The door creaked open, bone key still trembling in Heroca's grip.
At first, none of them understood what they were seeing.
The threshold should have led to a hallway, or stairs, or even another locked chamber. Instead, the sight that greeted them was… nothing.
A void.
Black, endless, formless. The room itself—the one they'd been trapped in—wasn't connected to any solid ground. It was floating, suspended like a lonely raft adrift in a starless sea. The only points of light were faint, scattered sparks in the distance. They shimmered like stars, yet too few, too dim, too oddly shaped to truly be stars. Maybe islands. Maybe fragments. Maybe something worse.
Heroca's throat tightened as he stepped forward, peering into the vast nothingness. The room's walls, its floor, its ceiling—all of it seemed to exist on a fragile slab of reality, drifting inside this boundless dark.
"What… what is this?" Chiko whispered, her voice trembling.
Claous didn't answer. His eyes darted left and right, fists clenched. His breathing came shallow, as if even air was reluctant to exist here.
Heroca swallowed hard. "We can't stay in here. I'll climb up the room, see if there's anything else."
"You're insane," Claous muttered, but the alternative—doing nothing—was worse.
Chiko nodded faintly. "We'll stay. Just… be careful."
Heroca pressed his palm flat against the doorway. The air outside felt thinner. Colder. He stepped out.
At once, his body lurched upward.
Not from effort, but from gravity itself—or rather, the lack of it. The void swallowed weight, leaving him buoyant, drifting. He pushed a hand against the floating wall of their prison, and instead of falling, he rose, as though the space outside had decided it no longer cared about direction.
Breath caught in his chest. It was harder to breathe. Each inhale scraped his throat raw, thin and icy. He grit his teeth and climbed higher, using the uneven surface of the room like a cliff face. His feet barely touched before he was drifting again, floating slowly upward.
From above, the sight grew even more unreal. Darkness in every direction. No horizon. No ground. No sky. Just scattered specks of light, far away and indifferent.
Hopeless.
But Heroca knew better. There was one thing that never ignored him.
The voice.
He shut his eyes, clutching his ring. "Hey… help us. Please. I don't care the price. Just… tell me how to get us out of here."
Silence.
His voice cracked louder, desperation seeping in. "Anything. I'll pay anything. Just help us."
Still silence.
Below, inside the floating room, Chiko and Claous shouted his name. Their faces were pale with worry. But Heroca couldn't hear them. Only the endless silence of the void.
Claous clenched his jaw. "He's not answering."
Chiko's hands trembled. "Something's wrong. I'm going after him."
Claous grabbed her arm. "No—you'll get lost too."
But Heroca's body drifted back down before she could fight him. He pulled himself into the doorway, gasping, chest heaving.
"I was calling for you," he said hoarsely. "Didn't you hear me?"
Chiko blinked. "We called for you too. You didn't answer."
Claous frowned, realization creeping in. "That means we can't communicate outside. The void… cuts sound."
Heroca wiped sweat from his brow. "Yeah. But that means Deckfern found a way. He got out of here somehow. Which means there's a way. We just… have to find it."
Time passed. Fifteen minutes of trying. They tossed scraps into the void—floated briefly outside—searched the walls and corners of the room. Nothing. Always nothing.
Heroca pressed his head into his palms. His chest ached. His lungs still burned from the thin air. "Damn it… come on. There has to be something."
And then, softly, in his skull:
"Your eye."
Heroca froze. His left eye throbbed faintly, as if the voice had struck it from within. His mind reeled back to the jungle—to the moment the hand first took his eye and replaced it with something not his own.
"My… eye?" he whispered back.
The answer rumbled.
"Feed it. Blood."
Heroca stared at his palm. His throat tightened. He looked toward Chiko and Claous. Their faces searched his in confusion.
Without a word, he sank his teeth into the heel of his hand.
"Heroca!" Chiko's voice cracked. "What the hell are you—"
He raised his other hand sharply, silencing her. Blood welled up, dripping fast. He pressed the bleeding palm against his left eye.
The wound stung. His vision warped.
And then—the eye drank.
The blood didn't just smear—it pulled into his eye socket as if sucked by a starving mouth. His iris burned red, veins crawling outward like fire. Heroca's jaw tightened, trembling as he forced himself to keep the blood flowing. His hand throbbed, refusing to heal.
Chiko's hand covered her mouth. "It's… drinking it."
Claous swore under his breath. "That's not human."
Heroca yanked his head back, panting. The bleeding slowed. The wound closed sluggishly, leaving his hand aching.
He blinked. His left eye glowed faint red. The void seemed… sharper. Different.
"I told you," he rasped. "I'm cursed."
Chiko's voice trembled. "Did that voice tell you to do this?"
"Yes." His chest heaved. "And I think he's helping us."
Claous shook his head. "Voices in your skull. Blood-drinking eyes. That's not help. That's damnation."
Heroca ignored him. He turned toward the void, his cursed eye widening. The black emptiness swirled—and suddenly, he saw it.
A door.
Far below, anchored in nothing, connected to a thin slab of reality that formed a long hallway.
"I see it," Heroca whispered. "There's a way down."
Chiko blinked hard. "Where?"
Claous squinted, seeing nothing. "There's nothing out there."
"You can't see it," Heroca said firmly. "But I can. Follow me."
He leapt.
The void swallowed him. For a moment, his stomach dropped. Then, like sinking through water, he landed softly. The hallway stretched before him—long, narrow, walls smooth as the room they'd left, and at its far end, a single door.
He turned back, raising his arm high. From the void above, Claous and Chiko could see his hand floating in midair, signaling them down.
Claous muttered, "We're trusting his demon eye now?"
Chiko squeezed his hand. "We don't have a choice."
Together, they jumped.
The air shifted, and suddenly they were beside Heroca, standing in the hallway.
Heroca raised a finger to his lips, shushing them before they could speak. Then he winced, his left eye dimming back to its usual color, the vision gone. A dull ache pulsed behind his brow.
The hallway was dead silent. No windows. No doors. Just one path forward.
Claous exhaled sharply. "Let's go."
He took the lead, each step echoing against smooth, lifeless walls. Heroca and Chiko followed, weapons clutched tight, every creak of their shoes louder than breath.
The walk stretched endlessly, until at last, the final door loomed ahead.
Heroca pushed it open.
Inside—
A room of tools.
Blood-stained, rust-flecked, their edges dulled not by time but by overuse. Saws, hammers, clamps. The stench of dried iron clung to the air, thick and foul. The floor was sticky in patches where stains had never truly dried.
Against the right wall was another door, this one with a narrow glass window.
Chiko crept forward and peeked through.
Her body froze.
Deckfern stood inside, back turned, hunched over a metal table. His coat hung loose, sleeves rolled high as his ruined hand worked clumsily with instruments. The sound of metal on bone carried faintly through the glass.
On the table—Ziva.
Her wrists bound, her body slack, face pale beneath the surgical light.
Chiko's heart pounded. She scanned quickly—no guards, no one else. Just Deckfern. She backed away and whispered to the others.
"He's in there. With her."
Heroca's jaw clenched. His eyes darted to the shelves. Among the rusted tools lay a revolver—its chamber checked, only two bullets. He snatched it up, along with a heavy wrench.
Claous gripped a chipped axe. He handed Chiko a blood-smeared hammer, keeping the axe for himself.
The three of them stood together in the room, weapons drawn, breath heavy.
Heroca's finger tightened on the revolver. His heart hammered, not just from fear, but something darker.
Deckfern was right there.
And this time, he wasn't helpless.
The three exchanged a single look.
Heroca nodded once.
They turned toward the door.