The Hollowed / Season 1, Episode 10
Creeping Black Intent
Jake’s boots skidded on the loose gravel lining the edge of the mine shaft as he stumbled back from the cavern’s mouth, his breath ragged, slicing through the cold, damp air. The black liquid in the pool below had moved—moved, not rippled, not stirred by some unseen current, but crawled, a slow, deliberate creep up the jagged stone like it had intent, like it knew he was there. His knee throbbed, a deep, grinding ache that felt like something was chewing through the cartilage, and his hands shook as he gripped the rusted iron railing, the metal biting into his palms with flecks of orange decay. The air down here smelled of wet earth and something sharper, acrid, like burnt hair or sulfur gone bad. He could still see the shape—that humanoid smear of shadow rising from the pool—burned into the back of his eyes, even as he blinked hard, trying to scrub it out. “Get a grip, Sutter,” he muttered, voice low, barely audible over the faint drip of water echoing somewhere deeper in the shaft. His reflection had winked at him again this morning, in the cracked mirror of his unit’s bathroom, and now this. Whatever Nexagen was pumping into them, it wasn’t just supplements. It was down here, living in the coal seams, in the dark. He...