#Chapter 272: A Familiar Voice

Olivia The inky blackness of the mine surrounded me, pressing in from all sides. Its weight was palpable, as though I were navigating through a tangible void. Each step felt heavy, laden with both the literal darkness of the cave and the metaphorical weight of my father’s legacy. Up ahead, the narrow beam of my flashlight bobbed unsteadily, providing fleeting glimpses of the mine’s wet, uneven walls and barely illuminating the way forward. The sounds of the mine were a cacophony in the eerie silence: water dripping from stalactites overhead, the distant echo of unseen creatures, and my own labored breathing. A draft occasionally filtered through the tunnels. It should have been refreshing to feel the breeze on my skin in this dark mine, but all it did was chill the sweat on my brow and make me shiver, as though some unseen specter was breathing on the back of my neck. I jumped as a bat, its wings whispering like old paper, flitted past, nearly gra