Chapter 13
Mads didn’t hesitate, threading their fingers together firmly as they started down the stairs.
They moved quickly, boots thudding against concrete, echoing through the stairwell.
Lionel tried to count the floors as they went and was grateful to see the numbers on the wall still climbing down in a sensible order this time.
They hadn’t come across a single monster. No twisted bodies crawling up the walls, no rattling in the pipes. It should have calmed Lionel, but instead it made every hair on his body stand on end. The silence felt unnatural, like the building itself was holding its breath.
They made it down to the second floor. Lionel’s own breath was coming quick and shallow, partly from exertion, partly from the ever-gnawing anxiety that something was lurking just beyond the next turn.
His focus tunneled in on his feet, just trying to keep moving.
Each turn of the stairwell was sharper than the last, his hand sweaty in Mads’—
Until there suddenly wasn’t a next step.
Lionel gasped as his foot hit nothing but air. His body pitched forward into the yawning emptiness—
And then he was yanked back so hard it knocked the breath out of him.
He let out a strangled yell as Mads’ arm snapped tight around his waist, hauling him flush against his chest. They staggered, Mads’ boots skidding on the edge of the landing as he fought for balance.
Lionel clutched at Mads’ shoulders, wide-eyed, his chest heaving. It was only when Mads steadied them both, pulling him securely against his body, that Lionel dared to glance down.
His stomach dropped. The stairwell simply... ended. Where concrete steps should have spiraled down to the ground floor, there was instead an open void. Black and bottomless, stretching out below them like the night sky, speckled with pinpricks of distant light.
It was beautiful in a way that made Lionel’s skin crawl.
“That—” he gasped, voice breaking. He gripped the front of Mads’ shirt so hard his knuckles turned white. “That’s the same. That’s the same as where that thing went. The hole— it’s—”
“I know,” Mads murmured, his voice calm but tight.
Lionel’s heart was hammering so hard it hurt. If Mads hadn’t been holding him... if he’d taken even one more step…
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to fight off the dizzy wave of nausea that rolled through him. “What the fuck is this place?” Lionel he finally asked, panic beginning to edge into his tone.
“Come on,” Mads urged, pulling him toward the second-floor door. “Let’s go this way.”
“There’s no other way down,” Lionel argued, but let himself be dragged along.
When they were a few doors down the second-floor hallway, Lionel grabbed Mads' hand, pulling him to a stop. “Wait, we can’t just run—we need a plan.” Lionel paused, trying to catch his breath as his mind raced with a thousand ideas.
“The elevator is gone, but maybe we could go down the shaft to the first floor somehow.”
“Doesn’t that go all the way to the basement?” Mads asked. “I think we should find somewhere to just wait it out and check on the stairwell every once in a while—the things the building changes seem to go back to normal eventually.”
He was right—even when they were rushing through the warping hallway, it returned to normal afterwards; same with the stairwell messing up the order of the floors. Lionel considered this and nodded. “Let’s check the elevator, and then we can hide out if we need to.”
Lionel tugged on Mads’ hand again and pulled him further down the hallway.
They were more than halfway down the hallway, the dark shape of the elevator finally in sight, when a sudden sound sliced through the silence.
Footsteps. Fast—pounding, racing toward them.
A shiver crawled up Lionel’s spine. His entire body went rigid. Based on how Mads’ stride faltered and how his hand tightened on Lionel’s, the sound wasn’t just in his head this time.
Lionel pivoted on instinct, swinging around and pushing Mads behind him in one fluid motion. His knife came up, muscles coiled tight, ready to slam it down into whatever nightmare was charging at them—
“Lionel!”
Lionel blinked. The blade wavered in his hand. That voice—
Derek’s face emerged from the shadows, panting and gaunt.
But it was so much more than that—Lionel’s heart gave a painful lurch.
Derek’s skin was sunken and sallow, stretched tight over sharp cheekbones, and the whites of his eyes were an angry, bloodshot red, and sweat streamed down his hollow face.
“Lionel!” Derek gasped again, and his voice cracked, hoarse and desperate.
“Derek?” Lionel breathed, stunned.
He didn’t even have time to brace himself before Derek collided with him, knocking the air from his lungs with a sharp ‘oof.’ Lionel stumbled back a step, his arms pinned awkwardly at his sides as Derek’s arms wrapped around him in a vise-like hug, so tight it was like he was trying to crush them into one person.
“I can’t believe you’re alive,” Derek sobbed. His breath was hot and ragged against Lionel’s ear.
