The beam didn’t just cut through the dark; it claimed the territory.

The tunnel turned into a jagged, frame-by-frame nightmare. In the flickering chaos, he saw it: a stray mountain lion, frozen and blinking. The rapid-fire light was a physical wall to the predator’s sensitive eyes. It hissed, turned tail, and vanished back into the shadows.

Elias didn’t panic. He shifted his grip, using the flashlight’s —the jagged "strike face" at the tip—as a silent threat. He tapped the mode selector, shifting from a steady flood to the disorienting strobe .