Chapter 5
561words
Cold.
This is Sarah's first sensation as consciousness returns.
Not the eerie chill of the mine, but a raw, bone-deep cold.
She pries her eyes open to find herself face-down on the ground. Sharp pain radiates from her knees, blood oozing from torn skin, vivid in the weak flashlight beam. Her arms are covered in scrapes.
"Jake?" Her voice comes out as a rasp. "Mac? Emma?" Only silence answers.
No, not even echoes—her voice simply dies in the open space, without reverberation.
Sarah struggles to sit up and scan her surroundings. Her teammates have vanished as if they never existed. The conversations, warnings, those unsettling smiles—all seem like a distant nightmare, leaving her alone in endless darkness.
She wonders if everything she experienced was just hallucination.
Perhaps from the start, she's been alone.
Her phone slides from her pocket, and when the screen illuminates, she nearly sobs—full signal bars.
"This can't be right," she mutters. "How is there signal this deep underground?"
But the evidence is clear. The 4G icon glows in the corner, mocking her assumptions.
She opens the livestreaming app with trembling fingers.
This is her last hope—if the outside world still exists, if anyone can see her, rescue might be possible.
She taps "Start Live Stream," and the familiar red dot appears.
"Hello..." she faces the camera, desperation raw in her voice. "If anyone can see this... I need help."
"If you're watching this, please contact rescue services immediately," she pleads. "I'm trapped in an abandoned mine shaft at Deep Mountain Mining Company. The location is approximately..."
She details their location, the route into the mine, and her current situation.
But the comments appearing in the viewer section make her blood run cold:
"You're not in a mine shaft?"
"You're in a forest."
"I see trees, not a cave."
"You're just talking to the air."
Sarah checks her feed in confusion; her screen still shows the dim mine chamber. But viewers are clearly seeing something completely different.
"That's impossible," she tells the camera. "I'm underground. Look, here's the rock wall..."
She shines her light at the wall, but the comments grow even more disturbing:
"She's touching a tree trunk."
"Her light's just hitting leaves."
"Oh my God, she actually believes she's in a cave."
Sarah's hands shake uncontrollably. She looks at her reflection in the camera, then at her surroundings.
To her, everything seems real—cold stone walls, dark passages, even the mineral smell of the cave.
[Viewer: Sarah, take a deep breath, look down at your feet]
[Viewer: You're standing on fallen leaves, not stone]
[Viewer: Has someone called her family?]
Sarah's reality begins to crumble. Either everyone watching has lost their minds, or... she has.
[Time: 7:22:45]
[Warning: Battery critically low]
Suddenly, the camera feed flickers.
In that instant, Sarah sees something else.
She's not in a cave at all, but in a moonlit forest clearing. Tall pines surround her, thick fallen leaves carpet the ground. A night breeze stirs the foliage.
For that brief moment, she feels fresh night air instead of damp cave mustiness.
But the vision vanishes, and she's back in the "mine" again.
"No, no, no..." she trembles violently. "This isn't real."
In the distance, flashlight beams dance at the forest's edge. The search and rescue team has arrived.
"We found the campsite!"
Someone shouts from afar.
[Warning: Device shutting down]
