What illuminates the darkest deep

You didn't know how long it had been before you finally woke up. Grace was lying in front of you. She seemed alright, and she was waking up as well. You smiled with relief as you were glad that neither of you was badly hurt. But you were wrong.

When you were about to get up, a wave of pain jolted through your spine and knocked you down immediately. You could barely breathe, and your arms were numb. You didn't even have the strength to push yourself up with your hands.

"Oh my God... James..." Grace gasped in horror the moment she looked at you. She quickly ran toward you and knelt down beside you.

"How... bad is it..." You murmured as you couldn't turn around.

"A piece of metal... was stabbed in your back... likely from the elevator explosion. You lost a lot of blood..." Grace's voice was shaking. She didn't know what to do.

It was unlikely that you could find any first aid kit here. You had only one choice. "Can you... pull it out?" You said.

"You'll bleed to death!"

"No, I won't... My lycanthropy infection can boost my regeneration..." You took some deep breaths, "Never thought I would need to rely on that one day, but... it's our only option now."

"You do remember that you promised Valerie not to be reckless, right?" Despite her words, Grace still clutched the piece of metal stabbed in your back.

"Well... Let's just not tell her...Ah!"

She swiftly pulled it out without any warning. The tremendous pain almost made you black out again. You curled up and bit your lips, using all the strength you had left to fight the pain spreading through your body, yet the heat radiating from inside you made you feel extremely uncomfortable. You could feel it coming. The lycanthropy infection was accelerating not only your regeneration, but also your transformation.

When the bleeding stopped and you regained some of your strength, you grabbed one of the remaining syringes of monkshood solution from your pocket with your shaking hand. You tried to inject yourself, but you lost your grip and the syringe fell to the ground. Overwhelmed by the growing urge, your hand reached not for the syringe, but for Grace's thigh.

Grace gladly held your hand and pulled you up for a passionate kiss. Your tongues intertwined as you touched her back wildly with your other hand. Her sweetness was so intoxicating that you just wanted to eat her in all the ways you could imagine. You reached her butt and pulled her closer.

Luckily, before you could do any harm, Grace picked up the syringe and injected you with it right away. "Let's save it for when we're in a better spot." She broke off the kiss and smiled.

When the coldness collided with the heat in your veins, you began to twitch painfully. Grace gently held you in her arms and comforted you, so that you could make it through the worst of it. Your temperature slowly returned to normal, matching hers, and your breathing became steady again, keeping pace with hers. A few minutes later, you were able to get up with Grace's help.

"Thank you, Grace. You helped a lot." You smiled with your pale face.

"Don't mention it." Grace carefully loosened her grip and let you walk without her support, "So, who was that man?"

Whoever that man might be, he was planning something sinister, and you had to get out of here and stop him. You still needed time to fully recover, but deep down you knew that you didn't have much time. You glanced at your cellphone; it was 16:40 now.

"I don't know." You went to the wreckage of the elevator and took a careful look. A strange smell caught you off guard, and you coughed. "Shit... Gasoline... He must have used it to blow the cables apart. I think he's the one who attacked the mayor and stole the gasoline from his car."

"But... we thought it was the female werewolf who infected you... Oh God. There are more of them?" Grace couldn't believe what you had just implied.

"None of that matters if we can't get out of here. We need to find another way out." You looked at the maintenance ladder, which was destroyed in the elevator crash, and sighed.

You looked around with your flashlight, and this was the first time you looked at this place carefully.

You found yourself in a relatively spacious underground cavern. A few moonstones embedded in the walls were reflecting the glow of your flashlight. Almost nothing had been left behind in the place. A dark passage was on the far side of the cavern, leading deeper into the mine. You felt a strange pull when you stared at it, as if the darkness were luring you in.

"Let's go deeper. Maybe the mayor is still there." You took a deep breath and walked straight toward the passage.

"Right behind you." Grace calmed herself down and followed.

Through the passage, you reached the main stope, where some old equipment remained. You spotted the mayor and his wife lying by a huge machine right away, and you ran toward them. Unfortunately, they were both dead.

"What... What happened to them..." Grace was shocked by the scene.

You carefully checked their corpses. Andrew had shot himself with the revolver in his hand, and his blood had been spilled on the machine behind his head. Margaret had been shot in the chest, by the same revolver you presumed, but you couldn't find other bloodstains. You took a deeper look and noticed a fresh cut wound on Margaret's back.

