Victor stretched his arms, sighing like he was about to give the most casual speech in the world. The eerie red glow of the walls bathed his face, casting shadows over his ever-present grin.
"Alright, listen up, gentlemen," he started, voice light but laced with something unsettling. "This prison? It's toying with us. We're running in circles like scared little mice in a cage."
He tilted his head, gaze flicking between Samuel, Jace, and Owen.
"So, here's the deal," he continued. "We need to break the cycle. And to do that… we split up."
Silence.
Jace's expression hardened. Owen's shoulders tensed.
Samuel, though, remained still. Watching. Listening.
Victor took a step toward the center of the cell, dragging his fingers along the rusted bars.
A metallic screech echoed through the empty prison.
"If this place is looping us back, that means it's screwing with our sense of direction," Victor explained, his voice slower now. "So we test it. We each pick a path—walk in separate directions. If we're actually trapped in a loop, then we should all end up back here."
He turned to face them, clapping his hands together once.
"And if that happens? We stop running."
More silence.
Owen narrowed his eyes. "What?"
Victor's grin stretched wider, eyes glowing with excitement.
"We wait," he said simply. "No moving. No running. No fighting. No fear."
His voice dropped, turning almost sing-song.
"To escape the prison, stop running in fear…"
Samuel inhaled sharply.
The message on the walls.
It was a command. Not a metaphor.
Victor's voice cut through the realization like a blade.
"We sit down. We stay put. And we wait for something new to happen." He shrugged. "Doesn't matter what shows up—the Whispers, the Warden, a goddamn parade of the dead. We. Do. Not. Move."
Owen scoffed. "And what if the Warden kills us?"
Victor turned to him, grinning like a devil making a bet.
"Then we'll find out if that 'rot here forever' rule is real."
Owen's fists clenched."That's not funny."
Victor gave him a lazy shrug. "I thought it was."
Jace exhaled through his nose."You're insane."
"Sure am."
Samuel stepped forward, eyes flicking between them all. His mind raced, calculating, considering.
Was this insane? Yes. Was it dangerous? Absolutely. But was it worth trying?
…Yes.
He squared his shoulders.
"Fine," Samuel said, voice steady. "We test the loop first. We split up, walk in different directions. If we all end up back here—"
"—Then we sit our asses down and let this prison show its cards," Victor finished for him, nodding approvingly.
Another beat of silence.
Then Jace muttered a curse under his breath, rubbing a hand down his face.
"This is a bad idea," he said, but he was already shifting, already preparing.
Owen let out a deep breath, gripping his flashlight tighter."Yeah, well… guess we're doing it anyway."
Samuel turned to Victor. "You ready?"
Victor chuckled. "Boss, I was born ready."
With that, the four of them took their first steps in separate directions.
And the experiment began.
Samuel exhaled sharply, steadying himself.
They had split. Four separate directions. Four different paths.
Left – Victor.
Right – Samuel.
Front – Jace.
Back – Owen.
If this prison wasn't messing with them, they should never see each other again.
But if it was… they would end up in the same place.
And that, in itself, was terrifying.
Samuel moved forward, boots scuffing against the cold, cracked stone floor.
His breaths were steady. His mind, however, was not.
The prison stretched ahead of him, cells lining both sides, dark and endless. The faint crimson glow from the earlier message was gone now—nothing but pitch-black shadows, his flashlight barely cutting through it.
He hummed. Softly at first. Then louder.
A lullaby. A habit from childhood, a way to fill the silence.
A way to keep the fear away.
But fear was persistent. It slithered up his spine, wrapped itself around his chest.
"Oh God… this was actually a bad idea."
His own whisper felt too loud.
Still, he kept walking. Kept singing.
His voice was unsteady now, cracking at the edges.
"I am scared."
The words weren't meant for anyone but himself.
A confession.
A reality.
But he had to keep going.
His feet moved faster. The darkness stretched longer. The cells grew colder.
And yet, somehow… he felt watched.
"What if something grabs me from behind?"
He clenched his jaw, shaking the thought away.
Just keep walking. Just keep walking. Just keep—
His next step didn't land on stone.
It landed on something softer.
Something that crunched.
Samuel froze.
Slowly… slowly… he looked down.
And his stomach dropped.
Samuel's breath caught in his throat like a hooked fish.
His foot had sunk into something that wasn't floor. Something that yielded under his weight with a sickening give, like stepping on overripe fruit.
A cold, clinging wetness seeped through his boot, soaking into his sock.
He didn't want to look.
But the smell forced him to.
