The guards appeared without a whisper.
One moment, Caleb was pressing the knife deeper into Ellen's throat, savoring the tremble in her shallow breaths. The next, iron hands clamped his wrists, gripping like frost on bare skin.
He spun, snarling, the blade slashing toward whoever dared interrupt. It froze mid-air, caught in the thick of a nightmare's pause.
The guard holding him towered like a colossus. Seven feet of muscle, wrapped in seamless black, a specter molded into flesh. His face was a mask, human, somewhat human, but blank as a gravestone smoothed by time.
"Violation of Rest Area Protocol: Physical violence against participants," the guard said, voice flat as a frozen lake. "Mandatory isolation period: twenty-four hours."
Caleb yanked against the grip, like pulling at bedrock. "Let me go," he growled, the hunger still twisting like smoke in his veins, the whispers urging him to finish her.
A second guard appeared behind Ellen and Soren, a mirror of the first. They eased Ellen from the doorframe, checking her arm with the cold care of a clockmaker handling gears.
"Minor laceration. Medical attention available upon request," the second guard intoned.
Ellen sobbed, clutching her arm, shrinking from Caleb like he was a beast slipped loose from its chain. Soren stood rigid, blood trickling from his nose where Caleb's fist had landed.
"I wasn't done," Caleb said, twisting against the guard's hold.
"Violence is prohibited in designated Rest Areas," the first guard repeated. "Compliance is mandatory."
Something cold grazed Caleb's neck. A sharp jolt, and his muscles dissolved. The knife clattered to the floor with a dull, defeated ring.
The guards hoisted him like a broken puppet, carrying him from the training room. Behind, Ellen's cries and Soren's fractured murmurs faded into the dark.
The whispers in his head screamed, robbed.
The isolation cell was a white box, larger than a grave but smaller than the chamber. Blank walls, blank floor, blank ceiling. A cot, a table, a toilet behind a screen. No shadows, just a void that swallowed sound.
The guards dropped him on the cot and vanished. The door sealed with a hiss, soft as a secret kept.
Caleb tested the door, pounding as if will alone could crack its spine. Solid. Unyielding.
For hours, he paced. The whispers lingered, fainter but stubborn, urging him to break free, to finish Ellen. Her terrified eyes flashed, a spark that burned his nerves raw.
He'd been so close to seeing her light gutter out, to tasting that final shudder.
But as hours dragged, the whispers softened. The electric hunger dimmed. Without the knife's familiar weight, his mind cleared, like mist burning off a dawn field.
By the eighth hour, Caleb sat on the cot, head in hands, sifting through the ruin. He remembered everything, the blood, screams, the sick thrill of the blade.
By the twelfth hour, the whispers were a faint drone. His thoughts returned, sharp as glass. A glow flickered, unbidden, and a status window appeared, cold and stark:
Status: Caleb Stray
Class: Strider (Level 14)
Strength: 18 | Agility: 17 | Endurance: 14 | Perception: 16 | Focus: 15 | Charisma: 7 | Intuition: 15
Skills: Fast Step, Improvised Weaponry, Tactical Recognition
Traits: Calm Heart (+10% mental resilience), Resolve
Title: The Necessary Evil
Title Effect: Heightens emotions, hear the whispers of those you've harmed for greater good.
Enhance reflexes and boost all stats by 7%
Weaker towards mind control related skills.
Caleb stared at the words. "The Necessary Evil." It didn't leash, but a mirror, showing the darkness he'd always carried. It didn't force him, it fanned his rage, his hunger, into flame. In the chamber, it turned violence into a song. With Ellen, her fear tasted like honey on his tongue. He'd wanted to kill her, not because the Tower demanded it, but because the title made it feel right as rain.
What had he become?
He'd nearly killed Ellen. Ellen, seventeen, who'd trusted him through hell. He'd cut her and drank her scream like whiskey.
The truth hit like a stone. He retched, stomach empty, spitting bile.
He'd welcomed it.
By the sixteenth hour, Caleb stared at his hands. Human, but stained in memory, Ellen's blood, warm as a fading hearth, the knife's wet hum through her skin.
He'd been happy. That was the worst. At her throat, he'd felt more alive than the stars.
By the twentieth hour, his choice was made.
When the guards returned, Caleb sat calm, hands folded. "Isolation period complete," the first guard said. "Return to general population authorized."
"I want to write a letter," Caleb said.
The guard's face stayed blank. "Writing materials available upon request."
A pen and paper appeared, plain as bone.
Caleb wrote, hand steady:
Ellen and Soren,
By the time you read this, I'll be gone. I'm climbing alone now.
What happened wasn't just the Tower. It took what was in me, my anger, my hunger, and made it louder. I wasn't being controlled. It was me, or what I've let myself become.
You're not safe near me. No one is.
I won't ask forgiveness. Nor give hollow apologies.
I don't deserve them any of your forgiveness.
I let the monster out. That's on me.
Stay tight. Watch each other's backs. As much as I don't have the rightto tell you thus:
Don't trust anyone.
Caleb
He folded the letter and handed it to the guard. "Deliver this to Ellen and Soren."
The guard took it without a word.
Behind him, Ellen and Soren were likely still reeling, grappling with how their friend became their nightmare. They'd be better off without him.
He found an empty table and sat, brooding like a storm over open water. Above, Floor Eight waited, or it might as well be his final resting.
Whispers stirred, slithering back like shadows at dusk.