Blue woke with a jolt, heart pounding.
She sat upright too fast, her vision going white for a second before it cleared. Her skin was cold and pale with sweat. Her limbs felt weak, like she'd run a marathon she couldn't remember.
The fire still burned. Chains was beside her, half-asleep, but immediately alert when she moved.
"Blue?" she rasped.
Blue blinked again, disoriented. "What..?"
Chains leaned in quickly. "You passed out. You had a fever. I thought you were–"
"Im okay," Blue interrupted.
And she was. The heat was gone. The pain was a dull ache, not the all-consuming throb she'd felt before. Her wound still looked raw, but the skin around it had lost the angry red hue. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't infected. Not anymore.
Chains narrowed her eyes. "You don't remember?"
Blue hesitated. "I remember the stairs. The fire. Then… nothing."
Chains didn't say anything. She looked tired. Confused. Like she didn't know whether to be relieved or afraid.
She reached for Blue's shoulder, tightening the bundle around it.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Eventually, Chains said, "Get some rest."
Blue nodded, eyes already starting to close again.
Chains leaned back against the wall, staring into the flames.
She didn't know what had just happened
But whatever it was, it wasn't normal.
Nothing about this place was, that was probably the scariest part of it all, this place has its own laws.
The fire had burned low.
Not out, not cold—but tired, like them. Just enough heat left to ward off the chill biting at her back. Chains knelt near it with a slow breath, one hand bracing her side, the other cradling a small bundle of vines she'd yanked from the walls hours earlier.
Her fingers ached from peeling the bark back, stripping it to the pale, wet flesh beneath. It smelled like rot and river moss. Not something meant to be food. But they hadn't seen food since they came to this place.
She shifted her weight and held the vine over the flame.
Sparks spat up. The end blackened quickly, curling in on itself. A pop, a hiss, the sour smell of something cooking wrong.
Chains squinted against the smoke.
She didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Just held it there until the outer edge crisped.
Then she took a bite.
It tasted like damp cloth soaked in rust. Chewy. Tough. Wrong.
She chewed slowly, jaw tight, trying not to gag. For a second she swore the bitterness would climb her throat and come back up. But then... it didn't. It settled. Unpleasant, but still.
Still.
Edible.
Or close enough.
She exhaled and tossed the rest into a shallow bowl-shaped stone warmed by the fire. The next vine went in right after.
Behind her, Blue hadn't moved. She was propped up near the wall, wrapped in what little fabric they had, staring into the flame with an empty look. Not tired. Not dazed.
Just... worn.
Chains turned back to the fire.
She added another vine.
And another.
Her eyes stung from the smoke. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just everything catching up.
It hadn't stopped since the stairs. Since Blue fell. Since Chains watched blood pool under her shoulder and realized, in real time, how fast everything could end.
And even after all that had happened, after blood, after fire, after dragging her up those stairs—Chains still didn't know if what she'd done had been enough.
She turned the vines over. They sizzled slightly now.
The fire had gotten hotter.
Or maybe she was imagining things.
She looked back at Blue again.
Still breathing. Shoulders rising, slow. Steady. The fever had broken, but she was still pale. Still shivering. Her face didn't hold fear—it held nothing. Like someone still drifting in between.
Chains turned back to the fire and forced herself to breathe.
The quiet was worse now. Not the same as Floor Zero, but something that echoed the weight of it.
Blue had her name now. They weren't strangers anymore. But they still weren't... anything. Not yet.
Chains wasn't even sure she wanted to be.
She reached into the flames and pulled a few of the vines free with the dull knife edge. The outsides were black now. She blew on them to cool them down, then placed one carefully onto a rock in front of Blue.
Blue didn't react.
Chains nudged it closer.
"Eat," she said.
Blue blinked, slow. Then she nodded once and picked it up. Her hands trembled slightly.
She didn't ask what it was. Just chewed, expression blank.
