They ran for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. Time worked differently here, wherever here was. The terminal gave way to a long corridor that twisted and curved like the inside of a throat. The walls were made of something that looked like stone but felt organic when Arden's hand brushed against it. Warm. Pulsing. Alive.
She was going to be sick.
The man pulled her forward relentlessly. His grip on her arm was firm but not painful. He moved like someone who had done this before, taking corners without hesitation, never looking back. Arden stumbled after him, her boots slipping on the floor that was sometimes tile and sometimes something else, something that squelched under her weight.
Behind them, the screaming continued. Then it stopped. Abruptly. Completely. The silence was worse.
"Keep moving," the man said. His voice was calm. Too calm for someone running through an impossible corridor in an impossible place.
"Who are you?" Arden gasped. Her lungs burned. She had never been athletic. Had spent most of her life sitting at a desk, typing, existing only in her head.
"Kael," he said without slowing down. "Kael Draven."
Arden's legs nearly gave out. She grabbed his arm to steady herself. "That's not funny."
"Wasn't meant to be." He glanced back at her and something flickered in his eyes. Recognition maybe. Or confusion. "Do I know you?"
"You're dead," Arden said. The words came out flat. Factual. "You died two years ago. I went to your funeral."
Kael stopped so suddenly that Arden crashed into his back. He turned to face her fully for the first time since they started running. In the dim light of the corridor, she could see him clearly. The scar through his eyebrow. The exact shade of his eyes, brown with flecks of gold. The way his jaw tensed when he was thinking. Every detail matched her memories of the real Kael. The Kael who had died because Arden had pushed him away.
"Two years," he repeated slowly. "That would make it 2023. October?"
"Yes."
He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture so familiar it made Arden's chest hurt. "I remember the grenade. I remember pushing Carter and Jackson out of the way. I remember the explosion." He looked at his hands like they belonged to someone else. "Then I woke up on that bus. The conductor told me I had been selected for the game. That I would have a chance to earn my way back."
"Back to life?"
"That's what he said." Kael's voice was carefully neutral but Arden could hear the doubt underneath. "But I don't remember dying. I remember pain and then nothing and then the bus. No heaven. No hell. No white light or dead relatives welcoming me home. Just that fucking bus."
Arden wanted to tell him it was impossible. Wanted to say that dead people stayed dead, that resurrection was fiction, that this was all some elaborate hallucination. But she was standing in an impossible corridor after boarding an impossible bus, so what did she know about possible anymore?
"Why did you help me?" she asked instead.
"Because you looked like you needed it." He shrugged. "And because something told me you were important. I don't know why. I just knew I had to get you out of that terminal."
Before Arden could respond, a sound echoed through the corridor. Not screaming this time. Music. A waltz. The kind of elegant, classical music that belonged in period dramas and ballrooms. It grew louder as they stood there, coming from somewhere ahead.
"We need to keep moving," Kael said. He started walking, slower now but still purposeful.
Arden followed. Her mind was racing, trying to make sense of everything. The bus. The terminal. The woman's announcement. You're all dead. The Deadline Game. Survive the stations. She had written variations of this premise a dozen times. Deadly games. Survival challenges. People forced to kill or be killed for entertainment.
But she had never written herself into one.
The corridor ended at a massive wooden door. It was the kind of door that belonged in a castle, all dark oak and iron hinges, with a knocker shaped like a skull. Of course it was a skull. Everything about this place was aggressively on theme.
Kael pushed the door open. It swung inward silently despite its size. Beyond was a grand entrance hall that took Arden's breath away.
It was beautiful. Terrifyingly, impossibly beautiful.
The hall stretched up at least three stories, all Gothic arches and stained glass windows. Chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceiling, dripping with crystals that caught the light and scattered it in blood red patterns across the marble floor. A grand staircase swept up to a second floor landing. Suits of armor lined the walls. Paintings in gilded frames depicted scenes of violence rendered in loving detail. Battles. Executions. Martyrdoms.
And everywhere, candles. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe. They burned in sconces and candelabras, on tables and windowsills, filling the air with the scent of beeswax and something else. Something metallic.
The waltz was louder now. It was coming from deeper in the castle, from a room Arden couldn't see but could sense. She could feel the pull of it, the invitation. Come closer. Come dance. Come die.
