Act II – The Web Collapses
The tunnels still smoked, the air thick with ash and the faint stench of burned plans. Every corridor, every panel, every shadow seemed to whisper the same truth: chaos leaves a mess you can't ignore. I breathed it in, letting it settle over me like a coat.
Soft hiss… faint echo of collapsing rubble…
Kara. Dead. Just like that, erased from the board, leaving only a stain and a memory. I traced her absence in my mind, a ledger of loss. Jonas. Betrayal neat and tidy, packaged like a gift I didn't ask for. My lips twisted.
"Trust," I muttered, voice low, half-amused, half-bitter. "What a cute little liability."
Soft scrape… distant metallic clatter…
I walked the corridors slowly, eyes scanning, calculating. Every flicker of light, every whisper of smoke told me the same thing: allies are a liability. The cost of friendship is measured in blood, loyalty in pain. Lesson learned. People will either stab you or die trying. Either way… you lose.
Soft thud… faint drip of something warm on concrete…
I paused, hand on a scorched railing, mind running through names, faces, and weaknesses. Pawns. That's all anyone could be. No ties, no attachments. Just pieces to move, to sacrifice, to bend. My smirk tightened. Allies are overrated. Pawns do exactly what they're told… mostly.
Rattle… soft echo of shifting debris…
The ruins stretched out before me, each corridor a battlefield, each shadow a possibility. I marked them all, mentally cataloging who could serve, who could fall, who could be bent into my design. And in that moment, standing among the smoke and echoes of ambition, I felt a flicker of satisfaction.
Victory? Not yet. But control? That was mine to shape.
I exhaled, letting the smoke swallow the last trace of hesitation. The city had shown me its cracks, and now it was my turn to exploit them.
"Time to play," I muttered, voice low, sardonic. "No more friends. No more mistakes. Just pawns."