[IN-GAME: THE DARK PITY - MOMENTS AFTER CIPHER'S FALL
Ren's voice split apart in the smoke.
"Cipher! Are you there?"
Dust ate the sound. His lungs seized. He coughed—once, twice—each one ripping something loose in his chest. His throat felt like he'd swallowed glass. Air scraped going in. Scraped coming out.
He stumbled forward. His heart slammed against his ribs so hard he felt it in his teeth.
Nothing came back. Just the haze. Just the ringing in his ears.
He tried again. Louder. His voice cracked on her name.
"Cipher!"
Again.
"Cipher!"
The word pounded behind his eyes. Faster than his pulse. Louder than the blood roaring in his skull.
His knees buckled. He caught himself on something—rubble, metal, he didn't know. His fingers dug in. Nails scraped. She'd been right there. Right there. And now—
His stomach twisted. Bile rose in his throat.
Asher stood three paces back. His jaw worked. His hands hung at his sides, fingers twitching once, then going still. He watched Ren fold forward, watched him shake. But his feet didn't move. His mouth didn't open.
The ache in his chest was there—dull, distant. Like watching someone else's life collapse. Cipher hadn't been his. This pain wasn't his to carry. His own fortress had crumbled already. He'd learned to walk away from ruins. His throat tightened anyway.
Nova pressed cloth against her face—linen, something. Her shoulders jerked with each cough. Tears streaked through the ash on her cheeks. She blinked hard, eyes burning, chest heaving from running and fighting.
"Guys..." Her voice came out thin. Shredded. "What should we do? There must be—" Another cough cut her off. She doubled over, one hand braced on her knee. When she straightened, her eyes were red-rimmed but sharp. "There must be a way to find her."
Ren bent double. His whole body convulsed. Coughing turned to retching. Nothing came up but he couldn't stop. When he finally sucked in air, the words came with it.
"She said this was the only way."
Each syllable scraped out of him like he was coughing up gravel.
Nova's head whipped left, right. Her gaze tore through the wreckage, hunting for something, anything. Her fingers curled into fists.
"What about the tunnel? The one Vutagon Mondanza used?"
Ren's head jerked up. His eyes were too wide. Whites showing all around.
"No." The word punched out. "Locked." Another breath. "Sealed." His hand slashed through the air. "Gone."
The smoke pressed in. Thick. Heavy. Like a hand over the mouth.
Ren's heart kept hammering. Kept hammering. Kept hammering.
The silence swallowed everything else.
Nova called out one last time. "Cipher!" Her voice cracked, raw and desperate, echoing against the collapsing stone.
She stared at the pit—at the gaping maw swallowing itself, at the inferno devouring the structure from within, at the walls buckling and giving way like broken ribs.
Her heart twisted violently in her chest, a physical pain that stole her breath. Every instinct screamed at her to go back, to dive into that hell and drag Cipher out herself.
But she knew.
The knowledge sat like lead in her stomach.
"Let's go." The words tasted like ash.
"She's trapped. There's nothing we can do." Her voice wavered, threatening to shatter completely, but her decision held firm even as her body trembled with the effort of maintaining it. Her fingernails bit into her palms, drawing blood she didn't notice.
Ren's breath caught in his throat. His chest constricted, tight and suffocating, as if invisible hands were crushing his ribcage.
"Yeah... I guess she's right." The admission felt like betrayal. Like cowardice.
His heart hammered against his sternum—*thud-thud, thud-thud*—each beat an accusation. He hated it. Hated the helplessness that made his hands shake. Hated leaving Cipher behind to burn or be buried alive. Hated himself for agreeing. But the reality was brutal, undeniable. The Dark Pity was collapsing. They would all die if they stayed.
His eyes stung—from smoke, he told himself. Just smoke.
Asher's jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. Impatience flared hot in his veins, but beneath it—beneath the bravado—fear coiled cold and serpentine.
His heart pounded erratically—*thump-thump-thump*—too fast, too hard.
"What are we waiting for?" The words came out harsher than intended, a shield against the grief threatening to crack through. He couldn't look at the pit.
Couldn't watch it swallow someone else. Not again. He started moving, his legs mechanical, each step away from Cipher feeling like walking through deep water.
The Ghost Beast screeched—a sound that tore through the air like rending metal. Frustration, anguish, and fury rattled through its bird-like cry, but no one understood its words.
It screamed Cipher's name in its own language, begged them to wait, to try harder, to not give up. But the humans heard only meaningless noise.
They hurried toward the exit, their footsteps heavy with guilt.
Nova glanced back once—just once—and the sight nearly broke her. Flames erupted from every crevice, orange and red and hungry.
Smoke billowed in thick, choking clouds. The ground shuddered beneath them, and somewhere deep below, stone groaned and cracked.
Her vision blurred. She forced herself to turn away, to keep moving, even as her heart screamed at her to stop.
'I'm sorry, Cipher. I'm so sorry.'
---
[REAL WORLD: SECURITY OFFICE - SIMULTANEOUS]
The monitors showed everything.
Every desperate shout. Every coughing fits. Every moment of Ren's collapse, Nova's tears, Asher's retreat. The cameras captured it all in cold, clinical detail—angles and pixels and data streams that reduced tragedy to information.
But some people watching weren't cold. They weren't clinical.
