Exit n.3. from Casskim93
Summary:
Hidden Truth – Excerpt
They were sent to observe a dying world.
A world buried beneath its own survival.
A world where people learned to breathe in the dark.
But the deeper they go, the more something feels… wrong.
The air grows thinner.
The silence grows heavier.
And beneath the surface, something is already watching.
Because nothing underground is ever what it seems.
Notes:
A translation of Hidden Truth by Casskim93
Written in Italian - English excerpt
(See the end of the work for more notes.)
Work Text:
The air had changed.
Cassidy felt it before she understood it.
At first it was just a pressure—light, almost negligible—settling somewhere behind her ribs. Something she could ignore. Something she did ignore. But as Rosern spoke, as his voice blended with the dull hum of underground life, the pressure grew.
It wasn’t pain.
It was absence.
Air that didn’t quite reach the bottom of her lungs.
She swallowed.
Too slowly.
Too thick.
A faint ringing began to build behind her ears.
“…four exits,” Rosern was saying, absentmindedly letting a set of golden keys slide between his fingers. “All vertical shafts. Only accessible from inside. Security reasons.”
Cassidy barely heard him.
She brought a hand to her mouth, instinctively, as if she could hold something in—or keep something out. Her chest tightened. The next breath came shorter.
And the one after that—
—didn’t come right.
Halinor noticed.
“Hey. Look at me.”
Cassidy tried.
“I… can’t—” she whispered, the words catching halfway out. “I can’t get air.”
Rosern barely reacted.
“It happens,” he said. “You get used to it.”
Halinor turned to him slowly.
“She doesn’t have time to get used to it.”
A beat.
Then, colder:
“Give me the keys.”
The tunnel narrowed.
Then narrowed again.
Halinor had to crouch lower, one hand against the dirt wall, the other searching forward in the dark.
The air felt… wrong.
Too still.
Behind her, she could hear Cassidy.
Not see her.
Just—
hear her.
Breathing.
Too fast.
“Stay with me,” Halinor whispered, though she wasn’t sure Cassidy could even hear her.
The walls pressed closer.
Closer.
She had to drop to her knees.
Then lower.
Her shoulder scraped against the rock.
Her hip caught for a second—
NO.
No no no—
She forced herself forward - Don’t stop - If you stop, you’re stuck.
She exhaled hard and pulled.
The tunnel tightened around her ribs.
For a moment—
nothing.
No air.
No space.
Just earth.
Then—
she moved again.
A few inches.
Enough.
Her fingers brushed metal.
A rung.
She grabbed it.
Another.
Pulled herself up, her breath breaking into short, uneven gasps.
Above her—
a shape.
The hatch.
There.
There—
Keys.
Where are the keys.
Her hand shook as she reached for them, the metal ring slipping between her fingers, the sound too loud in that suffocating silence.
Five keys.
Too many.
Which one—
Which one is it—
Think.
Exit three.
Exit three.
Which one is—
That one.
It has to be.
Please.
Please—
She forced the key into the lock.
It didn’t go in.
“No—”
Again.
Hands shaking.
Air gone.
Head spinning.
Again—
CLACK.
The sound cracked through the tunnel like something breaking open inside her skull.
Halinor shoved upward with everything she had left.
The hatch burst open.
Light.
Air.
Too much, too sudden—
She dragged herself out, collapsing onto the grass, her chest expanding violently as air flooded back into her lungs.
It hurt.
God, it hurt—
But it was air.
She turned immediately, reaching back down without thinking, grabbing Cassidy by the arm and pulling with what strength she had left.
Cassidy fell out beside her.
For a moment—
neither of them moved.
Just breathing.
The sky above them felt impossibly wide.
Too open.
Too bright.
Too real.
“I am not going back down there.”
Halinor didn’t answer.
She couldn’t.
Her hand was still wrapped around the ring of keys.
Five.
She looked at them again.
Four hatches.
Five keys.
Notes:
this work is a translation inspired by part of Hidden Truth - Chapter 14.