"A vampire castle," she whispered. "Of course it's a vampire castle."
Kael looked at her sharply. "What?"
"This is the first station. The Castle of Blood." Arden's hands were shaking again. She pressed them against her thighs. "It's from my first novel. The one that got published. The one that made my career." She laughed, a broken sound. "I wrote this. I created this. Every detail. The chandeliers. The paintings. The candles. Even the fucking skull door knocker."
"You're a writer?"
"Horror. I write horror." Arden walked further into the hall, her footsteps echoing on the marble. She knew this place. Had spent months building it in her imagination, describing every room, every shadow, every way to die. "In my book, there's a vampire lord who hosts elaborate balls. He invites guests from the surrounding villages. They come dressed in their finest clothes, desperate for his favor because he controls everything. The crops. The weather. Their lives. And during the ball, he chooses victims. Drains them slowly over the course of the night while they dance and laugh and pretend not to notice."
"And the ones who survive?"
"There are no survivors. Not in my version. The book ends with the ballroom floor covered in corpses and the vampire lord dancing alone." She turned to look at Kael. "I killed everyone because I thought it was poetic. Because I wanted to make a point about power and complicity and the ways we ignore violence if it's wrapped in beauty."
Kael was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "So you know the layout. The rules. How to survive."
"I know how my characters failed to survive. That's different."
"It's more than the rest of us have."
More footsteps echoed through the entrance hall. Other players were arriving. Arden counted six of them, all looking shell shocked and terrified. A middle aged man in a business suit. Two young women who might have been college students. An older woman with gray hair and a cardigan. A teenage boy who couldn't have been more than sixteen. And a woman in yoga pants and a designer sports bra who was filming everything on her phone.
Arden's stomach dropped. The woman lowered her phone and their eyes met across the marble floor.
Lira.
Her sister stared at her for a long moment. Then she smiled. That same satisfied smile from the apartment. The smile that said she had won.
"Well," Lira said, walking toward them with the confidence of someone who had never doubted her right to exist in any space. "This is unexpected. Small world. Or small afterlife. Whatever."
"You died?" Arden's voice came out strangled.
"Apparently." Lira examined her manicured nails. "One minute I was in your apartment with Marcus. The next minute I was choking. Something about bad shrimp from the Thai place we ordered from. Anaphylaxis. Very dramatic. Marcus called 911 but I guess it was too late." She shrugged. "Then I woke up on that creepy bus."
Arden tried to process this. Lira had died the same night as her. The same night. What were the odds? But then again, what were the odds of any of this?
"You two know each other?" Kael asked.
"Sisters," Lira said before Arden could answer. "Well, half sisters technically. Same mom, different levels of emotional damage." She looked Kael up and down appreciatively. "And who are you? The mysterious soldier type? Very on brand for this whole aesthetic."
"Kael."
Something changed in Lira's expression. A flicker of recognition. "Kael Draven?"
"Yeah."
"No. That's impossible. You died two years ago. I was at your funeral. I gave a eulogy." Lira's perfectly maintained composure cracked just slightly. "I cried for you. Real tears, not the fake ones I use for my videos. You were the only person who ever saw through my bullshit and liked me anyway."
Now it was Kael's turn to look confused. He stared at Lira like he was trying to solve a puzzle. "I don't remember you. I'm sorry. I don't remember anything about my life except the basics. Military. Training. The explosion. But everything else is just fragments. Names without faces. Feelings without context."
"You don't remember me," Lira repeated quietly. For just a second, she looked genuinely hurt. Then the mask slammed back into place. "Well, that's convenient for you."
Before anyone could respond, the music swelled. The waltz transformed into something darker, more urgent. The candles flickered in unison like a heartbeat.
A voice echoed through the entrance hall. Female. Seductive. Terrible.
"Welcome, dear guests, to the Castle of Blood. I am Lady Crimson, your hostess for the evening. The rules are simple. You have until sunrise to survive. Find the red door and pass through it before the last candle extinguishes. Those who succeed move on to the next station. Those who fail become part of my collection."
A pause. Then a laugh that made Arden's skin crawl.
"Oh, and one more thing. I'm very, very hungry. So please do try to be entertaining while you run."
The candles went out. All of them. Instantly. The grand entrance hall plunged into darkness so complete that Arden couldn't see her own hands. She heard gasps. Shuffling feet. Someone whimpered.
