The Survival Zone collapsed like a soap bubble popping.
Reality snapped back into motion.
And immediately, everything wanted them dead.
The hallway ahead vomited enemies—half-formed things of bone and static, faces flickering between masks they'd almost recognize. The walls began to breathe. The floor shuddered.
Zeke didn't hesitate.
"I'm doing it," he said, already grabbing the vial.
Julie turned sharply. "Zeke—wait, we don't know—"
Too late.
He drank the Ghost Potion.
It was cold.
Not the sharp kind. The beautiful kind. The kind that slips under your skin and says, you don't have to be heavy anymore.
Zeke gasped—and the gasp never finished.
His body went weightless, then translucent, then wrong in the best possible way. Blue fire traced his veins, outlining bones that no longer needed to exist. His feet lifted from the floor without effort. His hands left afterimages when he moved them.
He laughed.
It echoed twice, once in the air, once somewhere deeper.
"Oh wow," he breathed. "Julie. Julie. I can fly."
A creature lunged at him.
Zeke passed through it by accident.
The thing froze mid-leap, its scream cutting off as blue fire bloomed inside its skull. It collapsed into ash that never hit the ground.
Zeke stared at his own hands.
Then he grinned, wide and unguarded.
"Oh. Oh this is—this is AMAZING."
He shot forward, faster than running had ever been. Through a wall. Through another enemy. Through three more. Every touch was annihilation. Every movement was freedom.
For the first time since the game began, nothing could grab him.
Nothing could stop him.
He whooped, spinning in midair like gravity was a rumor.
"I don't even feel tired!" he shouted. "Julie, why didn't we do this sooner?!"
Julie watched him for half a second.
Then the floor split open beneath her.
She swore, rolled, came up with a snarl—and crushed the Monster Potion vial in her fist and drank.
It burned.
It burned like being promoted.
Her muscles seized, then expanded. Bone groaned. Skin darkened, turning a deep, violent purple etched with glowing veins. Her hands ballooned into claws that could have cracked cars in half.
She roared.
The sound punched the air.
A charging enemy slammed into her chest and bounced off like it had made a terrible life choice. Julie grabbed the thing by the head and smashed it into the wall. The wall gave way first.
She laughed—low, feral, delighted.
"Oh," she growled. "Okay. I get it now."
She charged.
Walls didn't slow her. She went through them. Every step cratered the floor. Enemies shattered under her fists, reduced to scraps and stains and regrets.
She felt unstoppable.
Heavy. Grounded. Certain.
This power wasn't about escape.
It was about dominance.
They met in the center of the ruined level—Zeke hovering, wreathed in blue flame, eyes shining like a kid who'd just discovered flight was a personality trait.
Julie stood amid wreckage, shoulders heaving, purple skin steaming faintly, claws flexing.
They stared at each other.
Zeke grinned. "Okay, so… I might never go back."
Julie snorted. "You're glowing like a haunted campfire."
"Jealous?"
"Maybe."
The First Toy's voice chimed softly, pleasantly, from everywhere at once.
"TEMPORARY FORMS ACHIEVED."
"COMPATIBILITY DATA RECORDING."
Neither kid noticed the second line.
Zeke drifted higher, laughing as he phased through the ceiling just because he could.
Julie cracked her neck, grinning as another wave of enemies approached.
Both of them were thinking the same dangerous thought:
If this is what the potions do…
What happens when we need them again?
Power, after all, is never the real problem.
Missing it is.
The corridor didn't open so much as give up.
Every surface peeled back at once—walls flensed into ribbed machinery, floor plates retracting into grinders that spun with a dentist's patience. The ceiling descended in slow, deliberate segments, each one studded with hooks, lenses, and things that were once medical tools before they learned ambition.
The HUD flickered red.
ENCOUNTER TYPE: MEAT GRINDER
SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: ADJUSTING…
Zeke didn't read the rest.
He was already laughing.
