The descent into Floor 7 was quieter than the last. No rumbling gates or flickering lights—just a slow drift downward into a murky green haze. As the lift settled onto a vine-covered platform, Roger stepped forward first, scanning the strange stillness.
The ground beneath them was soft with moss, broken stone, and crawling roots that glowed faintly. Towering trees, their trunks split and hollowed like broken bones, reached toward the ceiling of the cavern, blotting out whatever weak light filtered from above. Fog drifted low across the terrain, clinging to ankles like damp fingers.
Roger held up a hand, signaling a slow advance. "Stay close. Eyes open."
Kai adjusted his bracer, watching the foliage pulse with rhythmic energy. "This floor's… breathing. The plants are channeling something. Maybe even watching."
"They're not watching," Aria murmured, her voice low. "They're listening. Notice how nothing echoes back? Even our footsteps vanish."
The group moved in practiced silence, weaving between overgrown ruins half-swallowed by moss and vine. Strange glyphs spiraled across broken stones, flickering for moments before fading into nothing. Branches cracked underfoot. Insects hummed but never approached. Hours passed with no attack. No enemy. Just silence and weight.
"This is worse than a fight," Roger muttered. "At least you can punch a fight."
Aria smirked. "Then maybe we're lucky."
Kai paused by a collapsed archway. "Something happened here. Look—these runes. They're memory loops. Recording impressions."
He knelt, fingers brushing over a carved panel. The moment his hand touched the stone, the world shimmered.
---
A flash of blood.
A scream—not theirs.
They stood, briefly, in someone else's memory. A team of four, backs to one another, encircled by fog and voices that whispered their fears aloud. Then blades—friendly ones—drawn. The illusion vanished.
Kai reeled backward. Roger caught him.
"Illusion?" Roger asked.
Kai's voice was tight. "No. Echo. Memory, but not just of sight. That was *emotionally* etched."
Aria narrowed her eyes. "This floor doesn't attack the body. It breaks the mind."
---
They camped under a massive, fallen statue—a titan's head crowned with moss. Roger set the perimeter with tripwires linked to light-based rune tags Kai had created. Aria sharpened her blade, watching fog swirl around their temporary shelter.
"So," Kai said, stirring a canteen over a small flame, "who's got a story?"
Roger raised a brow. "You first."
Kai smirked. "Alright, once I accidentally erased my professor's eyebrows while testing a rune amplifier. He still doesn't know it was me."
Aria chuckled. "How do you even erase eyebrows?"
"Technically, I displaced the follicles into another dimension."
Laughter cut through the heavy air like a blade through fog. Even Roger chuckled.
That night, while the fog curled along the edges of the clearing, Roger took time correcting Kai's form. He walked the younger boy through a series of defensive steps, then added timed punches, blocking counter-strikes.
"Lead with your weight—not your arms. Let the rune do the work, but your body has to survive till it activates."
Aria followed with a stealth tutorial. "Move with the mist, not against it," she said. "Let the floor forget you're here."
Then Kai instructed them both in runic concealment techniques. He etched a pattern on a flat stone and watched it flicker. "It doesn't erase what's there," he said. "It just convinces you not to look."
They practiced until their limbs trembled and the fire was little more than warm ash. Between lessons, they shared glances and quiet smiles, the fog becoming less a threat and more a shared environment they learned to navigate together.
---
By the second day, the ruins thinned out, replaced by flat stone ridges. There, they found signs of others again—bootprints, broken artifacts, and blood. Pieces of shattered gear and weapons were half-buried in moss. Faded cloth marked old camps. Ghosts of failures past.
Then the fog thickened.
Roger heard something behind him—his name, spoken in a voice he hadn't heard in years. He turned, but nothing was there.
Aria stiffened. "Did anyone just say…"
Kai looked pale. "My mother's voice. But she's not…"
"Not real," Roger cut in. "This place *uses* us. Stay sharp. We ground each other. Always."
Aria nodded, and Kai mirrored the motion.
Later that day, they paused beneath a leaning arch where bioluminescent vines spilled across stone like liquid. They shared dried rations and a rare moment of peace. Roger offered Kai half a ration bar, then quietly asked about his favorite rune designs. Kai brightened and launched into an excited explanation, drawing glowing sigils into the dirt.
Aria leaned in, nodding thoughtfully. "You see the world differently," she said. "Maybe that's what makes you stronger."
Kai blushed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Or just weird."
"No," Roger said with a small smile. "Strong."
---
That evening, they set up camp on a raised outcrop. Kai lit a small fire with a flicker rune, and they circled around it like a family huddled against the dark.
Aria tossed a piece of root meat to Roger. "You burn it, you eat it."
Roger sniffed it. "You're the one who cut it with a dagger meant for ghosts."
Kai laughed. "Honestly, I think it smells better than cafeteria day-three stew."
Their banter grew more ridiculous, with Roger recounting the time he accidentally scared a Diver team during training by practicing punches in the dark, and Aria sharing a story of how she once used mist to make an instructor think his own shadow was haunting him.
Even the fog seemed to still, listening.
They ate, they joked, they sat in silence—and for a moment, the Pit didn't feel like a predator. It felt like a quiet world holding its breath. And in that breath, they breathed as one.
---
On the third day, they arrived at the end of the floor: a massive obsidian arch framed by woven vines that hissed softly.
At its base, a rune message pulsed.
Kai knelt and translated aloud:
**"You felt it, didn't you? Floor 7 listens. It whispers. And in your silence, you defied it. Good. The next floor bites harder. Stay together. Your minds are stronger than your fists. Floor 25 awaits. —D."**
Roger exhaled. "Still watching us."
Aria placed a hand to the arch. "Let him watch. We're still moving."
Kai smiled. "Together."
They stepped into the next floor—fog behind them, fire in their eyes.