My heart didn't just beat; it detonated, a frantic, explosive thump that ricocheted off my ribs like a cannonball in a tin box, flooding my veins with a scalding mix of panic and raw, impossible wonder.
Every muscle in my body clenched tight enough to make my bones creak in protest, a full-body spasm that locked my knees and turned my fingers into claws digging into the blood-slick iron beneath me. My lungs forgot their purpose entirely, breath seizing in my throat like a thief caught mid-heist. I swear even my eyelashes vibrated with alarm.
And then he ran.
The Beastman hit the walkway like a meteor forged in vengeance and dipped in the black ichor of those giggling abominations.
One second I was standing there, half-dead and choking on adrenaline thick enough to chew, and the next the world dissolved into motion and chaos, the forge itself seeming to shudder in recognition of this new apex predator crashing its party.
He flew past me so close I felt the wind of his passage whip my hair across my face, carrying the sharp tang of iron, burnt oil, and something wilder—something ancient and untamed that made my hindbrain scream run even as my eyes locked on him in desperate hope.
The floor quaked under his footsteps, metal shrieking in protest as rivets popped free like gunfire. Holy hells, look at him go, I thought, a manic grin splitting my blood-crusted lips.
He collided with the Warden mid-step, shoulder-first, the impact a cataclysm that wasn't just a clash but a goddamn apocalypse in motion.
They pressed together like thunderheads colliding in a sky gone mad with rage. Sparks erupted in geysers from the point of contact, embers flaring into the air and showering down over us in a molten gold rain that hissed where it landed
The Warden staggered backward, his armor screeching, and for a glorious, fleeting moment, I believed—honestly believed—we might live through this.
Just then, the Beastman's claws—thick as my wrists—began raking deep trenches across the Warden's chestplate, each strike ringing like the tolling of funeral bells in a cathedral built for war.
The Warden countered with brutal precision, his axe swinging in arcs that blurred through the smoky air, cutting more chunks of metal out of the walkway.
The sound was unbearable—metal on metal, growls mixing with grunts, the hiss of blood hitting hot steel. It wasn't just a fight; it was a concert written for the end of the world.
Behind me, Atticus had collapsed into a huddle beside Brutus's bleeding form, fumbling with the radio like a desperate gambler shaking dice in a losing hand.
"Come on, come on, you fickle son of a bitch!" he snarled, twisting knobs, flipping switches, hitting it once, twice, then three times for good measure. The radio crackled with static that mocked him in a thousand white noises.
Dregan limped over, bleeding from a fresh cut on his scalp. "Ye hittin' it won't make it talk, lad!" he shouted, half in jest, half in despair.
Atticus ignored him, sweat streaking down his temples. "It will if I hit it right!"
Gods above, I thought, even now the man's committed to scientific experimentation through blunt trauma.
Another explosion of motion drew my gaze back to the fight. The Warden recovered his footing and swung low, his axe carving a deep gouge through the Beastman's thigh. The Beastman howled, a noise that sounded less like pain and more like fury itself being birthed anew.
Then, with horrifying speed, the Warden pivoted and brought his weapon down again—right into the Beastman's shoulder. The blade sank in deep, cutting through his flesh with a sound that was half wet slap, half ringing steel.
I winced, stomach twisting. "Oh, gods, that's gonna need more than a bandage."
The Beastman didn't fall, didn't even stagger beyond that initial impact, his roar deepening into something that made my insides quiver in all the wrong ways, a primal challenge that drowned out the magma's song and the radio's static alike.
He slammed his massive forearm into the Warden's chest, sending the man staggering backward with a grunt that sounded almost surprised.
Behind me, Atticus shouted triumphantly. "I've got it!"
I turned just in time to see the radio's red light flicker to life like a dying candle catching flame. "Sector Nine… we're under assault… requesting immediate—" he began, speaking into the receiver with all the authority of a man pretending not to be terrified. "Repeat, we are trapped in Sector Nine! Hostile entity present! Immediate assistance requested!"
Silence answered. A long, pregnant pause filled only by the static hiss.
Then—nothing.
Atticus slammed his fist into the floor with a snarl, the noise echoing hopelessly. "Damn it all!"
The sound of that punch might as well have been a drumbeat cue for the next horror. The fight ahead had turned again—sharper now, faster. The Warden moved with that eerie calm efficiency that made him more machine than man. His armor gleamed slick with sweat, his one exposed eye glinting with sadistic light.
The Beastman swung for his throat—and that was when the Warden laughed. Actually laughed.
Not the laughter of a man who thought he'd won, no—this was deeper, rawer, something torn from the cracked ribs of madness itself.
