The howls never came again.
They didn't need to.
Instead, the sound rolled in—claws on stone, breath behind dust, pressure swelling in the dark like a room filling with violence.
Then nothing.
Not quiet.
Anticipation.
I stepped back once.
The Plateau had done the math.
And decided mercy was a rounding error.
Twenty.
That's how many it sent.
The dust exhaled.
And they hit.
Black forms erupted from the haze like a trigger had been pulled on hell—no structure, no pattern, just speed and intent to erase. Teeth. Claws. Too many legs. Wrong angles. The only thing these guys didn't have were eyes. But seeing them move without them was more terrifying than anything else.
I didn't think.
I couldn't think.
I moved. Because hesitation already had a kill count.
The first one came low—bladed limbs out. I dropped my stance and ripped the scythe in a diagonal arc. Steel tore through its knee. Flesh parted. Bone splintered. It went down screaming, and I stepped over it like regret.
Second one came from the side—shoulder-height, fast.
I turned with it, too slow to stop the bite.
Teeth tore into my arm like it belonged to someone else.
I didn't feel pain.
I felt violation.
Like the thing was trying to crawl inside me through the wound.
I didn't scream. I gritted my teeth.
I grabbed its throat and slammed it down.
Once.
Twice.
The third time, bone cracked.
The fourth, something wet leaked across my fingers.
It didn't let go.
Even dying, it clung—like it wanted to take a piece of me with it.
I didn't even realize I'd dropped the scythe until the body stopped twitching.
I pried its jaw loose with my other hand, breath shaking, eyes wide.
I didn't look at the wound.
I didn't have to.
I could feel it pulsing—like it remembered the bite better than I did.
And then I heard them.
More claws. Closer.
The rhythm was wrong—too fast, too many.
I scrambled. Palms slipping in blood, boots dragging over bits of flesh.
The scythe—It was there, half-buried under the twitching mess I'd just killed.
I yanked it free. The blade scraped bone on the way out. The sound stayed in my teeth.
I didn't have time to find my footing.
I just turned—scythe in hand—and swung at the first shadow that moved.
——
I remember pieces.
Blood hot in my mouth.
Screaming without sound.
Claws carving down my spine.
One hand slipping off the scythe. Grabbing it again before it fell.
The way the fourth one laughed as it died, like killing me was a privilege. It was enough to make me wonder if this is really hell.
The light died somewhere in the chaos.
Everything turned red.
Not metaphorically—literally. The air bled. The dust curled around my face like smoke from something ancient. Like the Floor was exhaling what it wanted me to become.
I drove the blade down into a throat and felt the vertebrae pop.
One tackled my back—I rolled, kicked off its chest, and gutted it mid-air.
Another latched onto my leg—chewed through muscle. I smashed its face with the haft until it stopped twitching.
I wasn't winning.
I was surviving by seconds.
Each swing wasn't strategy—it was spite given shape.
Each block wasn't clean—it was bones colliding with inevitability.
I moved because not moving meant dying in pieces.
Sixth. Seventh.
Blood soaked the ground. I stopped counting whose.
Eighth was fast. It tried to flank. I faked a stumble, baited the leap, and impaled it clean through the sternum—lifting until it stopped shaking.
Ninth dropped on me from above.
Teeth tore into my shoulder.
I screamed into its neck.
Then bit back.
It flinched.
I jammed the blade in low—twisted the hook behind its ribs—and yanked. Something snapped. The creature spasmed. It didn't die clean. It died confused, as I dragged the scythe through whatever kept it standing.
More came.
Ten through fifteen blurred.
I was cut open.
Shoulder dislocated once.
My foot caught a corpse. I went down.
They didn't wait.
I rolled under claws. Steel swept wide. One lost half its face. Another lost a leg.
I lost track of what hurt the most.
Everything did.
The air was wet with breathing that wasn't mine.
The Floor felt alive—watching, calculating.