Then the screaming started.
It came from above. From the second floor landing. A wet, gurgling sound followed by a heavy thud. Something hit the marble floor with a sickening crack.
When the candles reignited a moment later, the teenage boy was dead at the bottom of the grand staircase. His neck was bent at an impossible angle. His eyes were wide open, staring at nothing. And his throat had been torn out.
The older woman in the cardigan started screaming. She couldn't stop. The sound bounced off the vaulted ceiling, multiplying until it felt like the whole castle was screaming with her.
Lady Crimson materialized at the top of the stairs. She was exactly as Arden had written her. Impossibly beautiful with porcelain skin and hair like spilled ink. She wore a crimson gown that pooled around her feet like blood. Her lips were red. Too red. And when she smiled, her teeth were very white and very sharp.
"One down," she purred. "Forty six to go. Let the games begin."
She vanished.
The candles flickered again but didn't go out. Not yet.
Kael was already moving. He grabbed Arden's arm with one hand and Lira's with the other. "We need to find that door. Now."
"Wait," the businessman said. "We should stick together. Safety in numbers."
"This isn't a team sport," Kael said flatly. "Every person here is competition. The more people looking for the red door, the less likely any of us find it. We split up. We move fast. We don't stop for anyone."
"That's barbaric," one of the college students said.
"That's survival." Kael looked at Arden. "Which way?"
Arden closed her eyes and tried to remember. She had mapped out this castle in excruciating detail while writing her novel. Had drawn floor plans. Had spent hours deciding where each room should be, what purpose it served in the story. The red door hadn't been in the original manuscript. That was new. A change to the rules. But the layout should be the same.
"The ballroom," she said, opening her eyes. "Lady Crimson always keeps her most precious things in the ballroom. If there's a door that leads out of this nightmare, that's where it would be."
"Where's the ballroom?"
"Through the portrait gallery. Down the east corridor. Past the library." Arden's breathing was coming faster now. Panic was rising in her chest like floodwater. "But there are things in those rooms. Traps. Tests. In my book, the portrait gallery has paintings that come alive and grab anyone who looks at them too long. The library has books that scream when you open them. The ballroom is where Lady Crimson keeps her previous victims, posed like dolls, forever dancing."
"Jesus Christ," Lira muttered. "You wrote fucked up books."
"They sold well."
The candles flickered again. Longer this time. When they came back, they were dimmer.
"We're running out of time," Kael said. "Lead the way."
Arden didn't want to lead. Didn't want to be responsible for anyone's survival or death. But Kael was looking at her with those eyes that used to haunt her dreams, and Lira was right there, alive and irritating and vulnerable despite her attitude, and Arden was so fucking tired of being the person who hesitated.
"Follow me," she said. "Don't look at the paintings. Don't touch anything. And whatever you do, don't stop moving."
She walked toward the east corridor with Kael and Lira right behind her. The other players scattered in different directions, some in groups, some alone. Arden didn't look back. Couldn't afford to.
The portrait gallery stretched out before them like a throat. Long and narrow with paintings covering every inch of wall space. The subjects were all beautiful people in historical dress. Ladies in ball gowns. Gentlemen in military uniforms. Children with dead eyes and too pale skin. Every single one of them was painted with meticulous detail, down to the individual hairs and pores and veins visible under their skin.
And every single one of them was watching.
Arden kept her eyes straight ahead. She walked down the center of the gallery, careful not to get too close to either wall. Behind her, she could hear Kael's steady breathing and Lira's slightly panicked gasps.
"Don't look at them," Arden whispered.
"Kind of hard when they're everywhere," Lira hissed back.
"Just focus on the door at the end. Nothing else matters."
They were halfway through when one of the paintings spoke.
"Arden Vale."
Arden's feet stopped moving. She tried to keep walking but her body wouldn't obey. Slowly, against every instinct, she turned her head toward the voice.
The painting was of a woman in her forties. She wore a simple dress and had kind eyes and graying brown hair pulled back in a bun. She looked like someone's mother. She looked like Arden's mother.
Because she was.
"Mom?" The word escaped before Arden could stop it.
The painted woman smiled sadly. "You left me on that road. Left me bleeding while you stood there frozen. Counting seconds while I died."
