The elevator, now transformed into a furnace, growled like a beast trapped behind a cage. Flames raged inside the warped doors. Thick, acrid black smoke bled through every crack, flooding the hallway with the unbearable stench of burning rubber, overheated metal, and far worse scorched flesh.
The heat was overwhelming, pushing Leo, Marc, and Hugo back as if an invisible shockwave were beating against them.
They stumbled backward, stopping only when their shoulders hit the opposite wall, eyes fixed on the inferno devouring the elevator shaft. Their chests rose and fell in harsh, shuddering breaths as they tried to inhale the foul air that clawed at their lungs.
The flames muffled the once deafening echo of the monster's screams, dissolving them into a guttural death rattle that gradually faded away. The fire's furious crackle and the sinister hiss of metal warping under the heat were all that remained.
Hugo, breathing hard, his voice barely a whisper, face pale, and eyes wide with horror and disbelief, was the first to speak.
"Is… is it over? Is it really over?"
Marc, hands still trembling slightly but gaze sharp with the cold pragmatism of a mechatronics student, kept his eyes on the quivering elevator doors. Heat radiated so fiercely that the air above the floor wavered. He could almost feel the flames pressing from behind the steel.
His face remained outwardly composed, but his eyes betrayed an intense vigilance, an instinct screaming not to drop his guard too soon.
With a rough, rasping voice, the adrenaline fading, leaving behind an abyssal exhaustion, he finally exhaled a shaky breath of relief.
"It's trapped. Completely. With everything we threw in there… even a creature like that can't get out."
Leo, still in shock, couldn't tear his eyes from the dancing flames.
As if he needed proof. As if he feared the nightmare might claw its way back out.
He murmured to himself more than to them, a mix of brutal relief and sickening nausea:
"We got it… We got the damn thing…"
A heavy silence fell again, broken only by the crackle of the blaze and the metallic whine of tortured steel. But beyond the elevator's inferno, a new anxiety crept in.
They were alive… They were still trapped in the building. Still surrounded by darkness, smoke, and the proof that something unimaginable had walked among them.
The smoke climbed the walls, curling into the ceiling, searching for any way to spread.
Hugo pushed himself upright, leaning with difficulty against the cold wall, his face streaked with soot and tears, some from smoke, some from raw emotion.
"Okay. Okay, we got it. So now what? We can't just stand here and watch it burn. The whole place is going to catch fire—and take us with it."
Marc scanned the hallway, now dim and clouded with thickening smoke. Their immediate danger was gone, but a new one was rising fast.
He steadied himself, breathing heavily, hand pressed against the wall for balance.
"We can't stay here. The smoke—"
A harsh cough ripped from his throat.
"... it's going to suffocate us. We have to get out, or at least find a safe room. And see if there are any survivors. We'll have to use the stairs."
Their gazes met faces filthy, streaked with sweat and tears, shaped by fear, exhaustion… and the brutal clarity of those who have survived the impossible.
The worst might be behind them, but they were still alive. And for now, that was victory enough.
They didn't know what waited in the shadows of the institute, but one thing was certain: they would walk forward together. All the way.
Marc, Hugo, and Leo, drained and aching but bound by sheer will, made their decision: they were getting out of the burning building.
The smoke pouring from the elevator furnace thickened by the second, stinging their eyes and triggering ripping, painful coughs. Marc, his face smeared with soot, found his bearings through memory alone. He pointed toward a barely visible section of hallway, swallowed by swirling gray smoke.
"There! The southern emergency exit! That's our best shot!"
Marc's mind raced. He knew the building's safety systems by heart—every emergency exit was secured by magnetic locks, but all of them were programmed to release automatically in case of fire. No keys, no access codes; the system cut the power the moment heat or smoke reached a critical level.
If everything had triggered correctly… that door should already be unlocked.
They rushed toward it, their silhouettes swallowed by the thickening smoke
They rushed forward, tripping over invisible debris, their footsteps thudding heavily in the suffocating corridor, broken only by their ragged breathing.
The air grew hotter, harsher, each breath scraping their throats raw.
The inferno behind them pushed like a wall of heat, urging them onward.
They reached the emergency stairwell and threw themselves inside, stumbling down the steps four at a time. Their legs trembled, numbed by pain and fatigue.
Finally, far too late, the fire alarms shrieked to life, wailing like apocalyptic sirens, merging with the chaos of their flight.
With each floor they descended, the roar of the fire faded, replaced by the relentless blare of the alarms and the frantic pounding of their hearts.
And then at the ground floor they saw it: the green door marked with the running figure of salvation.
Hugo, voice raw and shaking, was the first to notice.
"The exit…"
Marc reached it first. He grabbed the handle, silently praying.
And right now, he thanked every safety regulation.
He pulled the cold, metal handle and shoved with all his strength.
The heavy, old door swung open to the relative darkness of the night outside.
A rush of cool air hit them full force, sweeping the acrid smoke from their lungs and flooding them with instant, almost euphoric relief.
They staggered onto the damp grass of the university lawn, one step, then another, then another, putting distance between them and the burning building.
The night air was pure, scented with cut grass and wet earth instead of death and sulfur.
They turned back, staring at the university's silhouette against the sky, a column of smoke rising from an upper window, one last scar from their nightmare.
Leo coughed again, but a breathless laugh, tinged with disbelief, escaped him.
"We did it… We survived. It's… it's over. We're free."
Hugo nodded, a trembling smile breaking across his cracked lips, and he collapsed to the ground. His eyes shone, wet with smoke and emotion.
"Finally… finally…"
But their relief lasted only seconds.
On the horizon, beyond the dark roofs of nearby buildings, an orange glow tore through the night.
Then another.
And another.
Massive pillars of smoke rose into the sky, far larger and far darker than the one behind them.
The wind carried not the calming silence of night… but the distant roar of fires.
Sirens echoed—dozens of them, not firefighters, but a chaotic chorus of emergency alarms spread throughout the city.
The ground seemed to tremble beneath their feet.
The world wasn't quiet anymore.
It was screaming.
Leo stepped back, frozen.
Hugo stared at the far-off flames, lips parted in silent dread.
Marc, the rational one, stood paralyzed, eyes hollow.
They had survived a monster…
But what burned in the distance wasn't a creature.
It was
It was the entire world.