LEONA:
I've always loved music.
Until now.
---
When the lift stopped, there was no door—only a tunnel of obsidian stone, echoing with faint, harmonic humming. At first, it sounded almost… peaceful.
Then we heard the screams.
Sung in perfect melody.
Olamilekan stepped in first, followed by Ibou, Joshua, then me. Behind us, the lift vanished. Again.
The tunnel narrowed into a cathedral.
But it wasn't holy.
Dark crystal columns twisted upward like frozen screams. The walls shimmered with choral glyphs, pulsating in time with the melody. At the center of the vast room was a black altar—and above it hovered something wrapped in a robe of mist and song.
The source of the choir.
The Hollow Conductor.
And around us, seated in pews of bone, were dozens of choir members. Featureless. Mouths wide open. Singing.
"I feel weird," Joshua murmured. "Like… it's inside my head."
"It's mana manipulation," Ibou said. "Through sound."
I tried to light a flame, but the spark died instantly. The melody devoured it.
"Can't cast," I muttered. "It's draining our mana."
Olamilekan staggered forward. "It's pulling something from me—memories."
Then the first note struck.
And I was gone.
---
I stood in ash.
The sky above me was red. Below, burning.
Navil… destroyed.
My brother lay beneath rubble, staring up at me with hollow eyes. "Why weren't you stronger?" he asked, lips unmoving.
I tried to move. Scream. Anything.
But the music held me still.
The choir sang louder.
And I realized… this was the test.
Floor Five didn't break the body.
It broke the mind.
---
When I came to, I was on my knees.
Olamilekan was bleeding from his nose, hands trembling.
Joshua was convulsing, shadow tendrils flailing in all directions.
Ibou… Ibou was on one knee, sweat pouring from his brow, muttering in a language I didn't know.
"I can't—" Joshua gasped. "I can't shut it out. It's everywhere!"
Then something cracked. Not physically. Spiritually.
Joshua's screams stopped—and he stood.
But it wasn't him.
Not fully.
His eyes were all black, and his voice was too calm.
"It wants to teach us," he said. "Wants us to listen."
I reached for him. "Joshua—"
He turned. "I'm fine."
He wasn't.
But we didn't have time.
The Hollow Conductor moved.
Its robe melted into tendrils of ink and wind, and it released a single note.
All of us dropped again. My ears bled.
Ibou barely blocked a strike with his blade, but the impact sent him skidding back.
Olamilekan raised his arm—gold flickered, but fizzled.
Whatever power he used before, it wasn't working here.
And the Conductor knew.
It sent the choir forward.
They didn't walk.
They floated.
Dozens of them.
One touched me—just barely—and I forgot my own name for half a second.
"Don't let them touch you!" I screamed.
Ibou sliced three down, only for six more to take their place.
We were losing.
Then Olamilekan stood.
And his eyes—gold again, but dim—locked with mine.
"No more running."
He slammed his hand into the floor, and golden light erupted.
But this time, it was… darker. Tainted. Like shadow woven into radiance.
The melody distorted.
Joshua leapt forward, shadows spiraling into a blade. "Ibou, now!"
Ibou hurled a dagger—not at the choir, but at the ceiling.
The dagger struck a glowing sigil none of us had seen.
It shattered.
The music stopped.
The choir collapsed mid-hymn.
The Conductor howled—its voice cracking into shards of noise—and lunged at us with a storm of tendrils.
I screamed as one wrapped around my leg.
Olamilekan reached me first—he tore the tendril with his bare hands, light and darkness surging.
Joshua stabbed upward—his shadowblade straight through the creature's face.
Ibou delivered the final blow.
His blade glowed white for a split second as he slashed across the Conductor's core.
And then… silence.
No melody.
No whispers.
Just our breathing. Ragged. Broken.
---
The floor cracked.
The cathedral crumbled into fading echoes.
And the lift appeared again.
We stumbled in.
Bloodied. Shaking. Changed.
---
"I saw my family die," I whispered. "All over again."
Joshua didn't respond.
Ibou stared at his hands.
Olamilekan sat with his eyes closed. "We're halfway through."
"No," I said. "We barely made it halfway through."
He opened his eyes, and they shimmered with something old. Something terrible.
He didn't deny it.