The wind had returned.
So had the crying.
It wasn't a child. I was sure now.
It wasn't a cat. It wasn't anything that belonged above ground.
It had been days since I last slept properly. The shadows under my eyes were deeper than the night outside. And yet, I waited. I listened.
She was asleep again, clinging to me like I was something solid. The moonlight lay across her face like a veil. Even in sleep, she looked uneasy. Her brows were furrowed. She mumbled in dreams she wouldn't remember.
I moved her hand from my chest and stood. Quiet. Careful. Cold.
I opened the door to the yard.
The wind slammed into me like a living thing. It pulled at my clothes. It whispered through the cracks in the pavement.
The crying drifted in it—faint, broken, moving. One moment to my left. The next, beneath my feet.
It was coming from the basement. Again.
The ramp yawned at the edge of the courtyard. A concrete throat, open and black. It pulled at me. Not with force, but with suggestion.
This time, I didn't resist.
I walked toward it.
Each step felt heavier than the last. The air grew colder, as if I were descending already. Even though I hadn't taken a single step down.
And then I stopped.
At the top of the ramp.
The entrance was darker than anything I had ever seen. No light. No motion. Just blackness thick enough to feel.
I didn't go down.
I just stood there.
Listening.
And the crying stopped.
Not because it ended.
But because something else began.
A sound deeper than wind. Older than breath.
It wasn't crying.
It wasn't human.
It wasn't anything that wanted to be understood.
It wanted to be felt.
I turned and walked back to the apartment, legs stiff, throat dry. My wife stirred in her sleep but didn't wake. I climbed into bed and lay beside her.
The wind howled.
The fountain hissed.
And under the floor—beneath the earth—something waited.