Falling felt like drowning.
That was the first thought that cut through Arden's panic as the terminal floor disappeared beneath her feet. The sensation of weightlessness. The disorientation. The way her lungs seized up even though there was air all around her. She had written about drowning in her second novel, had researched the physiology of it, the stages of panic and acceptance. But research was different from experience. Experience was her nine year old sister sinking beneath dark water while Arden stood frozen on a dock counting seconds.
Forty seven seconds. Always forty seven seconds.
Arden forced her eyes open. She was falling through darkness but it wasn't empty darkness. Things rushed past her. Fragments of debris. Broken furniture. Shattered glass. A bicycle with no wheels. A chandelier still lit with flickering candles. A grand piano tumbling end over end. All of it falling at different speeds, defying physics, moving in impossible directions.
And people. She saw other people falling too. Some were screaming. Some were silent. Some were trying to grab onto the debris as it passed. One man caught hold of a floating door and clung to it like a life raft in an ocean of air. A woman tried to swim through the void using breaststroke motions. It would have been funny if it wasn't so terrifying.
Kael was below her. Or above her. Direction had stopped making sense. He was spreadeagled like a skydiver, trying to control his descent. When he saw Arden looking at him, he maneuvered closer using small movements of his arms and legs.
"Don't panic," he shouted over the rush of wind that came from nowhere. "Control your breathing. Small movements. You can steer if you stay calm."
Calm. Right. Arden was falling through an endless void in a death game after watching her sister disappear and a vampire drink someone's blood and now Kael wanted her to stay calm. She started laughing. It came out high and broken and slightly unhinged.
"Arden." Kael was closer now, close enough to grab her hand. His grip was solid. Real. The only real thing in this nightmare. "Look at me. Not down. Not around. Just me."
She looked at him. At the scar through his eyebrow. At his eyes that were brown with flecks of gold. At his face that belonged to a dead man who had confessed his love three days before dying. This wasn't real. None of this was real. But his hand felt real and that was enough for now.
"I'm okay," she lied. "I'm fine."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I'm a writer. Lying is my job."
"Then you're really bad at your job."
Despite everything, Arden felt her breathing slow. The panic ebbed slightly. Not gone but manageable. "Where are we?"
"Station Two apparently." Kael looked around, his military training evident in the way he catalogued threats and resources. "The Endless Fall. No ground that I can see. No ceiling. Just debris and other players. I count maybe fifteen people total including us."
Fifteen. Out of forty seven who started. Thirty two dead in the first station. The math was brutal.
"What do you think the goal is here?" Arden asked. "In the castle we had to find the red door. What do we have to find while falling forever?"
"Maybe we don't find anything. Maybe we just survive until time runs out."
"That seems too simple."
A scream cut through the air. Not a scream of fear. A scream of pain. Arden twisted to locate the source and immediately wished she hadn't.
Two players were fighting over a floating piece of metal. A pipe maybe. Or a crowbar. Hard to tell from this distance. One of them was the woman who had been in yoga pants at the castle. She wasn't trying to share the makeshift weapon. She was trying to take it. And when the other player, a young man in a hoodie, wouldn't let go, she kicked him hard in the face.
He lost his grip. On the pipe and on consciousness. His body went limp and began falling faster, accelerating away from them into the darkness below.
The yoga pants woman smiled. She clutched her prize and used it to push off from a passing desk, changing her trajectory toward a cluster of larger debris floating in the middle distance.
"Jesus Christ," Arden muttered. "We're turning on each other already."
"Fear makes people dangerous," Kael said. "Survival instinct overrides everything else. Morality. Empathy. Common sense." He looked at her intently. "If it comes down to it, if you have to choose between me and yourself, you choose yourself. Understand?"
"No."
"Arden."
"I said no. I've spent my entire life choosing myself. Choosing safety over risk. Survival over connection. It never made anything better. It just made me alone." She squeezed his hand. "I'm not losing anyone else. Not if I can help it."
Before Kael could argue, something massive rushed past them. A section of building. A whole wall complete with windows and picture frames still hanging on it. The displacement of air sent them spinning. Arden's stomach lurched. She closed her eyes and tried not to vomit.
When she opened them again, Kael was pointing at something ahead. "There. Do you see it?"
Arden followed his gaze. In the distance, impossibly far but also impossibly clear, was a platform. It looked solid. Real. A flat square of metal or stone floating in the void like an island in an endless ocean. And on the platform was a door. Not red this time. Blue. Bright electric blue that stood out against the darkness like a beacon.
