But she doesn’t have time to move. A set of claws, so black it hurts to look at them, punches through the open-air windows. I dive away as half of my loft—the half where the elevator tunnel was, the half where the mayor was standing—caves in. She’s instantly buried.

I curse as I army-crawl beneath the claws. There goes my exit. There’s no other way out, not from here. I’d have to get to the tunnels that lead out of the cavern below, have to get down the stairs past the Being that’s now using my loft as target practice.

The claws retract, dropping heavily downward, tearing a chunk—and the staircase landing—out of the floor and wall.

And just like that, I’m trapped.

The bulb overhead flickers again. If the loft takes another attack like that it’ll kill the generator and I’ll be stuck in the dark, in a cave-in, with a Being. I don’t know which death would be worse: being suffocated, being torn apart by fear incarnate, or falling to my death through the darkness below.

No. That’s not true—I do know which is worse. I knew it the moment I first saw those black veins crawling across my hand. The moment I realized that fear would, in the end, be the thing that finally got the better of me.

The creature roars. I drop the gun and cover my ears, unable to bear the sound. Thud. The whole loft, the whole cavern itself, shudders. I hear rocks hitting the ground far below. The Being is too big for the cavern. It’s trying to punch its way through to the surface. I can stay here and be buried, opt for the less awful death, or … I can do something very stupid that might just get me out.

I crawl to the edge of the hole the Being clawed into the floor of my loft. I squint into the darkness. A massive wall of scales and feathers shifts into view, only about ten feet away. Thud—it crashes into the roof of the cavern again. Everything shakes, harder this time. Several of the support beams that crisscross the ceiling over my head shriek and snap.

I stand. I cross to the back wall and crouch down like a sprinter at the starting line. My heart is thumping fast, a steady, buzzing rush of blood through my veins. I take a deep breath. I let it out. I launch myself forward.

Five steps to the ledge. Three. One. The wall of shadow-dark feathers and scales shifts in front of me as the monster slams itself into the ceiling again.

I’m at the ledge. I push off it. For a moment I’m hanging, suspended, over nothingness.