Deep in the sewers…
Celeste groaned as she pushed herself up, drenched and covered in grime. The fall had left her bruised, but nothing broken—at least nothing new. Her clothes were torn, singed in places, and her hands were scraped raw from the fountain collapse.
She drew in a shaky breath.
At once, fear stirred in her chest—and with it, her core gave a faint, nervous glow beneath her ribs. Just a soft little pulse of light leaking through her like a frightened heartbeat, barely strong enough to silver the damp stone around her.
The glow reached only a few feet ahead.
But it was enough to see that she was truly alone.
The sewer stretched into winding tunnels, walls slick with condensation, the air thick with the stench of rot and mould. Ripped posters clung to broken tiles. Mounds of garbage and soggy, forgotten plushies lined the edges of the tunnel like failed offerings. Every drop of water echoed too loud. Every gust of wind whispered too close.
There were no zombies.
No creatures.
Just the silence.
And yet, it was worse than being chased.
Because she didn’t trust the silence.
Her footsteps splashed softly as she walked, echoing back at her like someone was following. Her faint glow reflected in puddles of sticky, iridescent water—her own warped expression staring back. For a moment, she almost didn’t recognise herself.
A tiny sound escaped her before she could stop it.
“—mew.”
Celeste froze in horror.
“Oh, stars above,” she whispered.
Her tail had puffed out to twice its size, every bit of fur standing on end, and at the smallest sound—every drip, every creak, every distant shift of pipes—her ears flicked sharply beneath her hat.
The hat.
It suddenly felt too obvious. Too fussy. Too easy to lose if she had to run.
With nervous fingers, she tugged it off and stuffed it into her coat pocket for now, smoothing back her messy hair with one paw.
No map.
No plan.
No backup.
Celeste gritted her teeth. “Well… this is new.”
She paused at a wall covered in graffiti—some of it old and flaking, but some disturbingly fresh. Painted in sticky neon syrup was a smiley face…
with too many teeth.
She backed away slowly.
Then she noticed something else—claw marks.
Long.
Jagged.
Not made by Sugar Rushers.
Whatever was down here… it wasn’t gone.
It was watching.
The sounds of the sewer intensified—tiny, wet clicking noises echoing through the tunnels. Celeste froze. It wasn’t rats.
No, it was worse.
Sugar Rushers Hundreds of them. Suckling on the walls, writhing in corners, their tiny legs scratching against stone.
She didn’t dare shine her glow too far ahead. Some part of her didn’t want to see what made those sounds.
Then she saw it.
A long shadow—too long to belong to anything natural—slithered across the wall. Chitin scraped against tile. A low, skittering rumble hummed through the air like distant thunder.
The Centerpied.
She could see its jagged silhouette at the far end of the corridor—massive, grotesque, and impossibly fast, even in stillness. Its antennae twitched.
Celeste’s breath caught in her throat. She stepped backward, slowly at first—one step, two—and then turned to walk faster. Quiet. Careful not to splash.
But the shadow followed.
Closer.
Closer.
A cold spike of panic bloomed in her chest. She turned a corner only to see the way forward blocked by a collapsed pipe and a pool of syrupy sewage.
Trapped.
She spun back—and her glow caught the movement of the Centerpied’s body, weaving toward her with horrifying grace.
Just as her legs locked in fear and she thought, This is it, a rough arm yanked her backward into a pitch-black side corridor.
A hand clamped tightly over her mouth, muffling her startled cry
Her glow dimmed.
Silence.
The creature passed by. The sickening scrape of its body faded into the distance.
After a long moment, the hand loosened, and a voice—gravelly and low—whispered in her ear:
“Still getting yourself into trouble, huh?”
She turned, blinking in the dim light.
It was Pitch.
Alive—barely. His coat was torn, his face pale, covered in dust and blood. But he was smiling, that same half-cocked grin like nothing had changed.
“You look like hell,” he muttered, pulling her deeper into the corridor.
Celeste exhaled, unsure if she wanted to punch him or hug him.
