They fell through a shaft of stale, breathless air before striking the lower level. Lyra hit first. Her body slammed into a rusted support frame and tumbled across broken steel that sliced into her skin. Her leg twisted sharply beneath her, a tearing sensation ripping up her calf as blood began to spill in a thin, steady ribbon. The world shuddered around her, vision wobbling as pain crawled along her spine.
Aaron landed several meters away, body rolling in a clean arc before rising without hesitation. Dust swirled off his clothes as his attention locked onto Lyra. He assessed the angle of her ankle, the depth of the wound along her leg, and the scattered rhythm of her breath. Every detail imprinted into him with the clarity of a tactical map.
Epsilon dropped last. It touched the floor almost gently, absorbing the fall with an unnatural stillness. There was no stagger, no wasted motion. The creature straightened as if its bones obeyed a different set of rules, its unblinking gaze sliding across the room.
The chamber sprawled in all directions, a maze of cracked pillars and sagging beams. Wires hung from the ceiling like exposed nerves, swaying slightly despite the still air. Scattered bones lay in uneven piles, some wrapped in the remains of uniforms, others stained dark with fluids long dried. The scent of rust and old chemicals clung to the room in a suffocating haze.
Lyra tried to push herself upright, her hand trembling against the floor. Her knee refused to cooperate. Breath leaked from her in thin, trembling waves, each inhale tighter than the last. Pale light washed over her face, draining what little color remained as her consciousness wavered.
Aaron moved first.
Epsilon moved with him.
Their trajectories aimed toward the same point: Lyra.
The creature crossed the floor with predatory precision, its footsteps barely whispering against concrete. Aaron cut between them in a clean, decisive line. The collision rang through the space, metal and bone striking with enough force to shake dust from the ceiling. Pipes cracked overhead and clattered to the ground.
Epsilon slashed toward Aaron's ribs. Aaron rotated his body, catching the blow along his forearm. Skin split, blood trickling along the curve of his elbow. His reaction didn't falter. He retaliated with two sharp blows to Epsilon's shoulder joint, each impact delivered with surgical efficiency.
The fight tightened into a brutal sequence.
Aaron drove Epsilon backward, manipulating leverage and momentum with practiced instinct. He forced the creature against a pillar and slammed its skull into the metal, the echo pulsing through the chamber like a muted alarm. Epsilon collapsed, twisted, and rose again with movements that defied human physiology.
Aaron closed the distance, pressing a hand to its throat. Pressure increased slowly, evenly. One second more and the struggle would have ended there.
Then the voice flickered through Aaron's mind, cold and absolute.
〈Lyra. Lower left. Incoming threat.〉
Instinct detonated inside him. Thought dissolved. Movement took over.
Aaron released Epsilon and pivoted sharply. His feet dug into the floor as he surged toward Lyra. From the shadows, a smaller failed specimen crawled forward, its thin limbs coiled like hooked wires. It leapt toward Lyra's exposed throat, claws gleaming in the pale light.
Lyra turned her head in slow, horrified recognition. Her pupils contracted. Her breath snagged. She froze completely, the incoming strike burning into her vision.
Aaron reached her first.
His hand snapped around the creature's wrist. Bone cracked with a hollow pop. The creature writhed, trying to bite with its secondary jaws, but Aaron seized its skull and drove it into a support beam. The impact caved the bone inward. The body slid to the ground without sound.
Aaron dropped to one knee beside Lyra. He tore a strip from his shirt and pressed it against her wound. The bleeding slowed under his steady hand. Her breathing steadied by fractions, though her eyes remained wide and unfocused. Shock had wrapped itself around her like a second skin.
Across the chamber, Epsilon rose again. Its body was a broken puzzle, bones misaligned beneath torn flesh, yet its gaze retained the cold sharpness of a creature built to observe.
It offered a fractured smile.
"So that is your weakness," it said softly. "She interrupts you."
Aaron did not acknowledge the words.
He lifted Lyra carefully, adjusting her weight so her injured leg remained stable. Her fingers curled weakly against his shoulder, clinging to the sensation of something safe.
Epsilon limped upright, each movement twitching through damaged joints. Regeneration shuddered along its flesh, mending some wounds while others remained open. It smiled again, thinner this time.
Aaron stepped toward it.
His first strike crushed Epsilon's shoulder.
His second shattered bone along its hip.
His third broke the creature's jaw in a clean, brutal angle.
Epsilon collapsed and attempted to rise, only to fall again. Its body regenerated in glitching pulses, struggling to decide which part to fix first. Still, its eyes watched him with cold intelligence.
"You slow when she bleeds," it whispered. "And that alone hurts you more than anything I could do."
Aaron silenced it with another blow.
The skull cracked. The body stilled, neither dead nor functional enough to stand.
Then a new sound rumbled through the chamber.
A heavy footstep.
Then another.
The floor vibrated under the sheer weight. Dust sifted down from the ceiling, drifting in thin trails. The tremor was too deep for human movement, too controlled to be another mindless failure. Something larger had awoken in the labyrinth.
Lyra's fingers tightened desperately in Aaron's shirt.
He shifted her behind a broken pillar, protecting her from view.
Epsilon lifted its head, broken teeth exposed in a warped grin. Even defeated, the creature seemed pleased.
"There," it said. "The one that does not fear you."
Aaron's jaw clenched.
The footsteps grew closer, each one a slow declaration of intent. A massive silhouette emerged from the far corridor, absorbing the faint light into its outline. Its breath was steady and cavernous, the sound of something built to hunt, not to survive.
The entity whispered within him.
〈He is close. And he is hungry.〉
Aaron stepped forward.
The labyrinth went silent.