"That's not real," Kael said sharply. He grabbed Arden's shoulders and physically turned her away from the painting. "It's a trap. Your mother isn't here. It's just the castle fucking with your head."
But Arden could still hear her mother's voice behind her, growing fainter as they moved forward.
"Forty seven seconds, Arden. You counted. I heard you counting. Why didn't you save me faster?"
"Keep moving," Kael said, his voice gentle now. "Whatever it says, it's not real."
They reached the end of the gallery. The door opened onto a corridor lined with more candles. These were burning faster, melting down to nubs, wax pooling on the floor like tears.
"How much time do we have?" Lira asked. Her phone was still in her hand but the screen was black. Dead or just not working in this place.
"No idea," Arden said. "In my book, the night lasted exactly seven hours. But this isn't my book anymore. This is something else."
They passed through the corridor and into the library. It was smaller than Arden expected, just a single room with floor to ceiling bookshelves and reading tables scattered throughout. Every surface was covered in books. Some were ancient leather bound tomes. Others were modern paperbacks. And some looked like they were made of skin and bone.
"Don't open any of them," Arden warned.
"Wasn't planning on it," Lira said.
They were almost to the far door when they heard footsteps behind them. Running footsteps. Someone was coming fast.
The businessman from the entrance hall burst into the library. His suit was torn. Blood streamed from a gash on his forehead. His eyes were wild with panic.
"Help me," he gasped. "Please. She's right behind me. She's killing everyone. I'm the only one left from my group."
Kael tensed. "Keep going," he said to Arden and Lira. "I'll handle this."
"Handle what?" Arden asked.
But she already knew. She had written this scene too. The desperate survivor begging for help. The moment of decision. Save them or leave them.
Lady Crimson appeared in the doorway behind the businessman. She moved like liquid shadow, impossibly fast and impossibly graceful. She grabbed the man by the back of his neck and lifted him off his feet with one hand.
"Begging is so undignified," she said. Then she bit into his throat.
The man's screams lasted exactly fourteen seconds. Arden counted without meaning to. Old habits.
When Lady Crimson dropped the corpse, her crimson dress was even redder. She looked directly at Arden and smiled with bloody lips.
"Hello, creator," she said. "Thank you for making me so beautiful. So hungry. So perfect." She took a step forward. "Would you like to see what your imagination tastes like?"
"Run," Kael said. He pushed Arden and Lira toward the far door. "Now."
They ran. The library exploded behind them as Lady Crimson gave chase. Books flew off shelves. Tables overturned. The screaming started. The books were screaming, just like Arden had written, a sound like a thousand voices in agony.
The ballroom door appeared ahead. It was massive and painted red. Blood red. The exact shade Arden had described in chapter seventeen of her first novel.
Kael hit the door at full speed. It burst open and they tumbled through into the ballroom.
It was exactly as Arden remembered writing it. A vast space with a polished marble floor and mirrored walls that reflected everything infinitely. Crystal chandeliers hung from the painted ceiling where cherubs and demons danced together. And around the edges of the room, posed in eternal waltz positions, were the corpses.
They were perfectly preserved. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. All dressed in formal wear from different eras. All frozen mid dance with expressions of terror and ecstasy mixed on their dead faces.
But the red door wasn't here. Arden spun in a circle, checking every wall, every corner. There was no exit except the door they had just come through.
"Where is it?" Lira demanded. "You said it would be here."
"I don't know. I didn't write a red door. I don't know where it is."
Lady Crimson stepped through the entrance. She was in no hurry now. They were trapped and she knew it.
"Looking for this?" She gestured and a door materialized in the center of the ballroom floor. It was painted red and stood upright without any walls or frame around it. Impossible. But then again, everything here was impossible.
"The rules said we had until sunrise," Kael said. He had positioned himself between Lady Crimson and the two women. "How much time is left?"
"Does it matter?" Lady Crimson tilted her head. "You're all going to die here anyway. Though I must admit, I'm curious about you, soldier. You smell different from the others. Like you've died before. Multiple times maybe."
Kael said nothing. But Arden saw him tense, saw his hand move to his belt where there was no weapon.
"And you," Lady Crimson turned her attention to Arden. "My creator. My mother in a way. You gave me life with your words. Gave me hunger and beauty and purpose. Don't you want to see your creation up close?"
"Stay away from her," Kael said.