It was the kind of sound that didn't belong to mortals, something older and crueler, the sound of a predator realizing its prey still thought it had a chance.
Time didn't just slow—it stopped. The world stuttered between one heartbeat and the next, a film reel melting in the projector, every flicker of firelight stretching into eternity. I could see it all—the arc of the Warden's body as he pivoted, the glint of blood-red heat along the axe's edge, the faint, resigned flicker of recognition in the Beastman's eyes.
And then it happened.
The axe sank in deep—so deep I could almost feel it. It landed halfway through the Beastman's chest, ribs splintering like kindling, his body jerking from the sheer force of the impact.
The world went silent. Utterly, terrifyingly silent.
My throat closed up. The Beastman's eyes went wide, his breath coming in ragged, choking bursts. But he didn't fall. Not yet.
Instead, he reached up—slowly, terribly—with one blood-slick hand and grabbed the Warden by the face.
His claws dug into the edges of the man's mask. The Warden snarled, struggling, but the Beastman's strength was monstrous even dying. His thumb pressed against the exposed eye socket.
The Warden screamed as the thumb sank in, blood pouring down his cheek, seeping into the cracks of his armor. The mask groaned under the pressure before splitting with a sound like breaking porcelain.
The top half fell away—and the truth came out.
Beneath that mask wasn't some righteous warden of order, but a dark orc, his skin black and slick with old burns, tusks cracked, veins bulging beneath the heat of his own fury.
I gasped. "Oh, fantastic! The prison's run by an orc with anger management issues. How reassuring!"
The Warden grinned through the blood, his teeth stained red. "That all you got, beast boy?" he spat, voice rasping. "I'll use your skull for an ashtray!"
"Charming," I muttered. "A real poet of the gallows, this one."
Freya stumbled beside me, wiping sweat and grime from her brow, her face streaked with a mask of quiet fear. She grabbed my arm, shaking me hard enough to rattle my skull. "Loona!" she hissed, eyes wide. "This is your chance!"
"My what now?" I blinked at her, dazed.
"The elevator!" She pointed, her fingers trembling. "While they're fighting, you can slip past! It's open—you can vanish, sneak through, do something!"
I barked a laugh, sharp and hollow. "You're insane! What am I supposed to do, tiptoe through the apocalypse? They're tearing each other apart like rabid gods!"
"Exactly," she snapped.
"And what about you guys?" I shot back, breath ragged, words tripping over the pounding in my skull. "You're just gonna stay here and die pretty?"
Freya's mouth twitched, somewhere between a smirk and sorrow. "Someone's gotta hold the bastard off. Now move."
I turned to argue, but my eyes met the Warden's half-shattered grin through the chaos. That smile—it wasn't just manic. It was knowing. A promise that he wasn't done.
And that was when I realized she was right.
My throat tightened as I looked back to the Beastman. He was faltering, blood running in thick rivers down his chest, his claws still gripping the Warden's face even as his strength ebbed.
"Don't you dare," I whispered under my breath, though I knew he couldn't hear me. "Don't you dare die yet, you magnificent bastard."
Then the Beastman's hand slipped, leaving a streak of blood across the Warden's mangled features.
The Warden's laughter rose again as he pulled his axe free, seized the Beastman by the throat with one gauntleted hand, and with a roar that shook the bridge, lifted him off his feet.
"No!" I shouted, voice cracking as the Warden hurled him to the side.
The Beastman hit the railing with a clang that bent the iron before rolling over, his body tumbling into the abyss with a final, fading snarl that echoed long after he vanished into the magma glow below.
Time broke, the world muffling into a distant hum, the sound of his body hitting something far below muted as if my mind refused to register the finality.
My knees went weak, the forge spinning in a nauseating whirl, my eyes burning with tears. I blinked back fiercely. No, no, he wasn't gone—he couldn't be, my inner voice wailed, dark humor crumbling into raw grief.
I wanted to cry, to scream, to throw myself after him—but the words stuck in my throat, heavy and useless.
Brutus was still bleeding. Freya was still shaking. Atticus was hunched over the radio, whispering prayers into dead air.
And I—Loona the loudmouth, Loona the fool—had no time to mourn.
Because the Warden turned toward me then, his face half-ruined but smiling still, eyes burning with that terrible orcish gleam. "Your turn, sweetheart."
I swallowed, my mouth dry as desert dust. "Oh, good. I was worried you'd forgotten me."
And then I ran.
I ran like every sin I'd ever committed was chasing me on two legs and carrying an axe. The walkway rattled beneath my boots, the air thick with ash and iron.
I glanced back to see that Atticus and Dregan were half a heartbeat behind me, Atticus already fumbling a glass vial from his belt, Dregan coughing wet and red but still swinging that borrowed axe like it was an extension of his soul.