Chains took another vine and bit into it herself. The second was worse than the first. Her jaw ached. But it stayed down.
They ate like that in silence, taking turns, never more than a few bites each. The vines didn't help with the hollow in her gut. But the ache in her ribs didn't get worse.
That was something.
When the last vine was gone, Chains leaned back and wiped her hands on the stone. Her fingertips were sticky. Her palms were burnt from the heat. She flexed them, slow. Her knuckles cracked.
Then she sat.
Not slumped.
Not collapsed.
Just... sat.
Fire crackled low. Stones clicked as Blue shifted beside her. No words. Just movement.
Chains stared at the ceiling, then at her hands again.
She couldn't shake the feeling that something had changed when she killed that goblin. Not just survival. Not instinct.
Something more.
She hadn't felt anything when she did it.
Not guilt.
Not rage.
Just... focus.
Like her body had moved ahead of her mind.
She hadn't liked it.
But it scared her that part of her wanted to. Scared that part of her did like beating it to death.
The last vine blackened in her hands, hissing as the fire licked over its edges. Chains held it just long enough for the outer skin to crisp, then dropped it onto the stone beside her. No plate. No rock tray. Just bare floor. She didn't care if it was clean. Nothing in this place was.
She wiped her hands on her shirt, then grabbed the cooked vine and broke it in half with her fingers. It came apart in jagged strands, fibrous and wet in the middle. She forced down another bite.
Still awful.
Still better than starving.
Behind her, Blue sat slumped near the wall. Her eyes were half-lidded, watching the flame like it might vanish if she blinked too long. She hadn't spoken since they started eating. Chains didn't push.
Chains put a few extra cooked vines in her makeshift pouch. They had secured food for now.
She leaned back on her hands and stretched out her legs. Her knees popped. Her hip burned. The bruises hadn't gone anywhere. Neither had the memory of that goblin's blood under her nails.
She tilted her head and glanced toward Blue again.
She was still shivering. Not from fever now—just from everything else. Cold. Fear. Pain.
Chains took a slow breath and stood.
They couldn't stay here. They had rested long enough.
She stepped toward the archway that led out, the one they'd come in through hours ago. She glanced back once, then walked toward it. The stairs beyond waited, narrow and dry. She tested the first step with her heel. Solid. No give.
Behind her, she heard Blue shifting.
Chains turned back.
"You good?"
Blue nodded, slow. Her legs wobbled slightly as she pushed herself up.
Chains offered a hand, and this time, Blue took it. Her grip was light. Not trusting. Just… there.
They climbed together.
The steps curved sharply, rising faster than the previous floors. The air changed again—less rot now, more iron. Like the smell of wet stone left in sunlight.
The next chamber was waiting when they reached the top.
No monster.
No pedestal.
Just metal walls, close and warm, curved like the inside of a sealed container. The ceiling hung low, mist drifting through the room in thin sheets. At the center sat a wide iron wheel built into the floor, surrounded by five shallow grooves etched into the stone. No lights. No symbols.
Just the wheel.
Chains moved first, circling it with slow, measured steps. Her eyes tracked every groove. No traps. No gas ports. Just a mechanism, half buried in silence.
"Looks like the door below," she muttered.
Blue didn't reply, but she stepped forward too, studying the grooves with her eyes narrowed.
Chains crouched beside the wheel. Placed both hands on the rim.
"Help me turn it," she said.
Blue knelt across from her.
Together, they counted in silence.
One. Two. Three.
The wheel resisted, but then groaned to life—heavy, rusted, full of weight that didn't belong to just metal.
The floor vibrated.
Behind them, the wall peeled open.
Chains stood, wiping her palms on her pants.
The new passage was dark. Narrow. Quiet.
No wind. No firelight. Just the hollow feeling of something waiting.
She didn't look at Blue this time.
Just stepped forward, one foot at a time, into the next unknown.
And Blue followed.