Then the door lurched upward, and Kane let out a cry. Voices hissed through the gap at the bottom, sending him stumbling backward. He reached for his phone but instead found a holstered revolver at his hip. He threw it away in disgust and shock.

“URĪB!” the voices chanted in time with the door’s rise. It sounded like men, and many of them. “URĪB!”

Absurdly, white subtitles appeared on the bottom of Kane’s vision. They read: HEAVE! HEAVE!

He blinked. The subtitles stayed. The voices grew louder, sending Kane sprinting in the opposite direction, down the sloping tunnel and out into a cavern of breathtaking space. The same crimson crystal webbed across the ceiling, clustering and breaking apart like blood vessels, and against a glowering red horizon stood an entire subterranean city. Buildings of stone, crystal, and moss thrust up through the cavern floor, each hundreds of feet tall and honeycombed with balconies. Massive stalactites hung from the cavern ceiling, carved with windows that showed through to torch-lit apartments. Rope bridges threaded between the homes, and gardens of white-leafed plants hung over the grooved avenues and cobbled walkways.

All of it was articulated in bloody red by the pulsing crystals, which summoned the elaborate city into focus and then banished it back into darkness every other breath.

Kane had never had such a realistic dream. He forced himself to keep moving through the streets as he waited to wake up. The city was empty, and he could guess where the citizens were; far in the distance he heard a massive crowd, their roar so loud it vibrated up through his boots.

Then, from behind him, came the sound of men approaching.

Kane threw himself into patches of darkness between a toppled stalagmite, ignoring the angry clicks of whatever creatures he’d startled.

What is happening? What the hell is happening? Am I dead? Can I be dead soon?

Kane tried every trick to wake up. He pinched. He bit. He slapped. He held his breath. He tried to pee. Nothing worked.

Then the men were near, and Kane could only watch. There were a dozen of them, and their uniforms were a futuristic take on barbarian-chic: armor plated in buffed metal over garments of cured flesh. Some wore masks of jawbones and teeth. They were humans, and they were dressed in human.

Kane swallowed back the bile and listened closely as the leader spoke, his words written in white text on Kane’s eyes.

“Sounds like the other caravans arrived. Hurry up, or it’ll be you on that sacrifice block!” He was massive, overgrown with thick muscles and brandishing a whip that looked to be woven from hair. Kane didn’t need to know the language to understand there was something wrong with the man’s tongue, which slid thickly around his words.