavy, wet, slick with rust. It fit in my grip like something stolen, something desperate. My chest burned, but I lunged anyway straight at Max.
I shoved past the stink of fear and mold and brought the pipe across his face.
The sound wet meat colliding with iron—echoed in my skull like a bell. Max staggered, his body bowing with the blow. A ribbon of red split his cheek, curling down across his mouth like a cruel smile drawn in blood.
He didn’t fall. He smiled through it. Teeth shining, sharp as broken glass.
“You think you can cut the strings, Grace?” His voice was a hiss, wet with blood. “You’re nothing without the puppeteer.”
I didn’t answer. Breath ripped through me harsh, metallic, like chewing tin.
The water climbed higher, swirling at our knees now. It carried filth with it oil, scraps of paper, clots of something that looked like hair. The stink of decay rode each wave. Then the surface rippled.
Not from us.
Something shifted in the dark flood. A ripple that moved against the current. Deliberate. Alive.
Max laughed low, chest rumbling. “They’re awake now.”
I shoved him again, pipe pressed hard against his throat, the crown on his head writhing as though alive. Thin tendrils flickered from it, twitching like worms in the dark. Hungry. Evelyn whimpered behind me. The limp man groaned, his chains rattling. My sister called my name, but the water swallowed her voice whole.
The ripple came back. Closer.
Cold brushed against my shin like a lover’s hand. I froze. The contact was soft, deliberate. Alien.
Max’s grin spread wide.
“Meet the teeth of silence.”
I ripped the pipe from his throat and swung it into the water, smashing down like I could kill whatever hid beneath. The metal tore through black liquid with no resistance, splashing, echoing. For a heartbeat, nothing. Then the shadow recoiled. I saw it slither back, but not far. Not enough.
The limp man screamed. A raw, high sound that curdled in the rising flood. His chains snapped taut as something dragged him under. He thrashed, body flailing, head disappearing beneath the surface. His scream turned to bubbles, then nothing. Just gone. The water swallowed him whole like he’d never existed.
My sister shrieked. Evelyn pressed her face into her hands and wept. Max’s crown pulsed faint light, feeding on the chaos. His eyes glowed fever-bright.
I grabbed Evelyn’s arm and yanked. She stumbled, knees weak, but I dragged her toward the stairwell that barely showed above the waterline. My sister followed close, tears cutting pale tracks through the grime on her face.
Max didn’t chase. He just watched. His blood dripped into the water, staining it.
“You can’t climb out of this,” he called. His voice rode the walls like a hymn. “Every step up just brings you closer to the fall.”
The shadow stirred again, circling. Its movement sent ripples against my legs, hard enough to knock me off balance. I shoved Evelyn ahead. Then my sister. My lungs clawed for air, each breath cutting like razors.
The stairwell was slick, stone sweating with damp, but it was the only way out.
I went last. Always last.
The water surged behind me with sudden force. Something slammed into the wall below, shaking the hall like an earthquake. Cracks split the stone. The whole place groaned like it had lungs, ribs, a voice.
My pipe slipped from my grasp, clattering against the steps, but I caught myself before I fell. My hands burned, knuckles raw, but I hauled my body upward with spite alone.
At the top of the stairs, I made the mistake of looking back. Just once.
Max still stood in the rising black. Water licked at his waist now. His crown writhed like snakes knotted in a pit. His eyes met mine bright, fevered, endless.
And behind him, the shadow broke the surface.
Slick skin glistening, too many limbs unfolding, too many mouths opening, all gnashing. A grotesque choir of teeth. The water foamed white as it rose higher, feeding on the hall, swallowing light.
Then the stairwell shook again. Dust rained down from above, sifting into my hair, stinging my eyes. Before I could move, the door at the top slammed shut.
Hard.
The sound sealed us in like a coffin lid.
We were trapped.
My sister sobbed. The sound tore at me more than the screams had. Evelyn collapsed against the wall, shaking, her eyes wide, her chest heaving like she’d forgotten how to breathe. My hands trembled. My weapon was gone, somewhere in the dark water below.
Max’s voice rose through the stone, muffled but clear, seeping into marrow.
“Run, little Grace. Run until your lungs tear. The teeth will always find you.”
The stairwell groaned again. This time it wasn’t water pressing at the cracks. No.
A new sound joined it. Slow. Deliberate.
A dragging step.
Not Max. Not water. Something else.
It came from above the sealed door. From the dark waiting there.
Something had been waiting.
And now it moved.