Her boots hit metal, ankles cracking, her tail coiling between her legs. Fangs screamed, one nibble away.
It hissed like steam, but dragged like the tide, slipping through cracks with a whisper too wet for air.
Below them, the fog rose in glossy surges, gurgling against the walls like water pressing a window.
Rosalind sprinted, her body surging with Voltite.
Her steps sparked, howled—metal whining under her weight.
Every step above it sounded muffled, like they were already underwater—already sinking.
How had she not seen it? How did she miss the clues?
Voidium.
Daemons.
Monsters that lingered at the bottom of the underworld's depths.
It led them. It carved a path.
But what did such a thing want? Did it even think? Why was the presence of their puppets so few?
She had a million theories but extraordinarily few tangible hypotheses from which to draw conclusions.
"Left." Marshal barked.
That soldier's voice might have taken her aback if her tail hadn't first tucked into her shirt.
As charging like a knight for the first time in years, he barreled through corridors, his bones like a battering ram to doors, furniture and Voidium itself.
And Lorelai hung off him like a furnace-drenched scarf—her tail knotted around him, skin melting him with every step. And still, he ran, ran and ran.
Meanwhile, the twins pounced ahead, like sheep herded by knights, Lucien, Marshal and herself, a wall of Archdemons, cramping the hall into a tight funnel.
"Why won't you start?" Marshal snapped.
Marshal banged his chest, his lips stuttering, steam, his core handicapped by what she had done. His eyes flicked black, a glimpse of his fragment ready to slaughter, his hunger pooling, screaming to break his mortal shell. But it shut off again, again and again.
Marshal wasn't the dragon slayer. She knew.
It was Shadow.
Shadow loved to kill. Loved to split skulls.
But shadow…
He detested her. Wanted to cut her in two.
She couldn't speak sense to a murderer.
She gulped, the scream of her legs bashing the misty barrier, the clip of fingers scratching her back.
She rammed into Lucien, their bodies squeezed tighter as the corridor narrowed—skin tearing, scraping, grinding against the walls. Her body peeling against his, Breath mixing to gooey steam.
Faster. She needed more—just one more surge.
She pressed her core—prepared for the overclock. Her limbs quivered with pain she hadn't even summoned yet. But she had to. She had to. Rosa was the one to fix this. It all rested on her.
"Let me through," yelled Amara.
The Wendigo charged, antlers first through the wet sirens—her moose-like legs thundering ahead, quadruped heritage granting her an infuriating speed. Her blasted legs were faster than even archdemon-enhanced legs.
Rosa snarled, fangs itching to tear out that neck. Hunger dripped from her fingers. Voidium's touch thinned the barrier between her soul and the thing beneath it—Echo's grin bleeding to the surface.
However, Rosa surged, her veins and tattoo burning, hot green sparks, her feet becoming lightning. The fog slithered behind, like a gravity smothering her power, pulling, tugging, howling at her to stop— join them.
But she pushed closer to Lucien, intentional or not, shoulder pressed shoulder, his eyes following her.
"This won't last long." He said.
She looked ahead, mapping the halls, the direction, momentum, and space till they reached the end. No, they had no time at all.
Then, causing her to yelp, the floor shifted.
The steel groaned like an iceberg kiss. Bolts popped like lungs bursting. The floor vibrated with pressure from below.
"Shit." She yelled.
A hiss. Then a crack. Then a tilt—the ship listing as if dragged down by an invisible chain.
Her feet slipped back, the race to the high ground, becoming steeper and steeper, her toes scrambling to stay afloat, her arms swinging to the highest point she could muster.
"We're sinking," she shouted.
It clung to her boots, soaked into her sleeves. Her lungs tightened—not from exhaustion, but from the thickness, like the oxygen was drowning too.
She was running out of air and grip, with the lights flickering out behind her and now beneath her, fizzling and popping one by one, plunging the hall into darkness. She heard the pistons crunching, as loud as cannon fire, when the ship's engine cut off.
Voidium was eating them, swallowing the ship whole.
"Marshal!" she shouted, "Side door—go!"
She could barely remember where that one went, but somewhere was better than here. Her mental map was a blur, the cold air preserving the corridor in layers of laminated frost. Each shard reflected a different corridor—hundreds of doors, thousands of dead ends.
A map was useless here. She was useless.
Before Marshal hit the entrance, Cassian and Cass flung bodies into the metal, the bronze handle slipping from their fingers.
"It won't budge", Cass squeaked.
Amara shoved them out of the way, her arm denting the door as she rammed it. "Fucking. Open."
Marshal next, his eyes knowing the instant he saw it.
"Gravium lock." He said.
Rosa gritted her fangs, even his bulk couldn't bash that free. Gravium locks were painfully hard to break, much less the silence required to pick them.
She turned to Lucien, hopeful, a spy must have had a way to unlock it. Her tail curled, but could he do it in time?
However, moving before she could speak—
Lucien shoved Amara aside without a word.
Rosa blinked—
And then he drew it.
Contraband, even royalty, couldn't weld.
He flicked the Gravium hammer, the bright hue expanding, the tethers appearing in Rosa's sight. The millions of lines like glass threads, only visible to Archdemons, and then—
He fired.
The door shattered like glass, metal melting as the round blitzed through wall after wall, the round going until it reached the hull, and then beyond, then… forever.
