The fall didn't end with a crash.It ended with a cough.
Jace hit the ground, shoulder-first, back scraping stone, air punched out of his lungs like the world wanted him quiet.
Then silence.Dripping pipes.The smell of wet rust and static.
He rolled onto his back. Blinked up at a red emergency light, flickering like it owed someone money.
Jace (groaning):"fuck man.. these guys really don't like me"
Rook (emerging from behind a pipe, voice echoing like a grin):"No door. No rules. No out.They've really gone all-in on the hospitality."
Jace sat up. The floor squelched beneath him — a film of water and oil and something thicker. A busted pipe gurgled above, spraying steam in fits and wheezes. The walls were all wrong: dented, pulsing like diseased metal, half-eaten by rot.
A screen buzzed to life overhead, sputtering static:
TRIAL: SECTOR V9 INITIATEDSUBJECT: JACE MARROWSTATUS: UNLUCKY CURSE (x2) ACTIVETIME LIMIT: NONEOBJECTIVE: SURVIVAL
Then it cracked — inward, like something inside had punched it — and dissolved.
Jace stared at the void where the screen had been.
Jace:"…Yeah. That tracks."
He picked himself up, testing each limb like he was checking borrowed parts.
No weapons. No map. No clue.
He started walking.
The trench twisted like it was drawn by a drunk architect. Low ceilings. Tight curves. Every wall dripped, and not all of it was water.
Behind him, Rook clicked his tongue.
Rook:"You ever consider the possibility that you were never meant to leave this one?"
Jace:"You ever consider shutting up for five minutes?"
Rook (grinning):"Sure. You first."
A scream cut through the static hum.
Not sharp. Not panicked. Worn out. Ragged, like whoever was screaming had done it a few hundred times already and didn't expect much to change.
Jace followed it.
Why?Because screams meant people.And people meant leverage.
She was curled near the edge of a dead end, behind a collapsed vent — knees to chest, eyes wide open but not blinking. Pale. Burned sleeve. Blade in one hand, clutched backward like she'd forgotten what it was for.
Jace (leaning in):"You waiting for the wall to blink first, or are we gonna have a conversation?"
No response.
Rook (mock-whisper):"She's creepy. Like most things down here. Probably dangerous. I say we go back to the other place."
Jace crouched. Let the silence hang.
Then pulled a wrapped ration bar from his coat. Tossed it gently beside her. Not at her. Beside.
She flinched. But her eyes finally moved. Tracked him.
???:"You're real?"
Jace:"Define real."
Pause.
Then:???:"…Laziel."
Jace:"Jace."
Laziel:"They've finally sent someone else down here?"
Jace:"Sadly"
Laziel:"Well, let me show you around"
They moved together.
Not like teammates.Like two rats in the same sinking maze.
She knew some of the layout. Vents that whispered, doors that lied. A machine that spat fire every twenty-seven seconds unless you hummed the right note near the intake valve. No one knew why. No one ever asked.
They crossed a corridor paved with pressure plates. She stepped where the blood stains weren't. He counted the tiles and walked the odds.
They reached the other side.Neither of them spoke about the third set of footsteps they heard behind them — the ones that didn't belong to either of them. The ones that stopped just before the exit.
Later, they found another.
A boy welded into a corner. Literally. He'd melted conduit pipe into the walls, trapping himself in a cocoon of metal and madness.
His fingers twitched. His eyes were gone. Burned blind. He kept whispering:
"Don't open the mirror. Don't let it speak."
Laziel didn't flinch.
Laziel (quietly):"He saw it."
Jace:"Is that supposed to mean something?"
Laziel:"If you find it, don't look."
Rook (grinning):"Oh yes. This is getting interesting."
That night — or whatever passed for night down here — they found an old sub-generator room.
Dry. Empty. Almost silent.
They set up camp beside a rusted console.
Laziel stretched out, knife under her arm.
Jace leaned back against the panel, eyes half-closed.
Rook perched on top of a dead screen, legs swinging.
Rook:"You trust her? You sure she might not kill you in your sleep? Sure, looks like she will"
Jace (shrugging):"I don't trust myself. Why would I start with her?"
Rook:"She sleeps like a cat with one eye open. Knife arm never twitches. That's either trauma, training, or both. She's not here by accident."
Jace:"Hopefully they sent me here by accident, not a nice welcoming gift"
Pause.
Rook (leaning in):"You planning to help her make it out?"
Jace (smiling faintly):"I'm planning to make it out."
Rook (mock gasp):"Cold-blooded. I'm so proud."
Laziel stirred. Looked over at him.
Laziel:"I'm guessing you're having a tough time sleeping, I guess my first few days were bad also."
Laziel (flat):"You awake?"