Daxon, Lyria, and Cassynne moved swiftly through the dark, narrow hallways—silent but resolute, cutting down any black-masked bastard they came across.
Each room they opened held fragments of nightmares.
Some rooms were filled with trembling victims chained to blood-soaked tables, others were half-filled with screams that stopped the second the door opened… and some had only silence.
The silence was the worst.
They entered one such room—a massacre.
Bodies lay scattered across the floor. Human children, beastman children… lifeless, cold.
Lyria's steps faltered. Her eyes widened in disbelief, and her body moved on its own toward a small kid—a tiny, frail body with matted hair and a still, peaceful face that should've been squirming with life.
She knelt beside the kid, her breath shaky, her hands trembling. Tenderly, she held the child's small frame in her lap.
"This…" she whispered, voice cracking. "How could they do this to a child like this...?"
