——Crash.
The guard slams into an office cabinet—metal shrieking—after I threw an old monitor to blind its sight for a split second. I sprint for the staircase, lungs burning, but it's faster. It appears in front of me again as if time split and reassembled around it, blocking the way.
'I can't keep this up!'
Ten minutes of non-stop dodging has already stolen my breath, turned my legs to jelly. Every rib hums with fatigue.
Then a stupid, dangerous idea slides into my head. It's the kind of plan that gets you dead, but it's the only plan I have. My chest tightens; my hands shake, but I set my shoulders. If this is the end, I'd rather it be on my terms.
The guard launches — a blur, a piston aimed for my skull. I duck, feeling the swoosh of displaced air. The second attack is a low, brutal blur aimed for the torso. I throw up a guard that looks like something you'd see in an old boxing movie: sloppy, unpracticed, but there.
Its fist slams into my forearms. Bones bend under the force. Pain erupts, white-hot, a bouquet of fractures unfurling along my limbs. The blow sends me tumbling backwards. I hit the floor hard, slide a meter before coming up on one knee. Blood trickles from my nose, hot and metallic. The world tilts.
'Its All or nothing now.'
It walks toward me slowly, like a predator enjoying the delay. I go into a grappler's stance — or the closest facsimile TV-Shows and Movies taught me — folding my weight low, legs coiled. The creature tilts its head as if amused by my theatrical courage and then assumes the sams stance. For a long, breathless second, time stops moving.
Then it launches. Its feet leave the ground in a single, impossible bound: all bone and momentum. I sidestep at the last heartbeat, and the guard's shoulder slams full into the glass wall.
The glass screams. It explodes in a thousand glittering knives. For a moment the guard's torso tips forward, suspended, a grotesque marionette—feet still braced against the tile as if gravity forgot to finish the job.
"How-?" I gasp.
Adrenaline chases the numbness from my limbs. I scramble up and drive a boot into the thing's exposed back with everything left in my legs. Muscle sears. The guard stumbles. Its grip loosens; the last of its footing slips.
It tips over the edge.
For a heartbeat the whole world holds its breath. The guard's head cranes back; a sound like torn wire bleats upward as it falls away. It clatters down the side of the building and disappears into the concrete mouth below.
I drop to a knee, heaving. Cold sweat coats my skin. My ribs ache like somebody is kneading them. "Fuck-! That was too close. Way Too close! What the hell was i thinking?" I whisper to myself, more to ground myself than as relief.
My legs shake as I push myself upright. The floor spins for a beat, resolves.
I straighten, wipe blood from my mouth with the back of my wrist, and force the tremor from my hands.
I reach for the handle of the staircase door — but what greets me isn't the familiar dusty stairwell with yellow lights. It's… nothing. Pitch black. No floor, no stairs, just an open void swallowing the light from behind me.
Before I can react, the ground vanishes beneath my foot.
"Oof!" I hit hard, face-first into the cold floor.
"What the hell—?"
"Yuwon?"
A woman's voice.
I freeze, my pulse spiking. Then it clicks.
'Abby!'
I push myself up, ignoring the stinging in my knees and the burning ache in my muscles. "Abby…? What's going on?"
"Floor 20 was a trap," she says, her tone clipped and breathless. "When we tried to escape, all the elevators disappeared. Every single one."
"...What?" I glance around. Sure enough — the elevator doors on this floor are gone too. Only smooth walls remain.
"How?"
"I don't know," she says. "But a white-haired girl on floor 20 warned me this would happen. Said when the elevators vanish, the majority of the guards would start roaming every floor."
My blood goes cold. "Did she— did she have white hair?"
Abby narrows her eyes. "How the hell do you know that?"
"Call it a guess," I mutter. "But if that's true… this anomaly might be changing because she found the exit."
Abby crosses her arms, glaring. "If she really found it, don't you think she'd try dragging us along?"
"I don't think she's the type," I say quietly. "But speaking of dragging-, where's Louis?"
Her expression twists. She looks away, scanning the dim corridor.
'She really doesn't like me much, huh.'
"The girl said once the elevators vanish, everyone still trapped gets tossed onto a random floor the first time they enter the staircase," Abby mutters.
'How the hell does Sera know all this?'
My gaze flicks to the red door labeled [80]. "So we were lucky, then. Ending up on the same floor."
"I suppose," she says, voice sharp with fatigue.
"Listen," I continue, "I found out something. There are two versions of floor 72."
Her brow furrows. "Two versions? Explain."
"The first time I entered through the staircase, it was old—dusty, dark, dead. The second time, through the elevator, it was… clean. Alive. Like a different place entirely. And that version wasn't connected to the staircase at all."
Abby tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, her face shadowed with confusion. "Okay, but what does that help us with?"
"Think about it," I say, leaning closer. "The duplicate 72 is our only real clue. The elevators are sanctuaries—places the guards can't reach. The staircase is their hunting ground. So what are the odds that a hidden floor—one that's cut off from any elevator —exists just to screw with us?"
A long silence stretches between us. The hum of the flickering lights feels louder than ever.
"You think the exit's there." she whispers.
"I'm willing to bet my life on it," I admit, a nervous grin twitching at my mouth. "All we have to do is get to it-- fast. We're already clo-"
"And what about Louis?" Her voice snaps like a whip.
'...huh?'
The air freezes.
"Abby…" I exhale slowly. "You know I'd help him if I could, but with the elevators gone and guards flooding the floors, it's suicide to—"
"So you're just gonna let him die?" Her voice shakes, raw and furious.
"What?" I ask in a low tone, Veins popping on my head
"Oh, don't play dumb, Yuwon." She grabs my collar with her one good arm. Her eyes glisten with tears and fury. "He probably sees you as a friend, and you won't even try to save him? Was he just a tool to you? Were we?"
'God, why does everyone here have to be so unreasonably dramatic at the worst possible of times?'
I slap her hand away, jaw tight.
"If you think I don't care, you're wrong. I already saved his life once. I'm not going to throw mine away just to do it again."
"You—"
"Go ahead," I cut in, voice rising with spite, "try to fight your way through a dozen guards with that broken arm of yours. But if you actually want to live, i suggest you follow me without whining around."
She stares at me, trembling. The silence feels heavy enough to crush us both.
Finally, she spits out, voice trembling, "You're a fucking piece of shit, you know that?" A tear breaks loose and rolls down her cheek.
I look away. "Yeah," I mutter, "maybe I am. But atleast I'm still alive."
For a long moment, neither of us moves. The hum of fluorescent lights fills the void between our words. Abby wipes her face roughly and turns away, her breathing ragged. I feel the urge to say something—anything— but what's even left to say?
Survival doesn't leave room for heroes.