The air inside the next room was thick, humid, and so sharply metallic it burned the back of Miles' throat. He covered his nose with the inside of his coat, but it barely helped.
The doors slammed shut behind him with a finality that sounded a lot like a coffin lid closing.
Before him stretched a grotesque parody of a garden.
Thick vines crawled up the walls, blooming into twisted shapes—flowers made of scalpels, barbed wires twisted into roses. The "soil" underfoot was shredded fabric, scraps of clothing soaked through with something dark.
Miles' boots crunched over bones, too old to bleed, too broken to count.
Above it all, in the high ceiling, a sunlamp blazed an angry red, bathing the garden in a sickly glow.
At the center of the room was a well. An old stone well, like something out of a ghost story.
And tied to the well, head slumped forward, was a man.
Or what was left of him.
Thin. Stripped to the waist. Deep, deliberate cuts covered his skin, some still oozing. His breathing was shallow, but present.
Miles approached slowly, pistol lowered but ready.
As he got closer, the man stirred, lifting his head.
Blood-crusted lips peeled back in something between a smile and a grimace.
"You... made it farther than the others..." the man rasped.
Miles crouched. "Who did this?"
The man laughed, a wet, broken sound. "You wouldn't believe me."
"Try me."
The dying man coughed, spraying blood on the stone.
"They... promised... answers... if I just told the truth... But the rules change. They always change."
Miles clenched his fists.
He hated this kind of slow death. It wasn't justice. It wasn't even punishment. It was just cruelty for cruelty's sake.
"What's your name?"
The man blinked slowly, as if the word itself was too heavy.
"Jonah."
Miles nodded once. "I'm getting you out of here, Jonah."
Another laugh, softer now. "No, you're not."
A buzzing sound filled the room — angry, mechanical.
Behind him, part of the wall slid open. A mechanical device emerged: it looked like a cross between a hospital gurney and a medieval rack. Straps hung limp from it, waiting.
Above it, a sign unfolded from the ceiling:
RULE #7: SAVE ONLY ONE.
Miles' stomach twisted.
Another panel lit up to his left — showing a new live feed: another victim. A woman, hanging from her wrists in a different chamber, slowly sinking toward a pit of spinning blades.
The timer appeared.
02:00.
Miles spun, cursing.
The voice returned. That same mocking, calm voice.
"Choose, Detective. Save Jonah. Or save the girl. The other... will be reaped."
Jonah smiled weakly.
"It's okay," he whispered. "We're all already dead."
Miles cursed again, bitter and helpless.
"You people call this justice?"
The unseen speaker didn't reply.
Miles' mind raced. No rules against moving. No rules against thinking. Just the rule: Save only one.
The timer bled down: 01:30.
If he wasted time arguing, both would die.
He looked at Jonah again. The man's skin hung loose over his bones. His wrists had nearly been stripped to tendon.
The girl on the screen was younger. Stronger. She had fight left in her.
Dammit.
He holstered his gun, sprinted toward the panel flashing under the woman's feed. His fingers flew over the buttons.
A release code appeared. Four digits. Four possible orders.
He gambled, choosing the only sequence that mattered to him.
Detective instinct.
0427. (His badge number.)
The woman's restraints snapped open. She dropped to the floor, curling into a ball.
Alive.
Miles turned back toward Jonah.
Too late.
The man slumped forward against the well, body spasming once. Twice.
Then still.
Above him, a different countdown began:
Processing Failure.
Commence Disposal.
Before Miles could move, the vines came alive. They twisted around Jonah's body, dragging him downward into the darkness of the well.
Gone.
The door at the far end of the room groaned open, the pathway marked by dim, flickering lights.
Miles stood for a moment longer, staring into the place Jonah had disappeared.
"You could've given me a better choice," he said quietly to the air.
The voice answered, cruel and soft.
"There are no good choices, Detective. Only survival."
He moved forward, each step heavier.
---
Meanwhile...
Behind another wall of glass, the watcher chuckled.
"He's learning," the man said.
The assistant hovered nearby, shifting anxiously. "What happens if he stops playing?"
The man grinned wider.
"Then he dies. Like the rest."
He leaned closer to the monitors, fingers steepled.
"Let's see how he handles betrayal next."
---
Miles' Timer: 48:15
(But the seconds were lying. They had been lying since the beginning.)
The next door led downward again — into darkness thick enough to swallow sound.
Ahead, somewhere in the pitch black, a single candle flickered weakly.
And the voice whispered:
"Confess, Detective Rennick... or drown."