There was a cruel kind of satisfaction that came from firing the gun—a dark, twisted pleasure that had nothing to do with heroism or justice.
It was a perverse art, this exquisite show of humiliation. Watching a man who carried himself like the sun, invincible and untouchable, suddenly shatter into the fragile dust of mortality—it was a poem written in sharp pain and bitter irony. There was a rhythm to it, a slow, sinking melody where pride crashed into vulnerability and the grand illusion of control dissolved into raw, undeniable truth.
Vincent embodied that cruel symphony perfectly. One moment ago, he was striding across the hall like a cockroach with a death wish, and the next, he was sprawled across the cold marble like a ragdoll who'd just been tossed out of a speeding carriage.
The shot hit him squarely in the leg with a sharp pop, searing pain twisting his face into something obscene, as if he'd been punched in the guts by a drunk demon who'd lost his sense of humor. I almost felt sorry for the bastard.
Almost.
Because mercy is a concept for saints, and I'm a little more pragmatic than that.
I was on him in seconds, fluid as a cat and twice as pissed off. My boots slapped the floor like thunder as I leapt onto his back, pressing the barrel of the revolver — cold and unforgiving — to the back of his skull.
It was my last bullet.
The last bullet. The one that could change everything, or nothing at all. Vincent's ragged breathing hammered into my ears—shaky, uneven, like the desperate gasps of a drowning man clawing for air. Each shallow inhale and trembling exhale beat against the silence like a ticking clock, marking the seconds slipping away before his inevitable undoing.
My voice cut thick through the silence between us, sharp enough to draw blood, a jagged sound that bounced off the cold walls and echoed back with cruel mockery. "Who is he?! Who the hell is that man?! Tell me now, or I swear—"
Beneath me, Vincent's body convulsed, muscles trembling violently from pain and something darker—fear, maybe, or the weight of secrets too heavy to carry. His eyes, wide and glassy, flickered like broken flames in a snowstorm, betraying a hurricane of emotions I couldn't quite name. Was it desperation? Regret? Or something colder, a flicker of pity for himself, or maybe for me.
"I—I can't," he whispered, voice barely more than a ghost caught in a tomb. "If I say… they'll kill me! You don't understand. You don't know what it means—"
I shoved the revolver harder into the back of his head, the cold metal biting into his skin like a promise. "Don't give me a goddamn sob story!" I growled, voice low and deadly. "You're going to die anyway—whether by your own hand or mine. So spit it out. Tell me, or I swear, I'll plant this bullet in your fucking skull!"
The air around us thickened suddenly, growing heavy and oppressive, as if the very walls were closing in, breathing with a dark, suffocating life.
Vincent's breath hitched sharply, caught like a broken beast stuck between panic and surrender. His body was trembling uncontrollably now, fragile as a leaf facing the first violent gust of a storm. I held my breath, waiting—praying even—that this would be the moment he shattered, that the barricades guarding his secret would finally crumble.
And then, with a curse that was raw, bitter, and laced with all the weight of his suffering, he began spitting the words out, his voice cracking and dragging like the slow toll of a funeral bell.
Every syllable fell like a stone dropped in water, heavy and slow, dragging the space between us into an unbearable silence.
"His name is… J—"
And just as the first letter left his lips—
The room exploded.
The mirrors lining the walls didn't just crack; they burst outward with a deafening roar, glass shards tearing free and scattering through the air like a deadly storm of angry stars. The sharp scent of ozone and shattered crystal filled my nostrils, a metallic tang that tasted like danger on my tongue.
Above us, the overhead lights flickered and then dimmed, their brightness bleeding away until the corridor was swallowed by a suffocating half-shadow—an eerie twilight that twisted everything familiar into something uncanny.
Now don't get me wrong, I've felt pressure before—like the tight grip of dread from facing down the creature of smoke, or the cold, suffocating weight of the vision from the floor before. But nothing prepared me for this. This pressure wasn't just physical—it was spiritual, existential, as if the Tower itself had yawned wide like a ravenous beast, ready to swallow us whole and erase us from every corner of reality.
My stomach roiled violently, bile clawing up my throat, but I couldn't look away.
Just then, Vincent's body began convulsing, foam bubbling at his mouth as he screamed—a guttural, primal scream that rattled my bones and scraped against my sanity. Blood spat from his lips in ragged, angry bursts, splattering the floor with dark promises.
I lurched backward on instinct, my limbs tangled in panic, as if the very air had turned to something wet and writhing against my skin—slick, suffocating, and alive. My heart jackhammered in my chest, a sick drumbeat of disbelief and primal terror. My mouth moved before my brain could catch up, dragging the words out on a trembling breath.
"W—What the fuck…" was all I could manage, barely more than a whisper, as if saying it any louder might summon something worse.