"Or what? You'll die protecting her? How noble. How boring." Lady Crimson yawned, showing all her teeth. "But fine. Let's make this interesting. You can have your red door. You can even walk through it. All three of you."
"What's the catch?" Lira asked.
"Only one of you reaches the other side alive." Lady Crimson's smile widened. "The door chooses. It always chooses. And it never chooses the one you expect."
"That wasn't in the rules," Arden said.
"Darling creator, you of all people should know that rules are just suggestions in a place like this." Lady Crimson gestured toward the door. "Go on. Walk through. See what happens. Or stay here and become part of my collection. Your choice."
The candles around the ballroom started going out. One by one. Faster now.
"We don't have time to debate this," Kael said. He looked at Arden. "Trust me?"
"I don't even know you."
"Yes, you do." He held out his hand. "Somewhere in your head, you know me. I can feel it. We've met before. I don't remember where or when or how, but I know it's true."
Arden stared at his outstretched hand. She thought about Kael Draven, the real Kael, the one who had died saving his squad. The one who had loved her for forty seven seconds before she pushed him away. The one whose funeral she had attended while keeping his confession secret.
This wasn't him. Couldn't be him. But what if it was?
She took his hand.
Lira grabbed her other hand without being asked. "If we're dying, we're dying together. That's what sisters do, right? Even if one of them let the other drown and the other fucked the first one's boyfriend."
"This is a terrible time for family bonding," Arden said.
"Best time I can think of."
They walked toward the red door together. Lady Crimson watched with amusement. The last candles flickered and died. Only the chandeliers remained, casting everything in harsh white light.
Kael reached the door first. He pulled it open. Beyond was darkness. Pure and complete. It looked like the entrance to nothing.
"Together," he said.
They stepped through.
For a moment, there was only the dark and the sensation of falling. Arden couldn't feel Kael's hand anymore. Couldn't feel Lira's. Couldn't feel anything except the certainty that this was it. This was how she died. Not in a car accident or a freak allergic reaction, but walking through an impossible door in a castle she had created.
Then she hit solid ground.
She was lying on cold tile. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The smell of antiseptic and old coffee filled her lungs.
Arden sat up slowly. She was in another terminal. Smaller than the first one. There were benches and vending machines and a departure board that showed only one destination: STATION TWO.
Kael was next to her, already on his feet, checking himself for injuries. He was fine. Completely unharmed.
But Lira wasn't there.
"Where is she?" Arden scrambled to her feet. "Where's my sister?"
"I don't know." Kael turned in a slow circle. The terminal was empty except for them. "She was holding your hand. She walked through with us. But when we came out the other side, she was just gone."
Arden's chest tightened. This couldn't be happening. Lira couldn't be dead. Not after everything. Not after they had finally worked together, even if it was only for five minutes in a vampire castle.
The departure board flickered. New text appeared.
STATION ONE COMPLETE SURVIVORS: 2 OF 47 AUDIENCE SATISFACTION: 87% ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: HIGH
Two survivors. Out of forty seven players.
"The door chose," Arden whispered. "It chose us. It left everyone else behind."
"Including your sister."
Arden thought about Lira's hand in hers. The way her sister had made a joke even while facing death. The way she had held on tight, like maybe she had wanted to be saved this time.
And Arden had lost her again.
"I can't do this," Arden said. Her voice was shaking. "I can't keep surviving while everyone else dies. I'm not built for this. I'm the person who freezes. I'm the person who counts seconds instead of acting. I'm the person who kills people in fiction because I can't handle them in real life."
Kael grabbed her shoulders. "Listen to me. You survived the first station. That makes you stronger than you think. And we're going to survive the next one. And the one after that. Until we find a way out of this game."
"Why do you care? You don't even know me."
"Maybe not. But I know you're important. I knew it the second I saw you at the terminal." His grip tightened slightly. "And I know that if I let you die, I'll regret it. Even if I can't remember why."
Arden wanted to tell him the truth. Wanted to explain that she was the reason he died the first time. That her rejection had sent him back to his base with a broken heart and distracted mind. That if she had just said yes, just chosen love over fear, he might still be alive.
But before she could speak, the departure board changed again.
BOARDING NOW: STATION TWO THE ENDLESS FALL PREPARE FOR DESCENT
The floor beneath them opened.
They fell.
And this time, Arden was sure there would be no solid ground waiting at the bottom.