Day 319

When the mine ran dry the town decided to re-purpose it.
Nine chapels were carved into the walls, they were clumsy enough to be passed off for ancient.
People came flocking in and everything was great for a time.
Until rumours came in of tapping coming from behind a carved window.

The town leaders were eventually pressed into breaking through the window.
Seems nobody believed that the carvings were as ancient as the townsfolk had said.
They were at least careful about it, hopefully there would be nothing there and they just put it back.
As the former miners began to cut around the carving they broke through the rock entirely.

Somehow they had missed that this carving was hollow, or at least it was hollow now.
The old mine was evacuated, leaving only the former miners there, just in case it was a gas leak.
It could even have been a sinkhole but they never came back to tell.
Eventually another group was sent in to find out what happened and possibly to collect the bodies.

Twelve went out and only three came back covered in blood, they said the rest were taken.
The tapping was alive and everywhere, they said, and it wanted sacrifices.
All of them described the same scene - the pathways were now a series of blood-filled rivers.
Bones grew from the walls, gaping jaws begging for help in the voices of their dead.

At first they weren't believed but the survivors from the next team came back with the same tale.
The only details that changed were the depth of the blood rivers and the bones in the walls.
The second rescue team said that the rivers had begun to form lakes in some areas, the mine was
gradually filling though they couldn't find the source of all the blood anywhere.

They also said that the bones the first team described (hands growing from walls, skulls peering
around every corner, jaws somehow still hinged and voices screeching) were now... more.
Fully formed skeletons roamed some tunnels, swam through the blood lakes, half formed ones
sprouted from most of the tunnel walls, grabbing anyone near and shredding them.

The mines were promptly closed off, the entrances were destroyed and the town began to forget.
It didn't stop people from trying to get into there and it certainly didn't stop things trying to get out.
The town eventually emptied and was forgotten.
They didn't die though, they live on in the mines.