Ethan’s lantern cast a feeble light across the coal-streaked walls, each uneven surface flickering in and out of shadow as he inched forward. He tugged his helmet lower, trying not to breathe in too deeply; the air tasted of dust and stale earth. Another endless shift, he thought wearily, nothing to show for hours of backbreaking work.
But as he raised his pickaxe for what he hoped would be the last swing of the night, the dull rock caught a sudden sparkle. A flicker of brightness that didn’t belong in this grim, suffocating world.
Gold.
He stopped mid-swing, blinking hard. Maybe it was just a trick of the poor lighting. But when he brushed away the sooty grime, the glimmer broke through again, stubbornly real.
“Gold,” he murmured under his breath, a jolt of excitement rippling through his exhausted body. His voice sounded strange in the cramped tunnel. Nobody ever struck gold in this old coal mine—nobody.
Adrenaline kicked in, and he chipped around the shining vein, prying it from the jagged rock until, at last, he held a fist-sized nugget in his hand. It wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but to Ethan, it could mean a whole new life. No more suffocating coal dust, no more slaving away for a paycheck that never stretched far enough. He slipped the nugget into his pocket, his mind already racing with daydreams of fresh air and a house far away from these claustrophobic tunnels.
Turning away, he started back through the winding corridors he knew so well—or thought he knew. But something felt off. Each step felt heavier, as if the mine itself wanted to hold him in place. The walls seemed to press closer; even the echoes of his boots sounded unnervingly hollow.
“Calm down,” he whispered, his voice hardly louder than a breath. He tried to follow familiar paths, double-checking landmarks he’d passed a thousand times before—yet he kept ending up in the same place: a collapsed beam, a tumble of broken rocks. He paced in circles, frustration mounting.
Then a soft, melodic clink echoed through the darkness, like metal gently tapping stone. Ethan’s heart lurched.
“Hello?” he called, but only silence followed. He stood there, ears straining, lungs struggling against the dusty air. Just when he was about to dismiss it as his imagination, the sound returned—closer this time.
A chill crawled down his spine. It was coming from behind him.
Slowly, he turned, lantern trembling in his hand. Nothing was immediately visible, just the yawning blackness he was desperate to leave behind. But the clink rang out again, sharper now, sending him into a surge of panic.
He broke into a jog, not quite running, but moving with urgency. The air felt thinner, like he was breathing through a cloth. His pocket felt unnaturally heavy, as if the gold were anchoring him to the ground, pulling him deeper into the darkness.
Still, the clinking followed—faster, more insistent. His shoulder scraped a ragged outcrop as he rounded a corner, stumbling into a larger cavern etched with chalky markings he recognized from earlier shifts. Relief fluttered through him. He was close to the entrance. Daylight couldn’t be far.
He sprinted toward the faint gleam at the end of the tunnel, each footstep echoing like a desperate drumbeat. Then, without warning, he skidded to a halt. Where the exit should have been, the passage ended in a wall of solid rock. Stunned, he pounded his fists on the barrier, voice cracking as he shouted curses into the unyielding stone.
Silence. And then, all of a sudden, the clinking stopped.
He turned cautiously, lantern swinging, casting frail beams across the chamber. At first, there was nothing—just the restless shadows. Then figures began to form in the gloom, flickers of movement that resolved into dark silhouettes. Their eyes glittered, reflecting the dim light, their features masked by layers of coal dust. Each face was etched with a hollow grin.
“You took it,” one of them said, the words scraping out like wind through a broken vent. “Now you stay.”
Ethan’s grip went slack, and the gold nugget tumbled from his pocket, striking the ground with a metallic chime. Panic seized him, but his feet felt rooted in place as the figures lurched closer, spindly hands reaching out for him. The lantern flickered wildly, then died in a soft hiss, leaving him in pitch-black dread.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
When the lantern’s last spark faded, Ethan was back in the suffocating, dust-choked air, repeating the same hopeless labor. And just out of sight, echoing in those endless tunnels, a gentle clink followed his every move.