Blue fire flared brighter around him as he shot forward, phasing straight through the first wave like a comet with opinions. Enemies came apart the instant he touched them—no resistance, no mess that stuck. Just clean, beautiful erasure.
"I LOVE THIS," he yelled, spiraling upward, clipping through the ceiling and reappearing upside-down. "Julie, I'm untouchable! I'm a glitch! I'm—"
A hook passed through his chest.
Didn't hurt. Didn't slow him. But the hook noticed.
The machinery recalibrated.
Julie didn't get time to comment.
The floor beneath her detonated upward and she answered it with a roar, purple mass slamming down like a meteor. Her fists caved in a grinder assembly, metal screaming as it folded. She grabbed a wall-mounted saw and ripped it free, swinging it like a club.
Enemies poured in—too many, too fast.
Good.
She charged.
Each step shook the level. Walls burst apart. Creatures shattered against her like wet paper thrown at a freight train. Something tried to latch onto her back and she reached over her shoulder, grabbed it by the spine, and threw it into the ceiling hard enough to dent the sky.
She was grinning.
This wasn't fear. This was permission.
Zeke corkscrewed through a swarm, blue fire trailing like brushstrokes. He flew through walls, through enemies, through space that shouldn't have been there. Every kill felt instant, effortless.
Too effortless.
The HUD pulsed.
GHOST POTION — DURATION: 00:42
He slowed.
"…Wait."
The level learned faster.
The hooks began to glow blue.
They didn't grab him.
They anchored him.
Zeke slammed into one at speed and bounced—hard—his incorporeal body rippling like a dropped reflection.
"Ow—okay, rude—"
A lattice of phase-locked beams snapped into place, slicing the air into segments. Enemies stopped chasing Julie.
They all turned upward.
Zeke swallowed.
"Julie?"
She was busy. Three walls. One charge. She burst through all of them in a straight line, laughing like something ancient and victorious.
"WHAT?"
"They figured me out!"
A beam clipped his leg.
For the first time since drinking the potion, Zeke felt drag.
The blue fire dimmed—just a little.
Julie saw it.
Her grin vanished.
She leapt.
Straight up. Straight through a ceiling plate. Her claws dug into machinery and she hauled herself higher, ripping her way toward him like gravity was a suggestion.
"MOVE," she barked.
Zeke tried. The lattice tightened.
Enemies poured along the beams now, immune to his touch, crawling toward him with surgical intent.
Julie hit the structure like a wrecking ball.
Metal folded. Beams snapped. She grabbed Zeke out of the air with one massive hand and threw him—gently, somehow—across the chamber.
He phased through three walls and re-solidified just as the blue fire surged again.
"Okay," he panted. "Okay. Still worth it."
Julie landed beside him, chest heaving, purple hide cracked and steaming.
Her HUD flared.
MONSTER POTION — INSTABILITY RISING
Her claws twitched.
Enemies backed away.
She didn't.
She charged harder.
The grinder screamed.
Walls collapsed. The ceiling jammed halfway down, caught on Julie's shoulders as she held it up, muscles bulging, veins glowing like magma lines.
"GO," she growled.
Zeke hesitated.
Then he flew.
Through the exit. Through the screaming metal. Through the last thing the level threw at him, burning it to nothing.
Julie followed, ripping herself free, bursting out of the collapsing chamber as the entire meat grinder imploded behind them.
They hit the next corridor in a heap.
Silence.
Then—
ENCOUNTER COMPLETE.
Zeke lay on his back, blue fire fading, breathless and ecstatic.
Julie knelt, purple skin receding, hands shaking slightly as the last of the Monster Potion burned itself out.
They looked at each other.
Zeke smiled, soft and dangerous. "Next time… I call dibs on the Ghost Potion again."
Julie wiped gore from her cheek and snorted. "Next time, I throw you."
Somewhere, unseen, unheard, compatibility data finished recording.