"That's the exit," Arden said with certainty. "That's where we need to go."
"Agreed. But look at the others."
The remaining players had spotted the platform too. They were all changing direction, angling toward it using whatever debris they could reach. The competition had become explicit. First to the door survived. Everyone else fell forever.
"We need to move faster," Kael said. He scanned the falling debris around them. "There. That bookshelf. If we can reach it, we can push off and gain momentum."
They maneuvered through the void using small movements of their bodies. Arden was getting better at it. The trick was thinking of it like swimming. Pull with one arm, kick with one leg, adjust your angle incrementally. It was slow. Too slow. But it worked.
They reached the bookshelf. It was a massive oak thing, the kind that belonged in a mansion library. Books were still wedged into the shelves, somehow staying in place despite the lack of gravity. Kael grabbed one edge and pulled Arden close.
"On three, we push off together. Aim for that platform. Don't stop. Don't hesitate."
"I'm very good at hesitating."
"Not today you're not." He smiled at her and for a moment he looked exactly like the Kael she remembered. The one who had sat with her on a bathroom floor while she hyperventilated. The one who had told her she wasn't broken, just scared. The one who had loved her for exactly one kiss before she pushed him away. "One. Two. Three."
They pushed off hard. The bookshelf spun away in the opposite direction. Arden and Kael flew through the void toward the platform. The acceleration made Arden's eyes water. Wind that shouldn't exist howled past her ears. She held onto Kael's hand and didn't let go.
They weren't the only ones heading for the platform now. The yoga pants woman was closer, using her pipe to vault from one piece of debris to another with impressive skill. Three other players were converging from different angles. And one person, an older man in a torn suit, had somehow gotten ahead of everyone. He was going to reach the platform first.
Except he didn't.
Something erupted from the darkness below the platform. It was massive and serpentine. A creature made of shadows and teeth and too many eyes. It coiled around the old man before he could scream and dragged him down into the void. His scream lasted five seconds. Then there was just wet crunching sounds.
"What the fuck was that?" Kael said.
"I don't know." Arden's mind raced. "I didn't write that. This isn't from any of my books. This is something else. Something new."
The creature rose again. It circled the platform like a shark circling prey. Its body was long enough to wrap around the entire structure. Its mouth was full of concentric rows of teeth. And its eyes, dozens of them scattered randomly across its body, all focused on the approaching players.
"It's guarding the exit," Kael said. "We have to get past it."
"How?"
"Distract it. Give it a target that isn't us."
Arden understood immediately what he was suggesting. Use another player as bait. Let someone else die so they could live. It was logical. Strategic. Exactly what someone with military training would recommend.
It was also exactly what Arden had spent her life doing. Writing about other people's deaths to avoid facing her own fear of living. Sacrificing fictional characters so she could stay safe behind her keyboard.
"No," she said.
"Arden, we don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice."
The yoga pants woman reached the platform first. She landed hard on the metal surface, rolled, came up in a crouch. The creature lunged at her immediately. She dodged, using her pipe to deflect a strike from its tail. She was fast. Trained in something. Martial arts maybe. But she was alone and the creature was massive and eventually fast wasn't going to be enough.
Arden made a decision.
She let go of Kael's hand and changed her trajectory. She grabbed a floating chair as she passed and hurled it at the creature. The chair bounced off its hide harmlessly but it got the thing's attention. Multiple eyes swiveled toward her.
"Over here," Arden shouted. "Come on. I'm right here."
"What are you doing?" Kael yelled.
"Creating a distraction. Get to the platform. Open that door."
"I'm not leaving you."
"You don't have a choice."
The creature's mouth opened impossibly wide. It lunged toward Arden. She grabbed another piece of debris, a broken table leg, and threw it into that gaping maw. The creature bit down reflexively. Wood splinters exploded. The thing roared, a sound that vibrated through Arden's bones.
But it gave Kael time to reach the platform. He landed next to the yoga pants woman. She turned on him immediately, swinging her pipe. Kael blocked with his forearm, grabbed her wrist, twisted. The pipe flew from her grip. They grappled for a moment before three more players landed on the platform and the chaos multiplied.
Arden kept throwing debris at the creature. She was running out of things to grab. Her trajectory was carrying her past the platform now. Too fast. She couldn't stop herself. Couldn't change direction enough to land on the metal surface.
She was going to miss it. Was going to fall past the only exit and keep falling forever.
