The corridor stretched out before them — endless and crooked.
Miles limped forward, one hand pressed tight to his bruised ribs.
Levi stayed a half-step behind, his broken mirror shard still clutched tight like a makeshift knife.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their breathing.
Heavy. Ragged. Alive.
Above them, pipes snaked along the ceiling, dripping oily water that hit the floor with slow, cruel plinks.
Every sound echoed too loud, like the walls themselves were listening.
Miles kept his head low, scanning for traps.
He had no illusions now.
The labyrinth wasn't just a maze.
It was hungry.
After maybe a hundred twisting meters, they reached a crossroads — two passages, branching left and right.
And suspended between them, on rusted chains, another monitor.
This one flickered in and out, text warping like a bad signal:
> RULE #18: DEALS COST MORE THAN YOU THINK.
Miles stared at it.
Deals.
It didn't say "deals are forbidden."
It didn't say "deals are fatal."
It just warned.
He didn't like that.
"Which way?" Levi asked, voice rough.
Miles was about to answer when he heard it —
Footsteps.
Fast. Light. Familiar.
He whipped around, baton raised — just as a figure sprinted toward them out of the darkness.
Kayla.
Alive.
Her clothes were shredded. Blood streaked her arms.
Her hair was matted and filthy.
But her eyes — her eyes were bright. Too bright.
Like someone who had seen the worst kind of hell... and made it out.
"Miles!" she gasped, stumbling to a stop. "You're alive!"
She looked at Levi with brief confusion, then back to Miles, clinging to him like he was the last real thing left in the world.
He pushed her back, gently but firmly.
"How'd you survive?" he demanded.
Kayla blinked.
"I —" She swallowed. "I got caught... there was something chasing me... I found another room, it gave me a choice—"
She hesitated.
Too long.
Miles caught it.
"What choice?" he pressed.
Kayla's gaze flicked to the walls. She dropped her voice to a whisper.
"To leave... something behind."
Miles' stomach knotted.
Behind her, on the wall, a dark wet stain was growing.
It slithered slowly along the cracked tiles like something alive.
Levi saw it too and edged closer to Miles.
"Uh... guys?"
The stain rippled. Moved.
And then peeled itself from the wall with a sickening slurp.
It landed on the floor in a heavy crouch.
A thing made of blood and black cloth.
No face. No eyes.
Just the heavy, ragged sound of breathing — and long fingers tipped with razors.
The creature rose slowly.
And in its shredded chest cavity, faintly pulsing — was something that looked almost human.
A fragment.
A piece.
A piece of Kayla.
Miles stepped back instinctively.
"You left something behind," he said.
Kayla's face twisted in shame.
"I had to," she whispered.
The monitor above them screeched — letters distorting:
> PENALTY FOR BETRAYAL: BLOODHOUND RELEASED.
The Bloodhound lunged.
Miles grabbed Levi and Kayla and bolted down the left-hand passage, the thing howling behind them, slamming into the walls with thunderous force.
The labyrinth shook.
Lights overhead exploded one by one, plunging the corridor into strobing darkness.
Every flash showed the Bloodhound closer.
Mouth gaping.
Claws reaching.
Miles tore through the halls, dragging the others, scanning desperately for any way out, any weapon—
There.
Another monitor, flickering wildly over a steel panel inset into the wall.
A single button below it.
No words.
Just a symbol:
A hand.
Miles didn't hesitate.
He slammed his palm against it.
A trapdoor snapped open in the floor beneath them.
The three of them fell — tumbling down a slick metal chute — just as the Bloodhound's claw swiped where Miles' head had been.
The last thing he heard before the trapdoor snapped shut:
A howl of pure rage, shaking the walls.
Then blackness.
Then silence.
Then another fall.
They landed hard in a new room — concrete floors, harsh fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
Miles coughed and rolled over.
Kayla sat up slowly, cradling her bleeding arm.
Levi groaned nearby.
Miles pushed himself to his feet, heart still pounding.
He looked at Kayla — really looked at her.
Her hands trembled.
Her face was pale.
But underneath it all — in her too-bright eyes — was something else.
A part of her hadn't fallen through that trapdoor with them.
A part of her was still up there.
Still bleeding.
Still hunting.
And the deal she'd made...
Whatever it was...
They were all going to pay for it.