Lionel stood frozen for a beat, knife still clutched awkwardly in one hand at his side. Then he gave Derek a stiff pat on the back. “Yeah—I… I’m here.”
When Derek finally pulled back, he didn’t let go completely. His hands clamped down on Lionel’s shoulders, fingers digging in hard enough to hurt. Lionel winced. Derek’s eyes—red and feverish—darted over his face as though memorizing every feature.
“How are you here? What happened to you?” Lionel managed, voice a little strained.
“I— I found a new place to hide after I ran,” Derek babbled.
“It’s safer there. I met others—other survivors.
We’ve been staying together, keeping each other alive.
I thought—I thought you two must have been dead after all this time.
” His eyes slid over to Mads for a brief second, narrowing, then jerked right back to Lionel, wide and brimming with something Lionel couldn’t quite name—relief, terror, maybe both.
Lionel’s pulse was still racing from the scare, from the haunted look on Derek’s face, from the bruising grip on his shoulders.
Something felt off—terribly off—but before he could sort it out, Derek was squeezing him again, breath coming in frantic little pants against Lionel’s temple.
“All this time?” Lionel echoed after processing Derek’s words. “It’s only been a day.”
Derek stared at him, his eyes flicking back and forth between his face and Mads’. “Lionel,” he said. “It’s been months.”
Lionel’s stomach dropped to his feet, and he turned to look over his shoulder at Mads, pleading for him to confirm who was right or wrong. “Time seems to work differently here,” Mads murmured. He was tense, his eyes narrowed at Derek as he stepped forward. “How many months has it been for you?”
“We’ve lost track,” Derek said. “Maybe… eight or nine?”
Lionel’s jaw dropped at that, eyes widening. “Eight or nine months? How have you been—”
“How have you been surviving all this time?” Mads asked. Lionel felt his hand wrap around his wrist a moment later, harsh enough to bruise. “You said there were multiple of you who have formed a group—how have you been surviving?”
“We’ve raided several apartments—we’re always looking for water,” Derek said. It was then that Lionel noticed how fast the man was talking, how his hands were shaking, how his eyes never seemed to stop moving as they flickered around between them and the hallway. “But we’ve made do.”
“What about the monsters?” Lionel asked, trying to push down the queasy feeling twisting through his gut. “Have you found a way to keep yourself safe from them?”
Derek’s lips twitched into something that was almost a smile, but the wrongness of it made Lionel’s skin crawl. It was stretched too wide, teeth bared like an animal, and didn’t come anywhere near his feverish eyes. “Yeah,” Derek rasped. “We’ve… found a use for them.”
Lionel’s stomach dropped. “What do you mean?” he asked, voice too thin. “Have you found something out about them—something that can help us?”
“Lionel—” Mads’ voice was low behind him, warning, his grip on Lionel’s wrist tightening.
But Derek only leaned closer, breath hot and sour on Lionel’s cheek.
Lionel flinched at the smell, catching rot and copper beneath it.
“Yeah,” Derek whispered, eyes locked on Lionel’s like he was peering straight through him.
“Have you seen them lately? How close they look to us? Their eyes, their hair, their voices—it’s so hard to tell sometimes. So easy to make a little mistake.”
Lionel’s brow knitted together. He tried to step back, but Derek’s fingers dug in, grinding painfully against bone. Mads gave another tug, but Derek was holding too tight.
“But those creatures…” Derek’s laugh burst out, high and wild, rattling through the hallway. “They taste delicious, Lionel.”
Lionel froze. The blood seemed to drain from his face all at once, leaving his skin cold and clammy. He could only stare, his mind struggling to slot those words into any sane context—and failing.
Then Derek’s grin twisted wider, cracking something in Lionel’s chest. “But, like I said—” Derek’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial hush as he leaned in even closer, so close Lionel could see the burst blood vessels in his eyes, “sometimes you make mistakes, right? Sometimes you cut into something that screams just a little too human. And by then, it’s too late to stop. ”
Lionel jerked back with a strangled noise. His heart was pounding so violently that it felt like it would bruise his ribs. He didn’t want to understand, didn’t want to parse what Derek was confessing.
“Lionel,” Derek crooned, voice dripping with manic excitement, “you should come meet everyone. We have so much food, enough for you to share in. Come on—you’ll love it. You’re my friend, right?” His hands were claws now, digging into Lionel’s shoulders like he meant to haul him away by force.
“Unhand him.”