Alex toed some of the bones aside with his foot. “It was the only resource they had left; each other. Humans have an enormous will to survive. Looks like these people were sealed in; can’t tell whether they did it themselves to keep the creature or their captors out, or whether it was by the cannibals using this as their killing room.”

“Perhaps they were still praying for the sun to return. They couldn’t know that over ten thousand years later it would still all be frozen. Soon as that rock was rolled into place they were all as good as dead.” As Monica was speaking her voice wavered and shrank, and her whole body trembled.

“This can’t be all of them; there must have been hundreds and hundreds left behind. We don’t know they were all abandoned, maybe some more were rescued or, as you said yourself, maybe they headed down to the underground sea,” Aimee said. The odds were that the Aztlans had simply found more rooms like this one; she knew what could become of people who simply gave in to bleak depression. They tended to step off cliffs or just sit down and stop moving like a wound-down clock.

Matt rubbed Monica’s shoulder as if to warm her and to his credit he held back with his silly humour to instead give her comfort and some whispered words.

“I’m OK, I’m OK. Let’s just get out of here. I’d prefer that we not end up like these people and I certainly do not relish the idea of eating you guys—especially with the way that some of you smell by now.” Monica managed a watery little smile.

“You heard the lady; let’s keep going up.” Alex led on.

Sliding, liquid sounds; Alex halted. He faced a three-way branching tunnel with all of the entrances sealed with heavy stone doors. Beyond the largest centre door he sensed movement, something waited. From its reaction to their footfalls, Alex was sure the creature knew they were on the other side. It was a cold intelligence that waited in ambush for them to come through the doorway. Alex knew he could move the stone if he wanted to and was pretty sure the creature would be able to do so as well. He moved to the door to his right. No sounds came from behind and nothing gave Alex the tingling feeling in his stomach; he pushed. The door slid with a gritty, grinding sound. If anything, the air in the new tunnel was even colder. The walls and roof were covered in more glyphs that showed men and women running, wrestling or throwing a ball-shaped object at a ring on the side of the wall.

“Looks like basketball to me,” Alex said.