Page 3 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

The Mine

A s a young kid, the colossal mining trucks fascinated me.

I’d stop whatever I was doing to watch them lumber past, kicking up dust on the road as the ground vibrated under me.

That day, twin headlights stared at me across the falling snow in the dying light, chilling in a way the wind could never be.

Behind the truck, the mine lay dark and quiet, with metal doors stretched open like a wild dog’s yawn.

Inside, our steps echoed between stone walls.

Slanting beams from ventilation shafts speared the gloom, painting vague figures on the walls.

I took the lack of bodies as a good sign, but Iden frowned, his eyes fixed forward, adjusting to the dark.

Both of us had inherited the vision our parents and grandparents had modded for their work.

We waited a moment until we could see the fuzzy shapes of a world in black and white.

The drill rigs should have been running.

I should have felt that vibration to my bones, a low roar audible from a kilometer away.

Those rigs self-piloted most of their work, sensing seams of the right densities to explore, knowing the path of stone and earth to tunnel to avoid other machines or structural failures.

They’d return to the maintenance level only when they were full, low on fuel, or when a human told them to stop.

“Someone stopped the rigs,” I said.

Iden looked through me, his gaze falling hard down the entrance hall toward the office wing.

“Did you hear me? Mal said it takes hours for a rig to get back.”

“So?” Iden kept walking.

“So, if they died like the others, the machines would still be going. They had the time to stop them. Our people must be hiding, planning something.”

Iden flicked his gaze to me, then away. Silence never bothered me when the two of us were hunting, but it felt as heavy as my pack just then.

“You’re too optimistic. Asri magic could kill them and stop the machines too, as far as we know.” Iden twitched his fingers across the hilt of the knife at his hip.

We opened the door to the admin suite; the shadows held tight to corners, but the shafts’ faint glow traced edges of desks and chairs. I tried the light panel, heard the click, and still saw darkness. I went for my pack to dig out a lantern.

“Not yet,” Iden whispered, gesturing to sunroofs at the far end of the office. “If anyone is here, we need to see them first.”

We reached the door of the main office without seeing a soul.

Dust danced in the thin light, motes swirling like tiny stars in a galaxy between desks and strewn chairs.

Coffee mugs sat full and abandoned on desks—each a disquieting testament.

Iden trembled, staring into nowhere. I poured a mug from the sideboard that he refused to take.

“It’s just going to waste.” I took a swig of the cold brew.

His fingers drummed the surface of a dead monitor. He didn’t look up at my forced smile.

“Iden. Take a moment, think. No one’s here.

Let’s work through what’s next.” I drained the? mug to make my point when he kept staring out into the dark.

Despite my cool bravado, I was just as freaked out as he was, with my heart thumping to keep time with the tremor in Iden’s hand.

I knew if I surrendered to that feeling, it would pull me under.

I needed to keep his head above water too.

Iden let out a breath, finally looking at me. He picked up an empty mug and poured from a pot on the side table. Mug in hand, he sank into a creaking office chair. “If I were here, and we lost power, I’d have gone to the surface. I’d have gone to town—and I’d have died with everyone else.”

“There are no tracks in the snow.”

“Maybe they all left this morning, before the snow.”

“I don’t remember seeing any mining uniforms among all those dead.

Besides, they have all this tech here we don’t, right?

” I waved around to the office, full of tablets and screens that no longer worked.

“Maybe they saw what was coming, and knew it wasn’t safe to come home.

Maybe they are waiting this all out in one of the lower levels. ”

Iden set his jaw, lost in thought. But as he opened his mouth to reply, we heard the shriek of metal tearing against metal.

We knew the sounds of a happy drill rig, and that wasn’t it.

The sound rumbled deep below our feet and through the stone walls, shaking straight through my chest. Adrenaline flowed bitter in my veins.

I ducked down, not sure what else to do as the floor shook under me.

Papers fluttered, a few chairs rolled, but no walls tumbled down onto me like in my nightmares about Dad’s last day on the job. Then it was silent again.

“We should go.” Iden rose from the ground beside me, gripping the desk. He picked up his bag, jogging toward the glass office doors.

I rushed after him. Grabbing his arm, I dug in, stance wide. “Iden! Mal and Oren might be stuck down there in the dark, terrified.”

Iden hesitated, then muttered a curse. “Fine.”