Then Kael was there. He had jumped off the platform. Jumped back into the void to reach her. He caught her around the waist and used the momentum to spin them both back toward the platform. They hit the metal surface hard. Arden felt something in her shoulder pop. Pain exploded down her arm.
"I told you to leave me," she gasped.
"I'm really bad at following orders."
The creature struck. Its tail whipped across the platform like a demolition ball. Arden and Kael rolled in opposite directions. The tail hit where they had been lying, leaving a dent in the metal. The yoga pants woman wasn't fast enough. The tail caught her across the chest and sent her flying off the platform. Her scream faded into the distance.
Four players left. Arden. Kael. And two others, a middle aged woman in a blazer and a young man covered in tattoos. They were all staring at the blue door. It was only twenty feet away. Might as well have been twenty miles.
Because the creature was between them and the exit.
It had pulled most of its body onto the platform now. Coiled and ready to strike. Its eyes tracked all four of them simultaneously. Calculating. Choosing its next victim.
"We can't fight that thing," the tattooed man said. He sounded young. Terrified. "We're dead. We're all dead."
"Not yet," Kael said. He was breathing hard but his voice was steady. "It's big but it's not fast. Look at how it moves. It commits to each strike. Takes time to reset. If we coordinate, if we all move at once, some of us can get past it."
"Some of us," the woman in the blazer repeated. "You mean some of us die so the rest can escape."
"Yes."
Silence. The creature's eyes gleamed in the unnatural light. Arden could hear its breathing. Slow. Patient. It wasn't in a hurry. It knew they were trapped.
"I'll do it," Arden said. She didn't recognize her own voice. It sounded calm. Decided. Like someone else was speaking through her mouth. "I'll distract it. The rest of you run for the door."
"Absolutely not," Kael said.
"It makes sense. I'm injured already." Arden gestured to her shoulder. "I'll slow everyone down. This way at least my death means something."
"Arden, look at me."
She looked at him. At the face she had tried so hard to forget. At the eyes that had seen through all her defenses. At the man who had loved her for one kiss and had died three days later. Except he wasn't dead. Or he was dead but he was here anyway. Or this was all a hallucination and none of it mattered.
"I'm not letting you die," Kael said quietly. "Not again."
Again. The word hung in the air like smoke. Arden wanted to ask what he meant. Wanted to understand how he could remember something that never happened to this version of him. But there was no time.
The creature struck.
It went for the tattooed man first. He tried to dodge but the creature was faster than any of them expected. Teeth closed around his leg. He screamed. Blood sprayed across the metal platform. The creature shook him like a dog with a toy and then threw him into the void.
Three left.
The woman in the blazer made a run for it. She sprinted toward the blue door while the creature was focused on its kill. She almost made it. Got within five feet of the exit. Then the creature's tail whipped around and caught her across the head. She dropped instantly. Dead before she hit the ground.
Two left. Arden and Kael. Just like the last station.
The door chose. The woman at the castle had said that. The door always chooses. It never chooses the one you expect.
Arden understood now. This wasn't about reaching the door first. It was about being the last one standing. The game wanted drama. Wanted tension. Wanted to see who would sacrifice themselves and who would survive at any cost.
The game wanted to know what kind of person she really was.
The creature coiled between them and the exit. It was done playing. Done being patient. Its mouth opened wide enough to swallow a car. Multiple rows of teeth gleamed. Every eye fixed on Arden and Kael simultaneously.
It was going to kill them both. Right now. No more games within games. Just violence and death and then the next station would start with new players.
Unless.
Arden thought about her notebook. The one she had left in her apartment with three chapters unsaved. The one where she wrote her stories. The one where she controlled who lived and died.
She thought about Lady Crimson calling her creator. Thanking her for making her beautiful and hungry and perfect. The game knew who she was. Knew what she had written. Her first station had been her first novel. What if the other stations were her other books? What if everything here was built from her imagination?
What if she could still write her way out?
"I need paper," Arden said urgently. "Something to write on. Anything."
"What?" Kael looked at her like she had lost her mind. "This isn't the time for autographs."
"The Codebook. Lady Crimson mentioned it. Said I had a notebook that could manifest things. I left it in my apartment but maybe the game kept it. Maybe it's here somewhere."
"You want to defeat a monster by writing about it?"
"I defeated hundreds of monsters by writing about them. Why should this be different?"
The creature lunged. Arden and Kael dove in opposite directions. Teeth snapped shut on empty air. The platform shook from the impact. Cracks spiderwebbed across the metal surface.