The vial left Atticus's hand in a glittering arc, shattering against the Warden's face with a hiss and a bloom of choking grey that swallowed the orc whole.
Dregan roared through the haze, axe sweeping low before I could hear the wet crunch of steel biting tendon just above the Warden's greaves. Good lads, I thought, lungs burning, buy me six heartbeats, just six.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
I vanished.
The world folded into that familiar monochrome hush. The Warden loomed ahead, a titan of smoldering darkness, his axe glowing faintly like molten sin.
In one fluid motion, I slid beneath his legs, my hands brushing the warped metal floor that seemed to hum with some otherworldly vibration. My body moved like water, completely untethered.
And then the world snapped back.
The Warden's axe slammed down just a heartbeat too late, the blade cutting the air where my head had been, the shockwave alone strong enough to rattle my bones. I tumbled forward, coughing on the smoke as I quickly rose to my feet.
And there it was—the elevator.
It nested itself in a cavern at the far end of the forge like a relic of any saner world, a colossal cage of rust and rivets suspended by cables thicker than my arm. Its gates were iron fangs, the floor glistening with age and oil. Above, it stretched upward into the unseen, the promise of escape—of elsewhere.
I bolted toward it, every nerve screaming. Behind me, Atticus was shouting something, Dregan was hacking blood into the ash, and the Warden—oh gods, the Warden—was already charging after me like a rabid hound loosed from its chain.
His boots slammed the walkway, metal screaming beneath his weight, each step an earthquake. His voice tore through the smoke, guttural and enraged, half-growl, half-laughter. "You think you can run, little whore? You think the top'll take you back?"
I didn't look back. I didn't dare. My lungs burned, my throat was raw, my heartbeat pounding in the same staccato rhythm as the trembling walkway. Just ahead, the elevator loomed—so close I could practically taste the metal.
And then, impossibly—absurdly—it began to descend.
The cables groaned, gears shrieked, and the whole structure rattled as the platform began lowering toward us, slow at first, then steady, as if some divine hand had decided to give me one last plot twist for the road.
The platform hit the cavern floor with a clang that echoed like a gunshot, doors sliding open with a soft, mocking ding that belonged in a palace, not this blood-soaked hell.
I skidded to a halt, boots sliding on grit, every instinct screaming trap. Another of the Warden's games, another smiling horror waiting in the cage with a knife and a grin.
Then I saw it.
Just a flicker, a tremor at the edge of the world—like the afterthought of a shadow that didn't quite belong. It wasn't a person, not exactly, more like the memory of one. A ripple in the air, there and gone, leaving behind the faintest shiver of movement, like something invisible had just stepped out of sight.
My stomach sank through my boots. Nothing good ever moved that quietly.
I turned just in time to see the Warden freeze with me. His body went rigid, his head snapping to the left, then the right, nostrils flaring. The air around him seemed to shift, a strange hush falling over the cavern as even the forge's fire dimmed.
"What—" I started, but the words evaporated from my tongue.
A sound cut through the stillness then—a whistle. Soft, almost delicate. It came not from the cavern floor. Not from the forge. But from above. From the open scaffolding of the elevator shaft itself.
I looked up, and promptly felt my stomach turned to stone.
There, high in the lattice of shadows and rust, something unseen moved—a flicker of black on black, a shape swallowed by its own darkness.
Then came the sound—not a bang, not a boom, but a detonation that tore the world open, the air imploding with a force that punched through my chest like the fist of a god
I hit the ground so hard my teeth clacked together, the impact jarring my skull and sending stars bursting across my vision
When my vision cleared, I saw the Warden standing—or rather trying to.
There was a hole. A gaping, perfect, impossible hole punched straight through his chest. Through his armor. Through his spine.
And jutting from the ground behind him, embedded in the rock like a nailed declaration, was an arrow.
Not just an arrow—no, this thing was obscene. Black as a starless night, shaft thick as a spear, its fletching burning faintly with some unnatural ember-light.
The Warden looked down at the wound as if personally offended by it, then staggered back one step, two, bloodless ichor pouring out in lazy rivers. His axe slipped from his fingers, clanging once against the stone.
For a long moment, no one spoke. Not even the forge dared to breathe.
I stared, chest heaving, disbelief warring with a hysterical urge to laugh.
"Well," I croaked finally, my voice scraping through the ash-choked air, "I think someone upstairs just sent us a performance review."
And then, like a broken puppet, the Warden crumpled—slowly, almost gracefully—falling to his knees with a deafening boom.
The silence that followed wasn't peace—it was the sound of the world holding its breath, waiting to see what I'd do next.