They were breaking.
"No! What just happened?" Lillian's voice cracked, raw and jagged as broken glass. "No! No! Cynthia can't die."
The words felt hollow in her mouth, tasting of copper and ash. Her mind fractured—not shuttered, but shattered—splintering into a thousand razor-sharp fragments that cut through every coherent thought. Everything had been going perfectly. They'd been winning. The past tense lodged in her throat like a stone.
Her body folded inward, knees slamming against her chest as her arms wrapped around her head. The pressure built behind her eyes, hot and swelling.
Her heart didn't just beat—it hammered, a frantic percussion that drowned out everything else.
*Thump-thump-thump-thump.* Too fast. Too hard. Each pulse sent shockwaves through her ribcage, as if her chest might crack open from the force.
Her lungs couldn't keep pace. Breath came in shallow, desperate gasps that never quite filled the emptiness spreading through her core.
The floor beneath her felt unsteady, tilting. Cold sweat prickled across her scalp, down her spine. Her fingers dug into her hair, nails scraping against skin, grounding herself in the sharp sting because everything else felt impossibly distant.
The possibility—no, the probability—of Cynthia dying pressed down on her shoulders like a physical weight, crushing, suffocating. She couldn't come to terms with it. Wouldn't.
Jane's body had gone rigid beside her, her eyes locked on the screen showing Cipher's last known position—now just flames and collapsing stone.
Her hands flew to her mouth, fingers pressing hard against her lips as if she could physically hold back the scream building in her throat. It came anyway—a strangled, airless sound.
Tears didn't fall; they erupted, hot and fast, streaming down her cheeks in torrents. Not gentle rain, but a violent downpour, the kind that comes with thunder that shakes your bones and lightning that splits the sky.
Her chest hitched. Once. Twice. Breath came in broken hiccups, each inhale a battle she was losing. Her lungs seized, refusing to expand fully.
The air felt too thick, too heavy, like trying to breathe underwater. Her hands trembled against her face, fingers slick with tears and saliva. She didn't know what to do with her body—where to put her hands, how to sit, whether to stand or collapse entirely.
The screen blurred before her, pixels swimming in the salt water flooding her vision. She blinked hard, desperate to clear her sight, but the tears kept coming. Her eyes burned, red and swollen, but she couldn't look away.
Wouldn't look away. Her gaze remained locked on the monitors, unblinking despite the sting, searching for something—anything—that would rewrite what she'd just witnessed. A miracle. A glitch. Divine intervention. Her jaw clenched so tight her teeth ached, and still she stared, willing reality to bend.
Peterson Graciano's skull felt like it was splitting apart from the inside.
His hands clamped around his head, fingers digging into his temples where his pulse throbbed with sickening intensity. *Boom-boom-boom-boom.* The rhythm matched his heartbeat, each throb sending waves of pressure through his brain.
Nothing made sense. Not the fluorescent lights humming overhead in the security office. Not the static-filled radio on his belt. Not the mundane reality of being on duty while his world disintegrated. Not the screens showing his daughter—trapped, buried, maybe dying—while he sat here, helpless, watching.
His throat constricted, tight and burning. Heat flooded his face—his cheeks, his ears, the bridge of his nose. Everything his father had drilled into him since childhood rose up like bile: 'Men don't cry. Tears are weakness. Suck it up. Be strong. Push it down. Lock it away.'
But his body betrayed every lesson.
The first sob tore from his chest like something being ripped out by the roots—violent, guttural, primal. It hurt. God, it hurt.
His shoulders shook, convulsing with each ragged breath. Tears poured down his face, hot and unstoppable, carving wet tracks through the stubble on his jaw. They dripped from his chin onto his uniform, darkening the fabric in spreading patches.
He wiped at them frantically—once, twice, again and again—dragging his palms across his cheeks, his eyes, his nose. But they kept coming, an endless flood that no amount of wiping could stem. His hands came away wet, glistening. He wiped them on his pants. Wiped his face again. The tears fell faster than he could clear them.
His breath came in great, heaving gasps between sobs—the kind of crying he hadn't done since he was small enough to be held. The kind that leaves you hollow and aching. His chest felt carved out, emptied. Each exhale shuddered through him, and each inhale caught on the grief lodged in his windpipe.
The security monitors flickered before him, their glow casting his tear-streaked face in harsh blue light. His vision swam. His hands trembled.
And still, he wept.
Peterson's sobs rattled the security office, raw and unrestrained. His palms pressed hard against his temples, trying to cage the grief tearing through him. The monitors flickered blue across his tear-streaked face, each pulse of light strobing against his trembling hands.
The dark figure by the door didn't move. Didn't speak. Just watched.
Peterson dragged in a ragged breath, chest hitching, throat raw. He wiped his eyes again, smearing salt and sweat across his uniform. His vision blurred, swimming.
"Who... who are you?" His voice cracked, barely more than a whisper.
The figure stepped forward. The hum of the fluorescent lights seemed to falter.
Peterson's pulse hammered in his skull—*boom-boom, boom-boom*—until the sound of it drowned out everything else.
Then came another sound.
A metallic click.
His head jerked up, eyes wide. The shadow raised something—cold steel glinting in the monitor's glow.
The shot split the air.
Peterson's scream never had the chance to leave his throat.