"Is that..." Grace gasped in horror.

"Likely clawed by a werewolf. Knowing that she couldn't be cured, the mayor killed his wife and died with her... Damn it!" You slammed your fist into the ground in fury.

"But... why can't we find Mrs. Sutton's blood around here?" Grace asked an important question.

"I don't know. Maybe he killed her somewhere else and dragged her here. I don't know!" You became more agitated over time.

How they died didn't matter anymore. If you didn't find a way out of there soon, more people would die. You picked up the mayor's revolver, which still had 3 bullets left, and continued exploring with Grace.

There was another passage on the other end of the main stope. As you made your way through the passage, you heard the sound of running water under you. Through a crack in the rock, you could see an underground river flowing beneath the passage.

At the far end, you found multiple openings. You tried entering one of the openings, only to find more branching paths inside. It was a vast, labyrinthine space, and the source of that strange pull lay somewhere deep within it. Afraid of getting hopelessly lost in the maze, you didn't dare go any deeper. With no other choice, you returned to the main stope.

"What do we do now?" Grace's voice was steady and calm, but mixed with a faint quiver. She was trying hard not to show her fear in front of you.

"I'm thinking." you said, and began to search the equipment around you. You had to make use of everything you could get.

You searched every corner of the place and finally found some intact industrial explosives in a crate. These things dated back to the early 2000s. Even if they were well preserved, there was a big chance that most of them were no longer usable.

"Alright. Here we go." And you, having no other option, decided to take a chance.

"What's the plan?" Grace came over and asked when she saw the explosives.

"We blast open the rock at that crack, jump into the underground river below, and follow it out. It's the same river we saw outside, right?" You carefully picked up the crate and walked toward the passage.

"We don't know if these explosives will still work, or if it's the same river, or if it will lead us out." Grace took a deep breath, "You're being reckless."

"No. I just don't have time to come up with a less dangerous plan." You argued. This was a race against time, and you had to get back to town and warn everyone.

"Yeah, that's the definition of being reckless." Grace helped you carry the crate. "And I love you for that." She looked into your eyes and gave you a faint smile.

So you did it. You set all the explosives into the crack and lit the fuse. Seconds later, a thunderous blast tore a breach in the rock and sent a shudder through the entire abandoned mine. The structure rapidly destabilized, and the main stope began to collapse.

There was no time to think. You held Grace in your arms and leaped down into the underground river below. The impact rattled your head and left you dazed, but you never let go of her hand. Together, you were swept downstream by the surging current.

You struggled weakly, and several minutes later the river finally washed both of you ashore.

"We're lucky, Grace..." You took deep breaths while lying on your back. "Grace?" You didn't hear her response, so you turned to her in panic.

She wasn't breathing. Her face was bloodless, and her body was limp. You quickly tilted her head back, pinched her nose, sealed your mouth over hers, and gave her two slow rescue breaths. Her chest rose and fell. You placed the heel of your hands over her chest and delivered compressions. "Don't die on me now..." You delivered them hard and relentlessly.

Before you finished one round, water gurgled from her lips. She convulsed, coughed violently, and sucked in a ragged breath. After she retched up the water, you pulled her closer and hugged her in your arms with a relieved smile.

"My God... You're back..." You almost cried.

"I can't believe we actually made it..." Grace gasped for air.

You looked into her eyes before you joyfully sealed her lips with yours again. Though you were both soaked, you still cherished this moment with her. Over the past few days, you and Grace had been through so much together, even survived an impossible odd just now, and what you felt for each other was beyond love. Her presence alone illuminated the darkness and gave you hope to keep going. For one fleeting moment, you truly wanted to stay with her like this forever.

"When I said a better spot... I didn't expect to be here..." After you broke off the kiss, she smiled. "Are all the other cases you've handled this thrilling?" She sounded excited when she asked.

"Well, most of them are just boring." You sighed helplessly.

"When this is over, I'd like to come with you and spend those boring time together. I can be a very observant assistant, you know." She smiled.

"In that case, welcome aboard, assistant." You gave her a hand.

"We should really be going. Where are we now?" She looked around as you helped her up.

To your surprise, you were only a few hundred yards outside the town's east gate, not far from the bus stop where you had first arrived. You saw a small patch of wolfsbane in the shadow beneath the bridge. The fragrant floral scent it gave off, mixed with bitterness, was exactly the scent you had smelled back then.

"Let's get back to town." You followed the road west and quickened your pace.