Five years earlier, Harvey had discovered the place while running for his life.
The surface remained as hostile as ever, dead and silent. He had fled through the ruins between Queen Victoria Street and Princes Street, pursued by a pack of deforms advancing with the cold certainty of creatures that knew man always broke first. They did not roar. They did not rush. They simply kept coming, and that was worse than any scream.
He was out of ammunition. The people who had started the journey with him had vanished along the way, swallowed by collapsed streets, torn apart by teeth, or left bleeding in the dust. Harvey remained alone, his mask filthy, his lungs burning, his feet shredded by rubble and frost. Clear thought had long abandoned him. All he could do was keep moving.
The ruins crowded over the foundations of old London. Between them, a narrow passage appeared, choked with concrete and fallen debris. Nobody reached a place like that without a reason.
Harvey arrived there running.
The building emerged suddenly from the grey, half buried beneath twisted steel and shattered masonry. He stepped inside without hesitation. The air smelled of damp rot and ageing concrete. Abandoned rooms. Fallen beams. Walls that still seemed to breathe with the memory of collapse.
Below street level, he found what remained of an administrative section. Overturned desks. Torn cables. Documents glued to the floor by years of moisture.
The corridor sloped downward into darkness.
He sensed them before he saw them.
The oily smell. The heavy breathing. The slow footsteps that made the concrete tremble beneath his boots.
At the far end stood a metal door blocked by a fallen cabinet, opened just enough for a man to squeeze through.
Harvey crawled inside.
The deforms remained trapped on the other side, too large for the narrow gap. He watched them twist and thrash within the shadows, vibrating with silent fury, unable to reach him.
Beyond the door lay a square room drowned in rust and dust. Crushed equipment littered the corners. On one mould-covered wall, barely visible beneath years of decay, he spotted a faded inscription:
Level 0.
At first glance, the room offered nothing of value.
Then Harvey noticed the lift.
Above the rusted doors, hidden beneath layers of dirt and corrosion, a sign still survived.
Levels -1 to -3.
The panel was dead.
No light.
No sound.
Only darkness waiting beneath London.
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