Echoes in the Tunnel

The rain hadn't ceased for days. The grey sky loomed low over Ghoranpur city. Deluged streets, screaming sirens, and the underground metro trains having to shut down temporarily. But on the evening of October 12th, Metro Line 6 was set to restart for a trial run—a run that never reached where it was meant to.

On the test train were seven people: two engineers, three city officials, a reporter, and a security officer. Among them was Rafiq Hossain, a 22-year-old technician on his first field assignment. Nervous but excited, he had no idea that this ride would become a nightmare.

The train pulled out of the above-ground station at 6:02 PM, whirring evenly down into the tunnel complex. All was normal for the initial fifteen minutes. Then the signal blackout.

The lights blinked. The train shook hard, then halted.

"Relax, all," said the chief engineer, attempting to keep a calm demeanor. "It's merely a system malfunction."

But when they scanned the monitors, the horror started.

The cameras were blind.

All external feeds on the train were loaded with static. No emergency alert. No GPS. They were completely cut off.

"Let's turn around and go on foot," one of the officials said.

But when they pushed open the door on the train to get out into the tunnel, they found something nobody could explain.

There was no tunnel.

The train was bricked up, not concreted. Damp, ancient-looking walls lined with iron bars. It was as though the train had paused within some secret, hidden passage that none of the maps marked.

"Jesus Christ," Rafiq whispered, his flashlight trembling in his hand.

They decided to investigate. Stepping carefully, they followed the passage ahead. The tunnel appeared endless. No cellular service. Just the sound of their footfalls resonating through the blackness.

Then they heard something.

Tap. tap. tap.

Not coming from behind. Coming from under them.

"Someone's down here," said the security officer, pulling out his torch. "Could be construction workers who got trapped."

But the noises increased—and were weirder. Now it sounded almost like whispering. Voices, but not any words they knew. Rafiq held his ear to the wall.

He instantly pulled back, white-faced and afraid.

"I heard my name," he whispered. "Something is saying my name."

Abruptly, the youngest official screamed. She gestured toward the wall—something was racing around behind it, quick.

The group panicked and fled, but the tunnels began to move. Every twist led them around in circles. The bricks began to change color, pulsing like a heartbeat. The whispers became louder.

Then they found the first corpse.

The chief engineer lay on the ground, eyes wide open, frozen with fear. No wounds. Just. dead.

"We need to get back to the train," stated the reporter, now terrified.

But when they returned, the train was gone.

Gone.

Only the rails remained, going into dark oblivion.

People started vanishing one by one. A shadow would pass, a light would flash, and a person would vanish—no sound, no fight.

Only Rafiq was left after a while.

Struggling to breathe, crouched in a hole behind a wall, he witnessed something pass down the passageway. It was not human. It was tall, featureless, with limbs that bent the wrong way. It spoke with a hundred voices.

You shouldn't have come here."

Rafiq recalled something. His grandfather would speak of the cursed tunnel under Ghoranpur, blocked off 70 years ago when a team of workers disappeared forever.

Nobody believed it. Until today.

With his flashlight and a portable radio, Rafiq transmitted a repeating distress signal on all frequencies.

It worked.

The tunnel began to crumble, bricks tumbling, shadows screaming. Just as the world went dark, a rescue squad fought their way through a buckled wall. They pulled Rafiq out as the tunnel collapsed on their heels.

He was the sole survivor.

The city permanently sealed off Metro Line 6. No one spoke of it again. No news article. No reports. Just silence.

But at night, late at night, sometimes, Rafiq still hears it in his dreams:

Tap… tap… tap.

And the whisper:

> "We are still here."

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Conclusion

Echoes in the Tunnel is a chilling reminder that some places are buried for a reason. And some echoes… should never be heard again.

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