“Some Stories Don’t Stay Buried”
Dedication — To the Workers Who Never Left
For the hands that blistered and broke beneath lantern glow.
For the ones swallowed by progress, sealed into rust and limestone.
For the men who whistled into the dark to keep their minds above the dust.
Their sweat hardened into mortar. Their ghosts became inheritance.
This is for them—
the quiet ones who built the underworld beneath Indiana,
the ones whose shift never ended.
Prologue — “The Lantern That Never Dies”
Locals say a lantern still walks those tracks—
slow, steady, swinging like a heart that forgot how to stop.
It hums when the air turns colder than reason,
and glows just far enough ahead to make you follow.
Step inside, and the daylight folds in on itself.
The air gets older.
The bricks breathe a little slower.
Even your own footsteps hesitate,
unsure whose echo comes first—yours or theirs.
Every sound in Tunnelton becomes a question:
the whisper behind the whistle,
the sigh inside the drip,
the moment the walls tighten around the living
as if remembering how to hold the dead.
Nursery Rhyme — “Footsteps in Stone”
Knock, knock, whispers in bone,
who walks there when we’re alone?
Lantern swings with a ghostly gleam,
chasing the edge of every dream.
Clack, clack, down the line,
echoes cross this midnight spine.
Rails hum softly, bricks exhale,
time forgets, but stories trail.
Listen close before you roam—
the tunnel keeps what finds its home.
Poem — “The Worker Who Waits”
He fell one night beneath the roar—
stone gave way, and breath became dust.
They sealed him in with the silence of progress,
and left his name in the wet cement of memory.
Now his voice lives inside the echoes,
threaded through water and thunder and time.
He presses on the backs of travelers’ necks,
readjusting the collar, brushing the fear.
He does not curse—he reminds.
He asks only to be noticed,
to be counted among the living once more.
Cross beneath the hill and you’ll feel it—
the draft that breathes against your pulse,
the whisper that knows your middle name,
the scent of sweat and iron on stone.
You cannot sprint past what built the ground you walk on.
The tunnel was carved by hands,
and hands always remember.
Epilogue — “The Echo You Cannot Shake”
Don’t go looking for the light.
Don’t test which stories are true.
The tunnel isn’t waiting for proof—
it’s waiting for company.
The walls know your rhythm now.
The air remembers your breath.
The tracks can already tell
which direction you’ll run.
When you leave, it will still be there,
swinging its lantern in that steady, endless arc—
the heartbeat of every name forgotten
so the rest of us could go home.
Lullaby — “The Lantern’s Lament”
Sleep, little drifter, swallow the sound,
the night runs deep where the lost are bound.
Lanterns float through iron dreams,
their glow stitched shut at the rusty seams.
Close your eyes and count the hum—
one for the fallen, two for the dumb.
Three for the ones who dug too deep,
and now guard the dark where the lost ones sleep.
The tunnel hums its quiet tune,
half in shadow, half in moon.
And all who rest beneath its stone
will never dream alone.
© 2026 The Prince of Darkness. All rights
reserved.
“Some debts don’t haunt you until you walk their path.”