Five bikes tear through the dark.
Streetlights flicker overhead as KYLE, SHADOW, 40 OZ, RAVEN, and KING pedal hard.
Breath fogs. Chains rattle. Tires hum against pavement.
KYLE (urgent):
“You saw him. Both of you. That wasn’t a dude.”
40 Oz:
“Man, I don’t know what that was—”
SHADOW:
“It wasn’t normal. I know that.”
They don’t say more.
They don’t need to.
The tunnels loom ahead.
Two blackened openings beneath the UNIVERSITY SHORTCUT sidewalk. They slow to a stop. The last streetlight before they're swallowed by the darkness surrounding the tunnels. No one wants to be first. They all heard 40 Oz gulp in the quiet night, breaking the tension.
King:
“We go in, we go together.”
Kyle nods. They lay their bikes in the brush behind the tunnel entrance wall. Static CRACKLES suddenly. Everyone freezes.
A WALKIE-TALKIE clipped to Kyle’s backpack ERUPTS with LOUD STATIC.
MAGGIE (DISTORTED):
“---Kyle?! Kyle, do NOT go near those tunnels! Do you hear me?!---”
The volume is BLARING in the quiet night.
KING (panics, whispering fiercely):
“Turn it off! Turn it off!”
Shadow fumbles with his radio.
40 Oz drops his in the dirt trying to silence it.
STATIC ECHOES toward the tunnels. Kyle yanks his off the backpack and twists the knob fiercely, with trembling hands. Silence.
Waiting. Listening.
Nothing moves.
Nothing breathes.
KYLE (whispers, shrugs):
“Sorry, not sorry. We’re already here.”
Kyle steps forward. The others follow.
They disappear into darkness.