Center Shadows – Shifting Paths

With one of the beasts now slain, a third of the Center was—relatively—safe.

But safe in this place meant only that you weren't currently being torn apart.

The group, ragged and bloodied, moved together once more.

They had all survived—but survival had made them colder, quieter.

Haunted.

No one spoke. But the Center never let true silence exist.

Somewhere far behind them, a voice howled in anguish.

Metal screeched across bone.

Then a wet, sickening crack—followed by 

silence.

The air was damp, clinging to their skin like condensation inside a coffin.

Mildew crept from the base of the walls, and the scent of copper—the scent of old blood—never left their nostrils.

Luke limped forward, hand brushing the side of the corridor for guidance.

The surface was rough and clammy, like sweating concrete, with streaks of something viscous clinging to the seams—fluid that looked too dark to be water and too thick to be blood.

 At least it wasn't one of the stronger beasts that attacked me, Luke thought grimly.

Just hearing those other screams... whatever they're facing, I wouldn't have 

survived it.

The hallway narrowed ahead.

Luke slowed—his instincts flaring.

This wasn't here before...

When they first entered, the area had been vast and open—a warehouse of shadows. Now?

Hallways. Corridors.

Twisting paths that hadn't existed minutes ago.

 A maze…?

Luke's thoughts raced.

Had the walls moved behind them? Or was the space itself reshaping?

Could it be tech? Some sort of advanced illusion? Or a beast's doing?

He wasn't sure which was worse.

The crate had appeared from thin air.

The mirror-faced Veil had altered perception itself.

In this place, reality bent. Broke. Reformed.

He pressed on—but the hallway dead-ended.

A solid wall now stood where open space once existed.

No... this isn't right. This whole place is wrong.

He clenched his jaw. Behind him, the noble boy let out a short, derisive snort.

"Pfft."

Before Luke could turn, thud!

Caelan's fist slammed into the boy's gut, sending him crumpling to the floor.

He pressed a finger to his lips—Silence.

The noble writhed, groaning, his dislocated shoulder scraping against the damp floor.

A moment later, Luke retraced their steps—but what should've been a straight return…

Had become three diverging corridors.

Three open maws, stretching into blackness.

A faint, unnatural draft slipped from the leftmost passage—cold and reeking of rot.

The right reeked of dust and burning hair.

The middle was utterly still.

 Shit…

Luke didn't voice the thought. Couldn't.

They were watching him.

Waiting for a decision.

 They're trusting me now… depending on me...

A leader.

A role he never asked for.

If I falter—if they see fear—it spreads.

Then—Fweeeeeeee

The whistle.

Distant. Hollow.

Mechanical, but warped—as if bent through rusted pipes and dry throats.

It echoed down the center corridor, bouncing off the slick walls, too familiar to mistake.

That sound... it was played when the first box was dropped. And again when I opened it. And right before the beast came.

The beast was coming.

The group instinctively moved closer together—shoulders brushing, backs to the walls, weapons clenched tight.

A trembling phalanx in the dark.

Luke kept his voice low, barely above a whisper.

 "That whistle... you've heard it before. Every time a box drops... every time something wakes up."

He glanced toward the center path.

 "We can't stay here. We need to choose fast, and we need to move now."

Then he turned to her.

His last card.

His only answer in this black maze.

 "Eralin…"

His voice carried weight—not panic, but trust.

 "Listen. Anything. Breathing, movement, water... something we can use. We go where you say."

The torchlight in Luke's mind had nearly gone out.

But in the pitch of the Center, Eralin's ears were worth more than any map.

Shes our only hope now.

She nodded slowly, her head tilting—her braid catching damp against her cheek.

Her expression was blank, but Luke could tell: she was listening hard.

The others said nothing.

The black-haired noble nursed his stomach, his face pale.

The tall gray-haired boy gripped a jagged knife like a lifeline.

The brown-haired girl clung to the edge of Luke's shirt, her eyes darting between hallways like a cornered animal.

Caelan focusing his eyes as to see whats infront of them.

The 'Center' waited.

Three paths.

One decision.

And behind them, somewhere unseen, something stirred.

Elarin narrowed her eyes, straining to listen beyond the oppressive silence that clung to the corridor like wet skin.

To the right—metal clanged against metal, but beneath it was a sickening rhythm. A meaty, wet noise. Like blades hacking through flesh. Like bones snapping under pressure. Faint screams echoed—some human, others not.

The center was utterly silent. Not peaceful—hollow. The kind of silence that waits. Where even the air held its breath. That's where the whistle had come from—thin, shrill, and deliberate.

To the left came thunderous thumping—rapid, relentless. As if something massive and many-legged was pacing, eager to be released. The kind of sound that made 

your marrow recoil.

Elarin didn't hesitate.

"THE RIGHT PATH. NOW!"

Luke's voice roared a heartbeat later, slicing through the tension.

"EVERYONE STICK TOGETHER—

CAELAN, FRONT LINE! I'LL COVER YOU!

ELARIN, MIDDLE POSITION!

NOBLE, STAY IN THE BACK—IF YOU'RE USELESS, AT LEAST DIE QUIETLY!

GRAY HAIR, BROWN HAIR—PROTECT OUR CENTER!

DEATH IS HERE—RUN LIKE YOU WANT TO LIVE!"

The group bolted down the right corridor, boots splashing through puddles of blood 

too thick to be water. The walls pulsed with distant screams—some cut short, others dragged out like they were being peeled from the throat.

The floor was a butcher's alley.

A decapitated head stared up at them—mouth open mid-scream, eyes wide in frozen agony. A spine jutted from a gurgling torso like a snapped tree root. Entrails were strewn like decorations, looped over broken lamps and crammed into wall vents. One of them twitched.

The copper stench clawed into their sinuses. Someone gagged.

Still, they pressed on.

The corridor twisted, then opened slightly—

at its end was light.

Not warmth. Not salvation.

The flickering bulb above spilled a yellow-white glow over a wide, blood-slick chamber.

For Luke, light never meant safety. It only meant whatever was ahead wanted to be seen.

He raised a fist, halting the group.

"There's no running now," he said, voice low and grim.

"Everyone—steel your guts. We go in. Blades out. And if something screams—scream louder when you kill it."

Then they stepped into the light.

And the floor crunched beneath them.

It wasn't stone.

It was bone.