Lay's eyes opened slowly, like his body was forcing him awake against his will.
Cold stone pressed hard against his cheek. The surface was rough and jagged, scraping against skin that was already raw. His chest felt tight when he tried to breathe, and each breath sent sharp pain through his ribs. When he tried to take a deeper breath, the pain grew so bad that a low groan escaped his lips.
The sound echoed through the tunnels around him.
It bounced off the walls and twisted into something that didn't sound like him anymore.
Lay stopped breathing for a moment and listened to the silence that followed.
He forced his eyes open wider. Everything was blurry at first. Then slowly, the world came into focus. A pale light glowed from the stone walls around him. It wasn't bright, but it wasn't dark either. It was just enough to see, as if the dungeon itself didn't want him completely blind or completely able to see clearly. Long corridors stretched out in every direction. Left. Right. Forward. Behind.
They all looked exactly the same.
There were no marks on the walls. No signs to show him how deep the dungeons went. No end in sight.
"Floor One," Lay whispered to himself, though the words felt strange as he said them.
He tried to move his arm. Nothing happened. Fear shot through him like ice water. He took a shaky breath and tried again, slower this time. His fingers twitched, just barely, and pain ripped up his shoulder and down his spine, hot and sickening.
Lay closed his eyes tight and waited for the pain to fade.
His mind worked on its own, listing what he had and what he didn't have.
His pack was gone. His sword was gone. His waterskin was gone.
They hadn't run away in fear. They hadn't left him and ran. They had taken the time to search him carefully.
A broken, bitter laugh came out of him, followed by a cough that brought up blood. The red liquid splattered across the white stone. He stared at it while his breathing came hard and fast.
"So you really meant it," he said to the empty tunnels. "All of it."
The dungeon didn't answer him. It didn't have to.
The memory came whether he wanted to remember it or not.
The Tower had been standing there for days before Lay finally reached the outer road from Clasrtro Village. Even from far away, it looked too big for the world around it. It was as if the land itself had become smaller just to make room for this tower.
Lay adjusted the strap on his pack as he walked down the quiet road. The silence was heavy. Heavier than normal.
His mother stood at the edge of the village, hugging her arms tight around herself. She didn't follow him far, she never did, but she didn't go back inside either. She waited for him.
"Did you pack enough?" she asked him.
Lay nodded. "More than I'll need."
She made a quiet snorting sound. "That's what your father said before the winter raids came."
Lay felt uncertain. "I won't be gone long."
She looked at him then. She really looked at him. Her eyes studied his face like she was trying to memorize every detail.
"You always say that," she said. There was no anger in her voice, just tired acceptance.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "If something feels wrong, I'll come back."
That made her laugh, but it wasn't a real laugh. It was short and without any real feeling behind it.
"You?" she said. "Leave something behind?"
Lay frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
She stepped closer and tightened the strap on his pack, her fingers shaking just a little bit.
"You don't run away," she said quietly. "You've never run away. You stop and stare at problems until they get tired of staring back."
He opened his mouth to argue with her, then closed it again.
She pressed two fingers gently against his chest.
"Just promise me you'll keep paying attention," she said. "Promise me that."
Lay swallowed hard. "I promise."
She nodded once and stepped back. She didn't let him see what was really in her eyes after that.
As the Long Journey toward the Campfire site
"Lay. Hey. Lay."
Someone was calling his name through the smoke of the campfire.
Darin sat across from him, holding a wooden stick with half-cooked meat on it. He looked comfortable and calm. Too calm for someone so close to the Tower. That should have been Lay's first warning, but he missed it.
"You've been staring at that gate for ten minutes," Darin said. "Are you waiting for it to look away?"
Lay blinked and came back to himself. "Sorry. I was just thinking."
Mira sat nearby, sharpening her sword with a stone. She rolled her eyes at him. "He's always thinking."
"And you're always complaining," Lay said back.
She smirked at him. "Because you're always making us go slower."
"Slow keeps us alive."
Jax leaned against a wooden crate with his arms crossed against his chest. "Being alive doesn't mean people will remember you when you're gone."
Lay turned to look at him. "Neither does being dead."
Jax made a noise in his throat but didn't say anything else.
Darin held up his hand to stop the arguing. "We're going in together. Floor Zero only. We'll test it and then we'll decide what to do."
He looked straight at Lay. "Are you okay with that?"
Lay nodded his head. "As long as no one tries to go too fast."
