The man was squatting before the pack, rolling up an uncooperative map and largely ignoring him.Beam watched him stuff the map into a side pocket. The backpack looked as loose as an oversized pair of britches. It’d lost a hell of a lot of weight since yesterday, an observation that didn’t help Beam’s mood one bit.A series of howls rolled up from the darkness behind them. Beam looked back toward the sound. Eventually the godless wails echoed off into the identical darkness awaiting them, leaving them once again surrounded by silence broken only by the metallic drips and pings of the unseen water.It seemed odd to Beam how the creatures’ wails had changed. The sounds felt more honest now, like they were making them a promise of sorts. Or maybe they were unchanged and he was simply hearing them differently, maybe he’d just had his fill of this miserable prison and so everything he saw or touched or heard seemed immeasurably more disheartening for it.Another outbreak of howls resounded, each slightly staggered from the other as they slowly swelled into a crescendo.