She swallowed, a bullet that never dropped, never stopped. Just how many bullets have been fired since their invention?
But she didn't have much time to think as the ship rolled, the floor becoming completely vertical. Her boots slipped, and she clawed the ceiling as she fell.
Metal sliced her fingers, her back shunting steel, her fangs grinding the pain. But she had managed to stop herself.
"Rosa!" Lucien shouted.
And even Marshal glanced at her. "You good?"
"I'm fine."
She was not fine.
Not eager to linger, Rosa fumbled with the grates, stuffing her tail into the side door. Prying herself into the new room, a whip of wind slapped her.
The open tunnel, filled with beams and scaffolding, spanned most floors. With a yank, it created enough suction to pull her off her feet, sending her arms into a mini frenzy.
"Wait," she cried.
She gasped as she felt like a kite, one gust away from blasting out the top. Her clumsy grip uselessly clutched nothing. Was this really how she would go? Not dying with dignity, left to fall for eternity in the void below: her efforts, her plans, all to perish like this.
"Wait, " she shouted, "not yet."
Anyone, someone, don't let her—
Then—
Fingers snatched at her ankle.
Wings flapped.
Dark brown hair, against a storm.
"Got you," said Lucien.
But then she watched his grip slip, one tug away from taking them both.
His eyes met hers.
A silent moment, shaking her tail.
"No," she said. "Lu!" she shouted.
He clenched his fangs.
"It's better together than alone, right?"
She kicked and said, "No, never. I won't forgive you."
But feeling his wings weaken, she thrashed. She could let him go. She wouldn't be responsible for another life. She was a doctor; she saved lives, not took them.
"LUCIEN!" she roared.
Then another hand grabbed her other leg, hot and burning, melting her skin. Eyes made of ice. One half-black eye snarled at her, while a blue eye drew her in.
"We have unfinished business", Shadow hissed.
"Hold on," Marshal ordered.
Lucien and Marshal hauled her to cover in a heave—the blast of wind chipping the stone, her bones stretching, her white hair flailing like a whip.
Both men pinned her to the elevator nook, the barrier of frosted air, screaming above the group.
Cass and Cassian hung around, the furnace of Lorelai, the succubus oozing enough heat to shield them from the cold. Frosted blades clawed her cheeks—sharp enough to draw blood, but dull enough to make her feel it.
Forget the void; she might have frozen to death long before that.
"Where the hell are we?" Amara asked. "Why is it so fucking cold?"
Like huddling around a campfire, even Lorelai's body, furnace-hot and still melting Marshal, struggled to keep the chill at bay.
More notably, Rosa's newly grounded feet walked on scaffolding—the wall beneath her and the floor marked by the whirlwind above. She couldn't tell: was this the ceiling or a wall? What direction was up, down, or even forward?
But worse was that feeling. It continued to creep, churn around them. The ooze of fog splitting cracks, their escape cut off by a tunnel of death.
She panted, for a second, everyone looking around for a way out. But she frowned, as all paths led to worse places than the next.
Then a light bulb lit up above her head. A flicker of power sparked to life, and the backup generator kicked in. The darkness erupted in illumination, one by one, bulkhead after bulkhead, activating the ship's defences and sealing all vacuums.
The light returned with a soft hue, blinking in silent alarm.
"Did we escape?" Lucien asked.
He leaned against the barrier, sweat running down his brow.
She grinned, "Maybe."
But following that, she huffed, out of breath, gasping for air like she was dying of thirst. It felt fantastic but also strange. Was that it? After everything Voidium did? It was now encased in steel, sealed from the outside.
What could it do now? It needed bodies to break through.
"Escape?" Amara said. "Look at us, stuck in a metal coffin."
Rosa groaned; it took too much effort to kick that bitch.
"What are you shivering for?" Cassian asked.
Cass rubbed her scales, her eyes darting in search of something. The very sight gave Rosa goosebumps.
"Hell," Lucien hissed, brushing his arms. "It's like spiders. Millions of them. Crawling under my skin."
She watched his hair spike in alarm, laced with goosebumps like hers. Just thinking about it made her arms itch, flaring with something unseen. Or maybe she hadn't looked closely enough. Flowing like water, transparent gas engulfed them, drowning their waists and munching on their skin.
Rosa stood up, causing the group to jump, her eyes meeting the already scanning Marshal, followed by Lucien.
"That shouldn't be possible," Lucien said.
They watched the floor flicker, warp, and fill up.
The room tilted again. No path forward. No exit. Just the fog.
She swallowed—Voidium wasn't done yet.
"We climb," Rosa said. "Now!"
Her fingers dragged Lorelai back toward Marshal, and then—the ascent.
Pipes, scaffolding, sharp jutting metal- anything would do. Cassian was the last up, scrambling behind Amara as the group fumbled platform after platform. With each step, the fog closed in—a chrome, gassy lava nipped at their ankles.
"Hurry", Rosa barked, "don't let it touch you."
She climbed the flipped ceiling.
No power. Just fingers. Hands.
But a wave of dizziness threatened to fill that space, the after-effect of her exhaustion. It tried to make her drop, fall… but she kept climbing, not for her own sake, but because it was the only thing she could do.
And as if the Voidium mocked her, no, it took pleasure in it.
The mist closed in.
Whispered lips brushed her ear.
A giggle. A breath.
And then—
"Climb, little doctor... climb."