Darin smiled at him. "No one's going too fast."
The smile looked real. That was the worst part. It felt so real.
Floor Zero had been brutal and exhausting, but at least it was honest about what it was doing.
The creatures came screaming out of the darkness. They were twisted and wrong, made of bone and stone. Steel clashed against them with loud ringing sounds. Lay shouted himself hoarse, calling out warnings to his group.
"There's one on the left, don't chase it!"
"Hold your line there!"
"Wait, wait, now. Attack now!"
They listened to every warning. They stayed alive because they listened.
By the time they reached the doorway to Floor One, Lay's hands were shaking from how tired he was. He leaned against the cool stone wall, sweat burning his eyes and running down his face.
"We should rest," he said. "Just for a moment."
Mira wiped blood from her cheek. "You always say that."
"And you're always still breathing when you listen to me."
She paused, then gave him a short laugh. "That's fair."
Everything felt different the moment they crossed through that doorway.
Lay noticed it right away. There was a pressure building behind his eyes. His thoughts felt heavy and slow, like they were moving through thick water.
"These tunnels feel wrong," Mira said quietly. She sounded uncertain and confused.
Jax pressed his hand against his temple. "My head's spinning and I don't know why."
Lay slowed his pace. "This floor isn't about fighting monsters."
Darin looked back at him over his shoulder. "Then what's it about?"
Lay opened his mouth to answer, but something stopped him. Something moved through his mind. It wasn't pain. It wasn't force pushing him down.
It was a suggestion. Soft but firm.
"Don't stop," Mira said suddenly. Her voice sounded stretched tight and strained. "We need to keep moving."
Lay turned around to look at her. "Why do we need to keep moving?"
She frowned like his question confused her. "Because that's what we do. That's what we've always done."
Fear shot through Lay's chest like lightning.
"That's not a reason."
Darin stepped closer. Much too close. There was something different in his eyes now.
"Lay," he said, his voice low and soft.
Lay looked up at him. "What?"
There was a pause. Too long a pause. Too much time between the question and what came next.
Darin's face softened like he felt bad about something.
"I'm sorry," he said.
The blow came from behind him. Not hard enough to be brutal. Hard enough to be exactly right.
Lay felt his legs stop working. His hands slipped against the stone like they belonged to someone else. They weren't his hands anymore.
"Wait," he tried to say, but it came out as a gasp. "Wait, what are you..."
The ground disappeared beneath him.
Lay sucked in air and screamed.
The sound tore out of him from deep in his chest. It was raw and broken and he couldn't stop it. He clawed at the stone beneath him until his nails split and bled. His fingers scraped the ground looking for something to hold onto.
They hadn't even talked about it.
They had already made the decision without telling him.
"Don't the Leader say he have some dangerous magic?" Jax's voice echoed in his memory.
"He? Dangerous? Don't joke with me. He is just weak and we waste our time for him," Mira had said.
And Darin. Darin hadn't said anything at all. He had just attacked.
Lay lay on his side, shaking, unable to stop the trembling. His breath came in ragged, painful bursts. He stared into the tunnels that all looked exactly the same.
Why me? What Dangerous magic they are talking about? The question repeated over and over in his head.
He had known that betrayal could happen. He had thought about it. He had prepared himself for it mentally. But he hadn't expected it to feel like this. The way his body had just stopped working. The way his mind had gotten confused and slow. The way magic itself had been used to make him weak.
"There was magic," he whispered to himself. "It was subtle. It was done on purpose."
But why use magic at all? If they wanted him dead, why not just kill him when he was standing in front of them? Why take the time to search him? Why leave him here, bleeding and alone, in a place that seemed to go on forever?
Lay turned his head slowly. He studied each tunnel carefully. Left. Right. Forward. Behind.
None of them were chosen by accident.
A weak breath came out of him. It was shaky and small.
"So you want me to get lost," he said to the darkness. "That's what you want. You want me to wander here until I can't tell which way is which."
The dungeon kept its silence.
But underneath all the pain, underneath all his anger, something else was starting to wake up inside him.
A need to watch. A need to pay attention.
Lay dragged himself backward until his back was against the cold stone wall. He kept his eyes open even though it hurt to do so. He watched the empty tunnels in front of him.
"If you wanted me dead," he said quietly. His voice was rough and hoarse, but it was steady. He forced his breathing to slow, jaw locked tight until the shaking in his hands settled.
"You should have finished it."