Every hit I took, it noted.
Every scream I swallowed, it memorized.
Seventeen—fast, spindly, all twitch. It dodged my swing, circled twice, and slashed deep across my stomach. Blood hit the dust in sheets.
I grabbed it.
Pulled it in.
Bit through where its eye would have been, as I kicked it back before I carved open its ribcage as it screamed in disbelief.
Eighteen slammed me to the ground.
My ribs folded inward.
Its jaw unhinged—sideways, wrong—and snapped for my throat.
I couldn't swing. Not from here.
So I twisted the scythe, reversed the grip—and jammed the tip upward, straight into its side.
It screamed—wet and sudden.
I shoved with everything left.
The curve of the blade hooked deep, caught something solid.
I dragged sideways.
Not a clean cut. A rip.
Its insides tried to follow the steel out.
It thrashed.
I roared.
We both bled.
Nineteen crawled toward me, ribless.
Still alive.
Still trying.
I dragged myself up, stepped on its skull, and kept going.
Then twenty.
It didn't charge.
It didn't twitch.
It watched me bleed.
And then it began to change.
No sound. No glow. Just wrongness.
Its body flexed, spine cracking.
Two limbs burst free from its ribs—barbed, fluid, elegant in the way a needle is elegant before it pierces you.
It crouched.
And waited.
Not instinct.
Memory.
This one had fought before.
I staggered to face it.
Blood down my back. Vision pulsing.
The scythe in my hand now felt like it belonged to someone still alive. I wasn't sure I was.
Then it moved.
The first strike went high.
I blocked.
The second came from below.
It didn't miss.
A claw split through my ribs.
Air left my lungs in a broken sob.
We collided.
My back hit against a large boulder.
Its jaws snapped near my face.
I headbutted it. Twice.
Grabbed a chunk of rubble.
Drove it into its chest until something burst.
It didn't die.
It almost looked like it was grinning.
Third limb pinned my leg. Fourth slashed across my face.
Everything went white, then red again.
I screamed.
The scythe was gone.
Thrown.
Too far.
It reared back.
I grabbed its jaws with both hands.
My arms shook.
It opened wider.
I shoved my fingers deeper.
It tried to bite.
I pushed until its mouth tore open wide.
It's jaw now dangling.
The body spasmed.
And then, with a shriek that made my spine try to leave my body—
It fell.
Twitching.
Still.
Dead.
I didn't celebrate.
I couldn't lift my hands.
I dropped to my knees in blood that steamed from the heat of violence.
My chest wouldn't rise right. My arm wouldn't move. My thigh pulsed with something wet and wrong.
I sat there.
Among twenty corpses.
Half of them mine in color, all of them mine in cause.
Then the dust shifted.
Not stirred.
Shifted.
Like the Floor was bracing for something worse.
A shape moved behind the wall of bodies.
No howl. No warning. Just pressure.
It stepped through the blood like it didn't notice the dead.
It was built like it had never needed to try hard.
Heavy. Fluid. Purposeful.
Black hide glistening. Shoulders rolling like boulders turning in slow, perfect rhythm.
Its jaw hung low—unhinged and wide.
Built to crush.
Its eyes locked on me.
Not curiosity.
Not hate.
Correction.
It existed to finish what others couldn't.
I reached for the scythe.
My fingers screamed.
I pulled it to me anyway.
It dragged behind, blade gouging the earth.
I rose.
Wobbling.
Bleeding from too many places.
Nothing left but grit.
Every part of me screamed against the idea of fighting again.
There was no strength left—Only wiring, reflex.
And the fact that dying here would feel like a waste.
And yet, I braced.
Blood down my leg.
My arm half-dead.
And this?
This was the Plateau reminding me I wasn't special.
"Of course," I muttered, the words dragging out like they hurt.
"Because twenty corpses don't count if I'm still on my feet."
It didn't react.
It just watched me breathe
Like it already knew how I'd stop.