Reluctantly, Daniel nodded. He felt Claire’s eyes on him from the porch, but he couldn’t back away now. This was his land, his home, and now his expertise was the only anchor against chaos. He crouched near the rim, tracing the disturbed layers with a gloved hand. “This wasn’t nature. This was human.”
As more debris came up, the tunnel stretched further into darkness. Workers lowered a camera, its feed shaky but clear enough to show the crude timber bracing. Daniel leaned closer to the monitor, his stomach tightening. “That’s no natural void,” he said. “Those supports—someone put them there. This was dug.”