Chapter 6: The Ascent
The stairwell groaned under John's weight as he climbed, iron pipe in hand, sweat freezing against his skin. Every creak of the steps, every breath in the stale, icy air sounded too loud. Below, the Shadow Beast roared again—a muffled, inhuman howl that rumbled through the Tower's walls like a distant earthquake.
John dared not look down.
Above him, the stair spiraled into blackness, lit only by flickering emergency lights that spat and sparked, barely holding the darkness at bay. Symbols—scratched deep into the metal railings—caught the light: strange runes, warnings left by others long vanished.
"The Heart," John muttered to himself. "Top floor. That's where this ends."
A chill swept down the stairwell. The lights flickered—then failed.
Total darkness.
John froze, heart thundering. Something moved above him. Slow, deliberate footsteps echoed down the stair.
"Jooohn..." a voice sang—high, childlike, taunting.
The Twins.
His grip tightened on the pipe. He backed against the cold wall, breath shallow.
"Come play with us... forever..."
Their laughter rang from every shadow. Glimpses of them—two pale figures with hollow eyes and smiling mouths—flickered in the dark. Closer. Closer.
A sudden blaze of light—one emergency bulb sparked alive—revealed the thirteenth floor landing just above him. And the Heart.
It pulsed in the gloom—a mass of flesh and metal, half-organic, half-machine, bound by chains of black iron. It throbbed like a beating heart, seeping oily black fluid across the floor. Strange cables snaked from it into the Tower's walls, feeding the darkness.
John stared, frozen. The source of the nightmare. The reason the Tower lived... and suffered.
"Break it..." Rick's voice echoed in his head. "Or this place will never die."
The Twins appeared beside the Heart—smiling, watching him.
"If you break it, you'll be trapped here too..." they whispered. "Like us."
John stepped onto the landing, pipe raised. The air grew thick, heavy with rot and despair. His mother's scream—sharp, raw—ripped through the air again, somewhere far above.
"Mom... Jake..."
The pipe came down. He struck the Heart.
A shockwave blasted through the Tower. The walls cracked. The stairs trembled. Darkness bled from the Heart in thick waves, swallowing light, swallowing sound. The Twins screamed—high and furious—before vanishing like smoke.
The Shadow Beast roared below, its cry rising into a final, terrible shriek as the Tower groaned and buckled.
John staggered back, gasping, as the Heart split open—revealing something within. A door. Bright light spilled out, warm and pure.
An escape.