Farah's lungs felt like glass.
Every corner she turned in the twisted maze of the facility led to another hallucination—blades in the dark, faint whispers calling her name, shadows pretending to be people she knew. Her legs bled from gashes she couldn't remember receiving, her breathing trembled with every shallow inhale, but she didn't stop.
She didn't look back. She couldn't look back—because back meant seeing what happened to Toff.Back meant knives, and blood, and those cold, drifting eyes of Hush-Mama.
She kept running.
Ephraein, alone now in a corridor that once held so many voices, returned to the dim room they had fled. It was cracked and humming with dying electronics—barely functional consoles and a rusted camera half-mounted to the wall. The emergency lights flickered above like a dying heartbeat.
There was no one. Bleu was gone. Jasper was gone. Everyone was gone. His eyes were hollow, red from tears not fully wept.
He looked up and saw the camera blinking in the corner of the ceiling. For a moment, he hesitated. Then he reached toward it. Flicked the recording switch. Pulled a chair and sat, bathed in the cold, flickering light. It began to record.
"…I don't know who's watching this," he said. His voice was soft, trembling, broken in some places. "Maybe nobody. Maybe this'll rot here until the building collapses or the darkness eats it, too."
He tried to laugh, but it died on the way out.
"…But if you're out there… if anyone is…"
His eyes looked toward the ceiling, then fell.
"Mom. Dad. I—I don't know if you ever even existed. I don't remember your faces. I don't remember birthdays or holidays or anything real. But I want to believe you were good people. That you tried. That maybe you would've loved me."
He clenched his fists. His lips trembled.
"I love you. I do. I don't care if you're dead, or monsters, or figments of a dream. I love you."
He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his torn shirt.
"…Jasper," he whispered. "I don't know what you were. If you were human, or something else. But you… helped me. You stayed."
He bit his lip. "You stayed."
A sound behind him. Ephraein turned. Standing in the doorway, covered in dust and dried blood—Pierro.Ephraein gasped and stood. "Pierro…?" Pierro nodded slowly.
There were wounds along his arms and neck, dried but brutal. But he was alive. Ephraein ran and hugged him tightly. "You're alive—you made it, thank God." Pierro didn't speak, but clutched him back with all the strength left in him.
They were not alone. But they thought they were.
In the far corner of the room, hidden behind stacked debris and overturned crates, Sasha's body lay still. Pale. Lifeless.
Her arms were bent awkwardly, as if she had fallen there long ago. A faint trail of dried blood ran from her nose to the side of her cheek. Her chest did not rise.
She looked dead. But inside…There was only blackness.
Sasha walked barefoot through an endless, oily void. Her feet made no sound, her breath felt unreal. She had been walking for days—or maybe minutes. Time dissolved here.
Then—a light.
She ran toward it, faster and faster.
The void began to bleed with color—flecks of memory stitched themselves across the darkness like constellations. Her mother laughing, her father holding her hand at the carnival, friends at school, every smile she had forgotten, every moment of pain that shaped her.
They appeared around her, floating like torn film reels.
Then came the deeper memories—the ones she had buried. The people she had fought with. The faces she let go. The moments of guilt she never spoke aloud. And finally, the fear. The trauma. The monster. Sasha tried to scream—but there was no sound.
Suddenly, the surface disappeared. She fell, into an endless sea of black ink. It closed around her like tar, but she couldn't feel it. She couldn't tire. There was no exhaustion here, only the cold pressure of nothing.
So she swam. And swam. Until— She saw a frame. Gigantic. Floating in the ink. Inside it was a portrait of herself—but older. Wiser. Hollow. The frame moved. Her future self spoke.
"You didn't listen," it said. "You ran. You always run."
"I didn't know what else to do!" Sasha screamed back. "I didn't ask for any of this!"
"You think it cares what you asked for?"
Sasha stared. "Who—what—are you?"
"I'm what you become when you stop pretending."
Behind the frame, something moved. A shadow, massive and silent, began to shrink forward, coiling in on itself like a leech ready to bite. Sasha screamed and began to backpedal—but the ink pulled her closer.
Her future self reached through the frame. The shadow reached from behind. Both hands clawed at her, pulling her in opposite directions. The shadow whispered insults.
"You're the dead weight." "You were never meant to survive." "You were always the failure. They just didn't tell you."
Sasha sobbed.
"Please stop—PLEASE STOP!"
The frame's hand clutched her wrist. The shadow's claws dug into her ribs.Then—she vanished, swallowed by silence..
Her body convulsed. Ephraein and Pierro heard the thump and turned toward the crates.
"Sasha!?"
They scrambled over the debris. Her eyes were wide open now, but empty. Her body trembled like a dying wire.
"She's still breathing—she's breathing!" Ephraein shouted.
"HELP HER!" Pierro screamed.
Farah burst into the room, coughing, bruised, covered in blood. She saw Sasha and ran to her side. "Move, MOVE!"
She dropped beside her and began CPR, pumping Sasha's chest with all the force her shaking arms could muster.
"One, two, three—BREATHE!"
Nothing. Again.
"Come on—come ON—!" Farah's voice cracked with each pump. Still nothing. Tears poured from Ephraein's face as he grabbed Sasha's hand.
"Don't do this. Don't LEAVE. Not you."
Pierro looked away, shaking. Farah finally collapsed, exhausted. Sasha's body was still. She was gone. They sat in silence. The lights above blinked again—and went dark.
Ephraein grabbed Farah's shoulder. "Your phone—please—call someone."
Farah pulled it from her jacket. Her fingers slid across the screen. She looked at them.
"…No signal," she whispered.
"Try again!" Pierro shouted, grabbing it.
She shook her head slowly. "There's nothing. Not even an emergency ping. We're alone."
The silence swelled in the room like smoke. There was no one left. Just them. Hunted. Surrounded. And whatever monsters were still outside the door… waiting for their moment.