Deeper

Claimed as a new territory for the above-land dwellers, the subterranean world has become subject to the same dispute of ownership that once happened in the days where vast tracts of the world were still largely unpopulated by modern man.  It has become the new frontier, inhospitable yet awe-inspiring as man continues to marvel at the work of centuries of Homo Hadilis Man.  In the decade that has passed since man eradicated the violent and primitive Hadals from their home, the infiltration deep down has taken the form of underground cities, ruled by force and the power of supply and demand to a species not accustomed to spending so much time in the dark and away from sunlight.  
 
Linguist Ali von Schade has become an authority on the Hadal world as she was one of the first people to discover the hadals when she and her expedition explored deep enough one summer.  She witnessed the brutality that ruled the Hadal communities, and unwittingly delivered the unknown race to their exterminators in the form of the military.  Once captured by them, she survived and went on to live her life, having a baby with Ike who also made the original descent.  The call of deep earth is too strong for Ike, and he leaves her one night to return to the dark.  The smugness and complacency, the greed of new forms of land acquisition meets its fall.  The Hadals are not yet an extinct race.