It hit first, a thick, cloying stench that coated the inside of his nose, his mouth, his lungs. The metallic tang of old blood mixed with the sweet-rot stink of meat left too long in the sun. Underneath it all, something worst, the eye-watering reek of voided bowels, of bile and piss and fear.
Click.
The flashlight beam trembled in his hand as it illuminated the nightmare before him.
Bodies.
Not neatly arranged.
Not respectfully laid to rest.
Dumped.
Piled.
Shattered.
Like a child's discarded toys after a tantrum.
Limbs bent at impossible angles, bones jutting through torn flesh. Hands frozen in final, desperate claws at nothing. Mouths stretched wide in endless, silent screams. One corpse's head lolled grotesquely, connected only by strips of ragged muscle, empty eye sockets staring at Samuel in accusation.
The floor wasn't visible beneath the carnage. Just a heaving, shifting sea of meat and bone that squelched and settled with every movement.
Something warm and wet dripped onto Samuel's neck from above.
He didn't look up.
He couldn't look up.
Because he already knew what he'd see.
The walls wept blood. Thick, viscous droplets oozed from between rusted bars, running in slow, sticky trails down to join the horror below. The ceiling dripped with things Samuel's mind refused to name.
His stomach convulsed, acid burning his throat. He spat, but the taste of death clung to his tongue, his teeth, the roof of his mouth.
"Was the Warden here?"
The thought came unbidden, unwanted.
This wasn't feeding.
This wasn't survival.
This was art.
Cruelty given form.
Every broken bone, every spilled organ, every peeled-back face - all arranged with terrible purpose. A gallery of suffering. A museum of final moments.
"He wouldn't come back here so soon, right...?"
Samuel's voice sounded small, childish, even to his own ears.
The corpses shifted as he took a step.
Squish.
Something popped underfoot. A stomach? An eyeball? He didn't know. Didn't want to know.
Squish.
His boot sank deeper this time, the warm wetness seeping over the laces.
The blood wasn't dry.
The bodies weren't cold.
Something had been here.
Was still here.
Watching.
Waiting.
Hungry.
Samuel forced air into lungs that screamed to stop. He had to move.
One trembling step.
Then another.
Each footfall squelched, each breath rattled, each heartbeat hammered like a trapped bird against his ribs.
The corridor stretched endlessly ahead, a tunnel of meat and bone and horror, and Samuel walked on.
Because stopping meant joining them.
And he wouldn't.
Couldn't.
Not yet.
Not here.
Samuel kept walking.
Each step sank into the grotesque flesh beneath him.
Each movement felt like a mistake.
His mind was screaming, but he couldn't stop. Not now.
"God… this is a mess."
His breathing was shallow. His fingers trembled around the flashlight.
The sheer horror of it all…
This wasn't just a massacre.
It was a slaughterhouse.
And he was walking straight through it.
His mind flashed back to the man in the Echo.
The one whose legs got chopped off mercilessly. The one whose back got peeled off. The one whose neck snapped out of his body by the sheer force of the Warden.
What if these bodies were just like him?
How many? How many people had died here?
Samuel exhaled sharply, trying to push away the growing panic.
His heartbeat pounded in his ears.
"I really hope there's no one here…" He prayed.
"Please… let me be alone…"
And then—
His flashlight caught movement.
Samuel froze.
His light shifted.
And then, he saw them, A girl.
Crouched down.
Blood dripped from her nose, splattering onto the floor.
Her hands were shaking. She looked terrified.
But she was alive.
She was injured, but she was alive.
Samuel's breath caught in his throat.
And then—his flashlight moved slightly to the left.
To the boy next to her.
And Samuel's entire body locked up.
His stomach churned.
His heartbeat slammed against his ribs.
And for a second, his brain refused to process what he was seeing.
Because the boy…
The boy was no longer human.
His entire chest had been ripped open.
His ribs were broken—forced outward.
Like something had torn him apart from the inside.
His intestines spilled onto the floor, glistening in the dim light.
His arms were gone.
Torn off at the shoulders.
His eyes were missing.
No, not missing—shoved into his own mouth.
Like someone had made a game out of it.
Samuel staggered backward, his breathing erratic.
He felt sick.
The bile rose in his throat, burning.
"This… what the fuck…"
His mind was breaking, trying to comprehend the sheer brutality before him.
This wasn't just murder.
This was torture.
Who could do this? Who the hell could do this?
His flashlight trembled in his grip, the beam of light flickering slightly as if even the batteries were afraid.
And then—
The girl looked up.
Her eyes met his.
And she gasped.
She wasn't just terrified.
She looked like she had seen a ghost.
Samuel's breath hitched.
Because at that moment…
He realized.
She wasn't looking at him.
She was looking behind him.