"There." Kael pointed. In the corner of the platform, half hidden in shadow, was a leather bound notebook. It looked old. Worn. The kind of journal Arden had used in college when she was first learning to write horror. But it also looked exactly like the Codebook Lady Crimson had described.
"Cover me," Arden said. She ran for the notebook while Kael did something insane. He grabbed a piece of broken rebar from the platform edge and charged the creature head on. He jammed the metal rod between two of its teeth when it struck. The creature roared and shook its head violently but the rebar held. Temporarily.
Arden reached the notebook and snatched it up. It was heavy in her hands. Real. Solid. She opened it and found the pages filled with her own handwriting. Every story she had ever written. Every character she had killed. Every monster she had created. It was all here. Her entire career bound in leather and ink.
The last page was blank.
Arden pulled a pen from her jacket pocket. She always carried one. Force of habit from years of needing to write down ideas before they evaporated. Her hand shook as she pressed pen to paper.
What should she write? Kill the creature? Make it disappear? That seemed too simple. The game wouldn't allow that. There had to be rules. Limitations. Just like any good magic system.
So she wrote something else.
"The creature remembered being human once. Remembered a name and a face and a life before the void. And in remembering, it remembered mercy."
The words appeared on the page in her handwriting. For a moment nothing happened. Then the notebook grew warm in her hands. The pages glowed softly. The ink shimmered and lifted off the paper like smoke.
The creature stopped thrashing. Its multiple eyes blinked in confusion. It released the rebar and Kael stumbled backward, bleeding from a dozen small cuts but alive.
The creature looked at Arden. Really looked at her. And in its eyes she saw recognition. Understanding. It lowered its massive head and made a sound that wasn't quite a roar. More like a sigh. Like relief.
Then it unwound itself from the platform and sank back into the darkness below. Slowly. Peacefully. It didn't attack. Didn't fight. It just let go and fell.
Arden closed the notebook with shaking hands. Her shoulder throbbed. Her entire body ached. But they were alive.
"How did you do that?" Kael asked. He limped over to her, pressing a hand to a cut on his ribs.
"I gave it what it wanted. Not death. Release. Freedom from being a monster." Arden looked at the notebook. "Everything here is built from stories. From imagination. Which means stories can change it."
"That's going to be useful."
"Maybe. Or maybe the game will take the notebook away now that I've figured it out."
Kael held out his hand. "Only one way to find out. Come on. Let's get to that door before something else decides to kill us."
They limped across the platform together. The blue door waited patiently. Up close, Arden could see words carved into the wood. A question in elegant script.
"What are you willing to sacrifice to survive?"
"I really hate this game," Arden muttered. She reached for the door handle. It was cold under her fingers. "Any guesses what happens when we open this?"
"Something terrible."
"That's a safe bet."
She pulled the door open. Beyond was not darkness this time. It was light. Bright white light that hurt to look at. And sound. Dozens of voices talking at once. Laughing. Screaming. Crying.
"It's a crowd," Kael said. "I can hear people."
"Station Three," Arden whispered. She knew what this was. Recognized the sound. It was from her third novel. The one her editor had said was too dark. Too violent. Too honest about grief. "The Audience."
They stepped through together and the door slammed shut behind them.
The light faded enough for Arden to see. They were standing in what looked like a game show set. Bright colors. Flashing lights. Three podiums arranged in a triangle. And surrounding them on all sides, rising up in stadium seating as far as she could see, were people. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands maybe. All watching. All waiting.
A spotlight hit the center of the floor. A woman appeared there like she had been waiting in the wings. She wore a sparkling evening gown and held a microphone. Her smile was perfect and terrifying.
"Welcome, survivors, to Station Three. I'm your host, Miranda Magnificent. And tonight, you're going to play my favorite game." Her smile widened. "It's called Tell The Truth or Die Trying."
A screen descended from the ceiling behind her. It showed two images side by side. Arden's face. Kael's face. And beneath each image, a question in bold red letters.
For Arden: "Why did you let your sister drown?"
For Kael: "Who were you really trying to save when you jumped on that grenade?"
The audience erupted in applause. The sound was deafening.
Miranda Magnificent gestured to the podiums. "Take your places, contestants. Let's see what secrets you're hiding. Let's see which one of you is willing to tell the truth." She winked at the camera. "And which one would rather die than admit what they've done."
The applause grew louder. The lights grew brighter. And Arden realized with cold certainty that this station wouldn't kill them with monsters or creatures or physical danger.
This station would kill them with the truth.
And truth, Arden knew from experience, was always more dangerous than any nightmare she could write.