After a long while, Vincent reeled back onto his hands and knees, his ragged breaths rasping from deep within his chest. His eyes, wild and fevered, darted around room like a trapped animal. I took a cautious step forward, the sticky scent of blood sharp in the air, heart pounding like a broken war drum.
Then—without warning—he lashed out.
A twisting kick snapped through the air, catching my wrist with brutal precision. The revolver flew free from my grip and skittered across the marble in a chaotic spiral.
He was fast—too fast—and with a feral snarl, Vincent scrambled toward the elevator, moving like an insect fleeing the crushing oppression of a boot. The elevator doors, sleek and patient, stood at the end of the hall, silently waiting for its next passenger.
"Miko!" I barked, barely catching my breath. "Press the stopwatch! Now!"
Miko, back in his original body, was already moving, fingers flicking the stopwatch with practiced speed. The seconds ticked away like the final beats of a countdown, but then…
Nothing happened.
The stopwatch glowed, then fizzled, its magic dead in his hands.
"Damn it! What the hell?!" I could hear him yell in protest just as Vincent slammed himself into the elevator and the doors began to close, the cold metal sliding shut with a finality that crushed my chest.
I dropped to my knees, fists smashing the marble in a ragged rhythm of rage and fear.
Miko's footsteps hurried over, breath coming quick and uneven. "I—I'm so sorry," he stammered, panic trembling in his voice. "I don't know what happened. The stopwatch—it just… it didn't work. I swear, I don't know why."
I looked up at him, seeing the flicker of guilt and helplessness in his eyes, and softened a little.
"Don't even worry about it," I said, voice low but steady, trying to wrap some calm around his nerves. "There's a lot we don't know right now. Too much in fact. A lot that's beyond both of us," I paused for a second. "That wasn't your fault Miko. I could feel it, there was some sort of...interference going on."
He swallowed hard, nodding as if the reassurance was a lifeline thrown in stormy seas. "But what do we do now? He's gone."
I exhaled slowly, forcing my heart to slow its frantic pounding. "We do what we always do. Keep moving forward."
Yet even with my words of encouragement, the truth was...I was scared.
Scared of what I had just witnessed—the raw, unfiltered power that had just snapped the room in two, that had shattered the Tower's own illusions and broken its rules. A man so powerful, so deeply feared, that even speaking his name invited annihilation.
I was scared of what waited for me on the next floor. The Red Mistress. The final trial. The answer to everything I had been chasing since this nightmare began.
But beneath that fear was something harder, colder—a steel I forged in the darkest corners of my soul. I steadied my breathing.
"This ends now," I whispered, voice grim but resolute. "Win or lose, I'm going to find the truth on the last floor. No more games, no more shadows. Whatever this tower is hiding, whatever sins it buries beneath its cold stones… it's time."
I stood up slowly, my gaze turning toward the elevator at the end of the corridor—its doors now closed, silent and unfeeling. Around me, the shattered mirrors lay in glittering heaps, a graveyard of reflections, each jagged shard glinting with cruel indifference. They caught the dim, flickering light above like knives dipped in moonlight, casting twisted patterns along the marble floor.
The stopwatch ticked quietly in Miko's hand, its once-glowing face now dulled, sullen—like even the magic within it had lost faith. The others gathered behind him, eyes heavy with exhaustion, fear, and something else. Hope? Maybe. Or just the stubborn refusal to give up.
I swallowed hard, picking up the revolver from the floor, fingers tightening around its trigger. It wasn't just a weapon anymore. It was a promise. A reckoning.
After what felt like an eternity suspended in silence, the elevator groaned softly and began its descent. The familiar metallic creak was a bitter relief, a tether back to the tangible world amid the chaos of fractured mirrors and shifting bodies.
I steadied my breath, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on me. My party—Leo, Willow, Miko, and Aria—now restored to their original forms, stood silently, their faces etched with a grim sense of resolve.
The elevator came to a smooth stop, its ancient gears groaning low beneath the floor like some slumbering beast being stirred from rest. For a heartbeat, no one moved. The doors hadn't opened yet—they just sat there, closed and ominous, as if the Tower itself were rethinking whether it wanted us to proceed.
Then, with a soft hiss, the doors slid open with a whisper.
We stepped in as a group.
And from then, we rose.
The walls around us didn't feel like walls anymore—they felt like memories pressing in from all sides. Echoes of laughter, of screams, of the things we'd seen and the parts of ourselves we'd left behind on each floor of this cursed Tower. I could hear Willow's soft breathing beside me, the faint creak of Miko's leather gloves, the subtle rattle of Aria's jewelry as he shifted his weight. We were silent, but the silence wasn't empty. It was dense. Weighted in sense.
When the elevator finally came to a halt again, it did so with an unnatural ease. No jolt. No warning. Just an eerie stillness, like we'd floated into a place that wasn't quite real.
Then the doors opened.
And what lay beyond them was not a room.
It was a void.
