The staircase stretched into darkness, a twisting column of stone and iron that seemed endless. It wasn't an ordinary staircase—it looked like the spine of some dead giant, curved and broken, yet refusing to collapse. Each step Ayan took groaned under his weight, the echoes circling up and down the hollow shaft like a mocking chorus.
The air was heavy. It carried the tang of rust, machine oil, and something faintly sweet, like rotting fruit left too long in the sun. Ayan paused, tilting his head slightly. His fingers brushed the wall as he climbed, and that was when he felt them—grooves etched into the stone. He leaned closer, letting his eyes adjust.
Not random scratches. Tally marks.
One, two, three… dozens. Then hundreds. All carved by desperate hands. The realization sat in his stomach like a cold stone. Every line told the same story: someone else had climbed before him, and they hadn't come back down.
A whisper drifted through the stairwell, faint as breath against his ear.
"Keep climbing… keep climbing… until the clock strikes you hollow."
Ayan ignored it, though the sound wormed into his chest. He had faced voices before, illusions born from fear, but these words carried weight. The tally marks proved that others had heard the same whisper. Others had obeyed.
Step by step, he ascended.
Then—click.
The sound was sharp, mechanical, almost delicate. Ayan froze. Above him, a groan of gears came alive, ancient metal dragging against itself. He ducked instinctively, and a pendulum blade whooshed past, its edge gleaming with blackened stains. It would have split him in two if he'd hesitated.
Another step hissed. A vent opened in the wall, releasing a cloud of acrid smoke that clawed at his throat even at a distance. He backed off quickly, covering his mouth with his sleeve.
"Traps…" he muttered, voice low. "So the stairs weren't made to reach the top—they were made to keep it hidden."
The pendulum swung again, predictable now, its arc steady like a heartbeat. Ayan crouched, watching carefully. He pulled a broken gear from his pouch—salvaged from an earlier ruin—and jammed it into the slot where the pendulum's chain fed through. The blade jerked once, then froze mid-swing, locked in place.
For the smoke, he thought differently. He unbuckled his belt and slid it out, then leaned forward, pressing the leather strap against the step two paces ahead. The trigger hissed, the vent opened, and smoke poured out uselessly. By the time the step reset, Ayan was already past.
His movements were calm, deliberate. To anyone watching, it would look like he was dismantling a puzzle rather than fighting for his life. But inside, he could feel the whispers changing. They weren't faint anymore.
They were angry.
Each trap he disabled made the stairwell vibrate. The walls groaned as if alive, and the voice grew louder, sharper, less like words and more like laughter forced through broken teeth. The very structure seemed to resent his survival.
Yet he climbed. Step by step, patient, merciless. His fingers brushed against the marks again, but this time, he added nothing. Where others had left their tally, he left silence.
Finally, the stairs ended. The top platform was small, more like a stage than a landing. And at its center stood a door—iron-bound, cold, and carved with a strange engraving. It was a clock face, but split straight down the middle. One side pristine, the other fractured and jagged.
Ayan stopped in front of it, his reflection broken across the two halves. Behind him, the stairwell whispered one last time—no words, just laughter.
He placed his hand against the door. The surface was warm. Alive.
Whatever waited beyond this point… wasn't meant for human hands.