Celeste’s voice cracked out of her like a startled mewl.
“P-Pitch? Oh goodness, I thought—I thought you were—” She flailed her hands uselessly in the dark, then clutched them together. “I mean, you are bleeding and you look absolutely dreadful, oh dear, but you’re alive!”
Pitch leaned back against the wall, coughing once into his sleeve. His grin was crooked, half-exhausted but still defiant.
“Alive’s a strong word, cupcake. More like… stubborn. Can’t kill sarcasm that easy.”
Celeste blinked at him, tail bristling. “Cupcake? That’s—! I’m not a—oh stars, I nearly screamed back there and got us both eaten.”
“Yeah,” Pitch said flatly, tugging her gently farther from the tunnel mouth. “That would’ve been bad. Y’know, worse than usual.”
Celeste fidgeted, her glow flickering nervously against the damp walls. “I—I didn’t mean to wander down here. It was supposed to be… oh, never mind. Everything is very, very terrible, and now there’s… centipedes.” She shivered. “Big ones. Very big. Bigger than they should be. That’s not right.”
Pitch gave a raspy chuckle. “Kid, nothin’ down here’s right. But hey—welcome to my new digs. Real cozy. Mold, blood, and sugar mice that wanna chew my toes off.”
“That’s not cozy!” Celeste squeaked, her voice bouncing off the tunnel. She slapped her hands over her mouth, then whispered frantically: “Sorry—sorry—I’ll be quiet!”
Pitch just shook his head, amused despite himself. “Still a mess, huh? Cute, but a mess.” His grin softened for a flicker. “But you being here? Guess I ain’t hallucinating after all.”
Celeste bit her lip, her nerves buzzing with a hundred questions. “But… how did you even—? No, no, first: are you alright? Because you’re limping and bleeding and, oh, I don’t know, maybe dying quietly in the dark? Because you sound like you’re dying quietly in the dark.”
Pitch winked through the dim. “Relax. Takes more than this sewer nightmare to put me down.”
Celeste’s ears drooped. She didn’t look convinced.
Pitch limped ahead, motioning sharply. “C’mon. Stick close. Don’t wander.”
Celeste tip-toed after him, ears flat, her glow dimmed to a nervous flicker. “Wh-where are we going? Because it feels very oh-dear-we-might-die right now—”
“Relax,” Pitch muttered, voice low but steady. “I’ve been helping survivors hole up down here. Figured you oughta know before you freak out completely.”
Celeste blinked. “Survivors? But I thought—oh stars—I thought it was just us and the zombies. There are people down here?”
“Were,” Pitch corrected grimly. “Hundreds, at first. But the candy freaks are rounding ’em up. Taking ’em to the gumball in the sky.”
Celeste froze, her breath catching. “The… the giant gumball? The one on the map? They’re taking people there?”
“Yeah,” Pitch said, jaw tight. “About twenty of us left now. I’ve been running interference—keeping the Centerpied busy, drawing him off when I can. Buyin’ them time.”
Celeste’s mouth opened, closed. “That’s… that’s so brave. I thought you wanted to leave Clawdiff, not—”
“I tried,” Pitch cut in, shaking his head. “Every path’s blocked. Even the tunnels. Barrier runs underground. Anything living slams right into it.”
Celeste’s brow furrowed, her words spilling out fast. “S-so—if living things can’t… then dead things can? Or—or water, or air?”
Pitch gave her a sharp look, half-impressed. “Looks that way. Strange as hell.”
Before Celeste could say more, Pitch’s ears twitched. In one fluid motion, he shoved her against the wall and pressed a finger to her lips.
“Shhh.”
The air grew heavy. A stench of sugar rot. Then—SKRRAAAAAPE.
The Centerpied slithered past, its grotesque body twisting down the tunnel. Segmented chitin scraped stone, syrup dripping from its jaws. Its antennae flicked, searching.
Celeste shook like a leaf, her claws digging into the stone. Her whole body screamed to run, but Pitch’s hand held her steady. She barely dared breathe.