A chamber swallowed by darkness so complete it felt almost unnatural, like the light itself had been bled from the air. Not a single thread of illumination, not a glimmer or glow to anchor me in place. Just a yawning, inky expanse, and the way it waited for us—still, silent, and suffocating—made it feel less like a space and more like an intention.
My eyes strained against the blackness, futilely chasing details that simply weren't there. The silence pressed against my skin like a shroud, heavy and ceremonial, as though I'd stumbled into my own funeral and hadn't yet been informed.
Then, faintly at first, I heard it—sounds carried on a distant wind, a strange, tangled cacophony. It was cheering, or rather something like it. Distorted, twisted, as if laughter and agony had been spun together into a cruel mockery of human emotion. My senses sharpened, every nerve set ablaze as I stepped forward through the darkness, swallowing my fear.
I only made it a few steps forward before suddenly—
The floor gave way beneath my foot, cold and hard, but now edged with steps.
I had landed on a staircase, the stone worn and smooth under my boots. With my heart thudding in my ears, I began to ascend—higher and higher—each step a deliberate act of defiance against the oppressive darkness below.
Up ahead, light pierced the gloom like a promise, harsh and unyielding. I raised a hand instinctively to shield my eyes from the sudden glare of sunlight spilling in from the open expanse beyond.
At the lights end, we stepped through a side passage and unto a massive balcony stretching wide before us, crafted from cold, grey stone so intricately carved it seemed less like a piece of a fortress and more a fragile sculpture defying gravity's cruel insistence. The walls and balustrades were etched with swirling patterns—serpents entwined with roses, thorned vines curling like silent guardians.
Draped across the balcony's edges, heavy banners of blood red snapped sharply against a restless breeze that carried the faint scent of iron and smoldering smoke—an invisible herald of carnage lurking just beyond sight.
The sound I'd caught in the cellar from before swelled around us, a deafening roar, rising like a tidal wave ready to drown everything in its path, surging higher and higher until it cracked the very air with its intensity. It wasn't jubilation—far from it. This was a symphony forged in agony, a twisted orchestra of suffering. Piercing screams clawed their way through the chaos, tangled with ragged cries and the guttural sobs of despair.
I surged forward, boots striking the stone with a frantic clatter, mind racing as I bolted to the balcony's edge, breath catching sharp and cold in my throat at the hellscape sprawling below.
What I saw was a stark, desert plain stretching endlessly into the horizon. And strewn across its surface were bodies, Hundreds, no—thousands—of people were scattered like broken shards, some kneeling in desperate prayer, others collapsing in raw agony, writhing or motionless beneath the burning sun.
The air itself seemed to throb with the weight of their suffering, a choking haze of heat, dust, and unspoken sorrow hanging heavy over the barren expanse.
Then there were the soldiers—ruthless, unyielding—cutting through the crowd like blades of ice. Their movements were cold and precise, merciless as the flash of their swords gleaming under the cruel sun, each swing of their blades silencing another desperate voice without hesitation or regret. They swept through the masses like a plague, leaving nothing but silence and blood in their wake.
This was the seventh and final floor of the tower: pride.
My stomach lurched violently at the scene. I bit my tongue so hard it nearly bled, desperate to keep the taste of revulsion and fear from spilling out.
Illusion or not, the horror felt real enough to burn into my soul. I shut my eyes tightly and tried to tune out the chaos, focusing instead on the voices hidden beneath the noise. Words slipped through the din—whispers of responsibility, of pleading, of power. They hung in the air like smoke.
But then, as if summoned from the depths of the maelstrom below, a single name rose from the chaos, piercing through the haze with sudden clarity. It came once—sharp and undeniable. Then again, softer yet insistent, threading its way through the noise like a haunting melody.
Then again, and again, then so many times over that it became impossible to ignore, a steady pulse echoing throughout the chaos.
Helena.
The syllables twisted in my gut with a strange weight—foreign yet deeply familiar. Instinctively I knew. That had to be the name. Her name. The name of the Red Mistress. The queen of this nightmare.
I opened my eyes slowly, the weight of what I'd just witnessed pressing down like a suffocating fog. Turning away from the maddening chaos sprawled below, my gaze drifted past my party—Leo's jaw clenched tight, Willow's hands trembling, Miko's eyes wide and unblinking, Aria's face pale as a ghost. Each of them caught in the same frozen moment of horror and disbelief, struggling to make sense of the nightmare unveiled before us.
And then my eyes locked onto the far side of the balcony, where two massive metal doors leading into the palace towered like ancient sentinels. Their surfaces were a labyrinth of intricate carvings, swirling patterns that seemed almost alive, as if whispering secrets older than time itself. The cold grey stone beneath our feet vibrated faintly with some unseen pulse.
But what stole my breath—what truly carved ice through my veins—was the slick trail that stretched between those doors.
A dark, glistening river of blood.