On the night before graduation, four friends slip into the tunnels beneath their city and find a message that suggests someone else was already down there.
Nina always said the city sounded different after dark, as if the streets had a pulse you could only feel when everything else went still. That night, the last one before graduation, the park on Długa Street looked nearly unreal, its thick greenery swallowing the streetlights and leaving the path in patches of gold and shadow.
They met by the abandoned fountain after the class meeting: Nina, Adam, Sara, and Michael. Adam was grinning the way he did when trouble looked too interesting to ignore. He nodded toward the overgrown corner behind the hedge. “Come on. The old canal entrance. Everyone talks about it.”
“Illegal sounds about right,” Sara said, but she was smiling too, just not with much confidence.
Nina said nothing. The excitement in the air had a sharp edge to it, and she could already feel it under her skin, turning into something harder to name.
Adam found the trapdoor half-buried behind the scrub and worked it open with a metal rod. Rust gave way with a grating sigh. Cold air rolled out from below, carrying the smell of wet brick, old water, and dust that had been sealed away for years. Their flashlight beams shook as they started down the narrow steps.
The tunnel swallowed sound almost at once. Their laughter faded. Even their breathing seemed too loud. Water dripped somewhere ahead, steady and patient. Michael, usually the first to joke about everything, stopped so suddenly that Sara nearly bumped into him.
“Wait,” he whispered.
He knelt and picked up a crumpled packet from the floor, sealed in clear plastic. Inside was a folded note, damp at the edges but still readable. Nina watched Sara unfold it, her hands trembling slightly as she read.
It wasn’t a warning. It was a plea.
And tucked behind the message was a hand-drawn map, marked with a symbol none of them recognised, pointing deeper into the tunnel system.
No one spoke for a moment. Then Adam looked past Nina, into the darkness ahead, and whatever confidence had brought him underground drained from his face.
Nina turned slowly. From somewhere beyond the reach of their lights came a soft rustle, careful and close, as if something in the dark had just heard them breathe.