He paced for a moment. When hunting, he’d come up with excellent strategies if I allowed time for his thoughts to brew. But that tic in his face, clear enough to see even in this light, told me he was as lost as I was.

“Alright, we stay dark—silent as possible,” Iden said. “No flashlight in case Asri magic can disrupt that too. We use the lantern when we must. If Mal and Oren aren’t at their station on level three, or if we see anyone at all we don’t know, we head for the woods. Good?”

“Yeah, good.” I let out a breath.

We crept deeper into the office to reach the emergency stairs, and I wondered if we were walking toward the explosion or further away.

The vibration had seemed to come from everywhere, but I thought I could at least pinpoint the sound to not-that-stairwell.

There was dwindling light as we crossed the office, and all I could make out were hazy flickers as Iden crept beside me.

My heart skipped with each creak of the office floorboards—wood and scaffolding under our feet, not earth or stone.

We opened the steel door to the stairwell. Too dark.

“Lantern time,” I whispered to the open door. The sound echoed down the cement walls as Iden glared.

And then I could just make out some movement, a muffled breath a level below. A dark figure hurled up the stairs toward me, long steps pounding fast.

“Jesse!” Iden hissed. I tried to close the door, but there was no lock, not even a latch. Taking a step back, I fumbled out my knife as the door flung open. The lantern fell, stuttering out.

The dark figure rushed me, hitting me hard in the chest. They threw me to the floor, and I heard my hunting knife spin across the floor and clank into a cabinet.

We fell in a tangle of limbs and grunts.

He was well-muscled, and I glanced one blow off his arm before he twisted away.

I got up, lunging at him, a roar escaping my throat.

My fist caught the man’s torso as I sidestepped.

He stumbled back, grunting. I caught a flash of terrified eyes through the hazy silver light. But no, it couldn’t—

“Mal!” Iden roared.

“Mal?” I said, just before his fist pummeled my jaw.

I tasted my blood, metallic and sour. By instinct, I curled my body to protect my vital organs, not yet sure if I should aim at his.

It couldn’t be Mal, just someone Mal-sized and just as— Fuck, ouch.

I grimaced at my throbbing stomach, but escaped the next blow, forcing a desk between us.

The shadowed man pulled something from his belt, a glinting—a knife. Voids, a fucking knife. I wasn’t sure why he didn’t lead with that. He charged, clearing the desk in a bound.

I grappled for the blade as he hesitated, feeling the sharp metal slide beneath my fingers while I used all my power to keep it away.

The blade flashed silver in the darkness, but I rotated away from his swipe.

The man kicked. I stumbled back, and he lunged forward, toppling over me.

I pried the knife free from him as he flailed, kicking him away. He fell hard onto the floor.

A burst of light. I turned to Iden, lantern in hand, shadows flickering around the office. The attacker shrank away.

Mal, definitely Mal scuttling back behind a desk, but this was not the brother I knew.

His eyes, once sparkling with a mischief I appreciated, glazed over with fear as he rose.

Dust, grime, and blood matted his beard and sandy hair, usually so neat and trim that it deserved frequent teasing.

My oldest brother, my friend, was a stranger in this skin of fear.

He froze, eyes wide. Recognition. The knife trembled in my hand, but I didn’t let go just yet. Time slowed. My world shrank to just the three of us within the boundaries of the flickering lantern.

“You look like shit, Mal,” I said, breath rasping.

Mal slumped back to sit on a desk, eyes only on the knife, terrified.

“Okay.” I let the blade clatter to the floor, its metallic echo jarring. I put my empty hands up when he startled at the noise, drawing a fist. “It’s okay, Mal, It’s just me. Just Jesse, and Iden—”

Iden took a wary step forward, eyes darting between us.

Mal looked beyond us to the stairwell. His fist clenched.

“What … what happened to you?” I said.

Mal shrank back, the fight shattering from him like one of those dropped coffee mugs. “You aren’t here to kill me?”

Iden and I shared a look, then looked back to Mal. “Why would we do that?” I said.

Mal rubbed his shoulder, shuddering.

“Mal, who else is down there?” Iden said. “Oren?”

Mal stopped breathing, his entire body frozen at that name. My mind raced as Mal sat there, staring at us with frantic eyes, offering neither answers nor questions of his own.

Only when Iden started moving toward the stairwell did he speak. “Don’t. Oren’s dead.”