The monster slid by, massive and silent, vanishing into the dark.
Only then did Pitch release her, muttering, “Don’t faint on me now.”
He crouched, shoved aside a rusted, fake panel. Behind it, a narrow tunnel glowed faintly with lamplight, voices murmuring in the dark.
“Our hideout,” he said. “Get in.”
Celeste stared at him, wide-eyed, then ducked inside.
The hideout smelled of damp stone and old circuitry. Rusted lockers lined the walls, doors bent from age and pried locks. Tables had been dragged together to make makeshift bunks, their surfaces cluttered with salvaged supplies: half-burned candles, dented water flasks, and scraps of chocolate-steel. Survivors huddled close—mythics, purebloods, hybrids alike—faces pale, clothes tattered, but eyes sharp with the stubborn gleam of people still holding on.
Among them, a tan-furred mouse with long brown hair kept pacing near the lockers. Her hands fluttered nervously, pausing now and then to adjust her glasses or brush her nose. Her voice carried softly as she fussed with a bundle of papers, speaking to no one in particular.
Celeste froze, her breath catching. “...Carys?”
The mouse blinked, turned—and her whole face lit up. “Celeste!” she gasped, rushing forward. She wrapped Celeste in a warm but slightly awkward hug, words tumbling in quick bursts. “I can’t believe it—it’s really you! The last time I saw you, you were dashing off to the train station—you said you were picking up your sister, wasn’t it? To go to that comic convention?”
Celeste’s ears drooped slightly. She gave a nervous half-smile. “Ah—yes. Oh, stars, the convention—it was a disaster. It all… it all turned into the invasion. Zombies everywhere.”
Carys’s hands fluttered at her sides, eyes wide. “Good heavens, how dreadful! And—oh! Wasn’t Melody there too? She hadn’t come back to the dorm, we… we thought she must’ve gone with you?”
Celeste hesitated, her tail curling tight around her ankles. Her voice was soft, almost breaking. “She was. But… she didn’t make it.”
Carys’s paws flew to her mouth. “Oh—oh no. Not Melody.” Her voice shook, but her eyes glistened with memory. “She was the loudest of us—the one who sang in the hallways and laughed at her own jokes. The dorm won’t… it won’t be the same without her.”
Celeste swallowed hard, guilt knotting in her chest. She wanted to say I should’ve saved her, but the words tangled in her throat.
Instead, she just nodded—small, fragile.
Pitch straightened his coat, wincing faintly as he stepped to the center of the dim room. Survivors quieted—not out of respect, but because his presence usually meant news. He jerked his head toward Celeste.
“Right. Listen up,” he said, voice gravelly but steady. “This is Celeste. She’s a friend. She’s a hybrid—and stable—so don’t give her any grief.”
He leaned briefly on the table stacked with empty ration tins. “I’m going to check the tunnels, make sure the coast is clear. I’ll be back before the candles burn down.”
Then, with a half-smirk at Celeste—an unspoken hang in there—he slipped out, the metal door groaning shut behind him.
For a few heartbeats, silence. Only the drip-drip of condensation and the shuffle of tired bodies.
Then the looks began.
A pair of mythic teenagers, fox and badger, stared openly—eyes sharp, distrustful. A pureblood woman near the back whispered into her scarf, not taking her gaze off Celeste. Even a horned hybrid by the lockers narrowed his eyes, tail flicking uneasily.
Celeste felt the weight of it all pressing against her fur, ears lowering. Her aura, faint and nervous, shimmered at her fingertips—betraying her discomfort.
Carys touched her arm quickly, trying to soften the edges of the moment. “Don’t mind them,” she said, voice gentle but rushed. “It’s just… things have been hard. Trust is in short supply these days.”
But even as she spoke, more eyes fixed on Celeste, whispers beginning to rise.
She wasn’t just a stranger to them.
She was a hybrid—and after everything that had happened, that was enough to make her dangerous in their eyes.
