A mechanical click echoed in the confined space, sharp and final as a guillotine blade falling.
"TRAP!" Whisper shouted, their muffled voice somehow carrying urgency through the sound-dampening air.
The walls SLAMMED inward from both sides.
Not slowly. Not with warning. Not with the courtesy of a few seconds to prepare or dodge or accept fate. Instantly, with industrial force designed to crush rather than contain, with the speed of a predator's jaws snapping shut on prey. The smooth organic metal revealed its true purpose—components of a killing mechanism that had waited in patient silence for victims stupid enough to trigger it while running from reanimated corpses.
Tank reacted on pure instinct and the muscle memory of countless battles.
