SHADOWBORNE | THUNDERBOLTS | THE VOID

chapter 15

Silence answered her for a moment. Then Rani looked up toward the distant light.

"This can't all be for nothing," Rani whispered, the words barely escaping her lips, but heavy enough to anchor the air around her.

She tilted her head upward, eyes tracing the curve of the pipe that arched above them like a metal throat. The circular tunnel stretched endlessly, its walls echoing the breath and movement of five people too tired to feel like a team. A bitter taste lingered at the back of her tongue—frustration, mostly. They had survived fire, chaos, and each other. And yet now they stood beneath an impossible climb, the ceiling of the world still too far to reach.

It felt like mockery.

"Alright, I got this," John Walker announced, his voice smug and way too loud in the confined silence. That insufferable grin curled his lips, the kind of grin that made Rani’s hands itch with the desire to slap it off his face.

She crossed her arms tightly.

Walker took a few confident steps back, rolled his shoulders, then ran forward and launched himself upward. They all watched—Yelena with a raised brow, Ava looking mildly curious, Bob looking vaguely concerned, and Rani... Rani just stared.

He soared for a second. A brief, fleeting second where he believed in himself more than gravity. And then—reality hit.

With a solid thud and a sharp grunt, Walker slammed back down to the metal floor in a graceless heap. The air escaped his lungs in one humiliating exhale as pain twisted across his face. He didn’t say anything. Just lay there, jaw clenched, trying to reclaim whatever pride hadn’t shattered on impact.

There was a beat of silence.

“You should try that again,” Ava said smoothly, not even trying to hide the smirk tugging at her mouth.

“But next time… make sure you land on your neck.” Rani let out an unexpected words with a small smirk. Not quite a smile—but the corner of her mouth twitched upward, just slightly.

Bob blinked. He looked at her, wide-eyed, as if he couldn’t believe he’d seen it—an actual flicker of a smile break through Rani’s usual steel exterior. His mouth curled into a quiet grin, not wanting to disturb the moment.

Meanwhile, Yelena was bent over, laughing so hard her shoulders shook. She clutched the wall for support, her laughter bouncing off the pipe walls like music in a cavern. “Oh my God,” she wheezed, pointing at Walker. “You fell like a sack of angry potatoes.”

Walker groaned but didn’t reply. He rolled over slowly, muttering curses under his breath, something about “recalculating” and “stupid slippery walls.”

The tension that had choked the group minutes ago began to loosen, just slightly, unraveling at the edges. It wasn’t quite camaraderie yet, but it was a beginning.

The quiet that followed John Walker’s failed leap was thick—like dust clinging to the walls of the endless pipe surrounding them. The air was dry, metallic. Their breaths echoed in the circular tunnel, bouncing off the steel like tired drumbeats.

“We are pretty far down here,” John muttered, brushing dust from his shoulder as he winced from the impact. He glanced up at the impossibly tall shaft above them—dimly lit by a faint, flickering bulb far out of reach.
“Yeah,” he added, turning to Ava with a smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes, “Why don’t you just walk through the wall and throw us a rope down or something?”

Ava looked at him slowly, blinking once. Then she tilted her head, offering a sweet smile that was anything but kind.

“Well,” she said, “First of all, someone other than you has to ask me nicely. And second…” she glanced up, her smile fading, “I need to know where I’m going because I have never been able to hold it much longer than a minute. Then I will be lost and crushed to death."