The door slammed behind him.
Miles didn't slow down.
Not even when he heard Kayla stumble after him, dragging ragged breaths into her lungs.
The corridor ahead curved sharply, sinking downward into deeper shadows.
Water dripped from overhead pipes.
The floor grew slick beneath his boots.
After a few yards, the corridor opened up — into something that barely felt real.
A vast underground reservoir stretched before them, black water as smooth as glass, the ceiling lost in mist and darkness.
Rusting metal beams jutted from the water at strange angles, like broken ribs.
A faint light glowed from a cracked lantern hanging over a pier made of warped, creaking wood.
And there, hammered crookedly into the pier, was a sign:
RULE #15: WATER REMEMBERS. FIRE CONSUMES. CHOOSE YOUR FATE.
Kayla caught up to him, clutching her ribs.
Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
"...You left me."
Miles didn't answer.
Not yet.
Not here.
He moved toward the edge of the pier, scanning the water.
The lake stretched too far to see the opposite end.
Somewhere out there, faint and flickering, was another light — maybe an exit.
But no boats waited.
Only a crude raft floated twenty yards out, bobbing gently. Something metal gleamed atop it — maybe supplies. Maybe a key.
Maybe bait.
Miles turned his eyes downward.
The water itself was... wrong.
Too still.
Too heavy.
And every so often, just beneath the surface, he thought he saw the shimmer of movement.
Fingers.
Faces.
The drowned.
The speaker crackled overhead.
"Detective Rennick. Choose your fate."
"Swim through memory."
"Or burn your way to salvation."
A panel near the pier hissed open.
Inside: a small, rusted flamethrower.
Its nozzle gleamed like a hungry eye.
Kayla took a step backward.
"No. No way I'm touching that."
Miles said nothing.
He stared out across the water.
Something floated closer beneath the surface.
A child's shoe.
A ragged teddy bear.
A police badge, cracked in half.
His badge.
His throat tightened.
Kayla tugged his sleeve.
"Look — there's another way. Look!"
She pointed farther down the pier, where a thin, narrow beam stretched across the water like a balancing plank — maybe wide enough for one foot at a time.
Unstable. Crumbling.
But a way.
Maybe.
The sign above buzzed again.
WATER REMEMBERS. FIRE CONSUMES. CHOOSE.
No time limit.
But he knew better.
Waiting too long would only make it worse.
Kayla looked at him, pleading.
"Please, Miles. Not the water."
He glanced at the plank.
Then the raft.
Then the flamethrower.
None of them good choices.
Only survival.
And the whisper of the drowned pulling at the edge of his mind.
Choose.