Felix didn't feel the floor when he fell.
He only felt heat—a scorching, devouring heat that tore through his bloodstream as if a firestorm had bloomed inside his arm. His body seized, breath hitching as the melted black key surged under his skin, racing toward his heart like it had a destination
Or a purpose.
His scream echoed through the observatory.
Nia caught him before he hit the ground fully, her arms locking around him as if she could hold the pain still.
"Felix! Felix—look at me!" Her voice cracked with fear.
He tried.
But the world swayed like it had become liquid chocolate—thick, heavy, suffocating.
---
Aya crouched beside him, panic widening her eyes.
"His arm—Nia, look—oh no… oh no…"
The veins spiraling up Felix's forearm were no longer blue.
They were black.
A dark, glossy black, glimmering like melted obsidian as they crept upward, curling under the skin like living tendrils.
Leo stumbled back a step.
"What the hell is that?! Is it poisoning him?!"
Tomas looked ready to faint.
"Ambrose! DO SOMETHING!"
But Ambrose Vellum didn't move.
Not a step.
Not an inch.
He observed with a calm, patient, and intense eyes. Like a scholar watching the perfect reaction unfold in a beaker.
---
"The key is not harming him," Ambrose said quietly.
"It is binding to him."
Nia whipped around, pure fury blazing in her eyes.
"You KNEW this would happen!" She pushed Ambrose hard in the chest. "You planned this! Why didn't you stop it?!"
Ambrose barely rocked from the force.
He blinked slowly, as if confused why she expected him to react.
"It was necessary," he said simply.
Aya snapped, "Necessary?! He's in agony!"
"He is becoming what the city needs," Ambrose replied.
Lina's voice quivered as she hugged her drawing pad to her chest.
"You're treating him like he's some experiment…"
Ambrose tilted his head, studying Felix with something like reverence.
"No. Felix is a key. He can taste the District's memories. He can feel its warnings. Its secrets."
Felix trembled violently.
"Stop… stop talking like that…"
Nia tightened her grip on him.
"He's a person, not a tool!"
Ambrose's eyes softened ever so slightly.
"He is both, child."
---
Felix gasped as the world vanished.
His body stayed in Nia's hold.
But his mind…
His mind was dragged downward—
Into a place where no light existed.
Where the air tasted like burnt sugar and blood.
He stood in a corridor of hardened black chocolate, walls glistening like wet obsidian. The ground beneath him pulsed, faintly, like a sleeping beast's breath. Shadows moved along the walls—thin silhouettes, bent and elongated, as though stretched too far.
They didn't walk.
They glided.
Watching him.
Waiting.
A whisper slid past his ear.
"Felix…"
Another echo came from somewhere behind him.
"Return…"
A third—soft, broken, almost hopeful.
"Come home."
Felix spun, heart hammering, but the shadows vanished into the chocolate walls as if swallowed.
Then—
A hand touched his shoulder.
Long fingers.
Chocolate-slicked skin that glistened darkly.
A cracked sugar mask covering half a face with hollow eyes.
Felix's own breath failed him.
The masked figure leaned close.
"Wake the roots."
Felix's mouth flooded with the taste of bitter chocolate—so strong he gagged.
The vision shattered.
---
He came back with a gasp, collapsing into Nia's arms.
Sweat drenched his hair. His skin was cold and hot at once. His chest heaved like he had run miles.
Nia held his face between her hands.
"Felix! Felix—you're here. You're back. You're okay. You're okay."
He wasn't.
Not even close.
Leo crouched, shaking.
"What did he see? Aya—did you see his eyes? They went blank—completely blank! Like he wasn't even… alive anymore!"
Felix swallowed hard, the ghost of the District's bitterness still coating his tongue.
"I saw… something beneath the city," he whispered.
His voice trembled.
"It's real. It's alive. And it knows my name."
Tomas stumbled back, pale.
"Nope. No. Absolutely not. We're leaving. We're leaving right now."
Ambrose smiled faintly.
"You cannot leave yet."
Nia glared daggers at him.
"Oh, watch me—"
The doors did not open.
Not when she kicked them.
Not when Aya pulled.
Not when Tomas rammed his shoulder into them.
The chocolate-steel doors didn't even vibrate.
They simply… ignored them.
---
Lina's breath hitched.
"It's not malfunctioning. It's… choosing not to open."
Ambrose turned toward them, folding his hands behind his back.
"The tasting chamber responds to the one it has chosen."
Felix felt cold.
"You mean… me."
Ambrose nodded.
"Yes."
Aya's jaw dropped.
"Are you kidding me—? You trapped us here?!"
"No," Ambrose corrected gently.
"The chamber trapped you. There is a difference."
Nia growled, "Ambrose Vellum, I swear if you—"
But then the floor trembled.
A low vibration resonated through the observatory, rumbling beneath their feet like a distant growl. Chocolate tiles rippled as though softening under heat.
The walls shifted.
Melted.
Reformed.
Lina dropped her sketchpad, eyes widening.
"It's… it's moving on its own…"
A new archway formed across the room, stretching downward into a darkness so complete it looked like a mouth.
Aya stepped back.
"Nope. Nope. That is not normal. That is not ANY kind of normal."
Leo swallowed hard.
"Where does that even go…?"
Ambrose approached the archway with quiet reverence.
"It leads," he said, turning his head slightly toward Felix,
"to the first layer of the Bitter District."
Felix froze.
The melted key inside him pulsed once—
a heavy, decisive thud,
like a heartbeat awakening.
His entire body responded.
Not with fear.
But with recognition.
The darkness ahead inhaled softly.
Welcoming him.
Nia grabbed his hand.
"You're not going down there alone."
Felix didn't argue.
He couldn't.
Because deep inside his ribs, the key whispered...
"Come."
And Felix knew:
Whether he wanted it or not…
The Bitter District had chosen him.