Kael chose.
Not with words.
Not with courage.
With movement.
He stepped forward.
The prison reacted instantly.
The half-formed door behind him shattered into dust, stone dissolving like it had never mattered. The ceiling split with a sound like bone cracking under pressure, fractures racing outward as the Crucible abandoned subtlety entirely.
TRIAL FAILURE IMMINENT.
CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL ENGAGED.
The words burned themselves into the air.
Kael barely had time to register them before the floor dropped.
Not collapsed.
Dropped.
Gravity grabbed him by the spine and yanked.
He fell hard, breath punched out of his lungs, shoulder slamming into stone that hadn't existed a heartbeat earlier. The chamber inverted, walls twisting, folding inward like a throat closing.
Behind him—
Chains screamed.
Not metal-on-metal.
Metal-on-decision.
Kael twisted mid-fall, catching a glimpse of the other Kael as the floor tore open between them.
The chained version smiled.
Not smug.
Proud.
"Run," he said.
Then the Crucible sealed him away.
Stone slammed shut with finality, the echo ringing like a verdict.
Kael hit the ground rolling.
He came up on instinct alone, body moving before thought could catch up. The corridor he'd landed in was narrow, angular, carved with grooves that glowed faintly red—warning lines, not decoration.
Something was coming.
He felt it in his bones.
The prison moved.
Walls shifted behind him, grinding together, reshaping the space with deliberate hostility. The Crucible wasn't just reacting anymore.
It was hunting.
Kael sprinted.
His boots slapped against stone as the corridor stretched ahead of him, branching unpredictably, angles bending wrong, stairs appearing where none should exist. Every step burned—muscles protesting, lungs screaming—but he didn't slow.
Hesitation kills.
He'd learned that.
A chain lashed out from the wall.
Kael ducked just in time, iron slicing the air where his head had been. It embedded itself in the opposite wall with explosive force, stone shattering outward.
"Not subtle!" Kael shouted, vaulting over a rising ridge of floor.
The Crucible responded by dropping the ceiling.
Kael slid, shoulder-first, through a narrowing gap as stone ground together inches above his spine. The impact tore skin, sparks of pain flaring bright and sharp—but he kept moving.
Behind him, something roared.
Not a creature.
A mechanism.
A mass of chains surged through the corridor like a living tide, links snapping and coiling with terrifying coordination. Hooks gleamed at their ends, edges etched with the same symbols he'd seen carved into the floors.
Execution marks.
"Oh come on," Kael panted. "I'm literally cooperating by running."
The chains surged faster.
Kael skidded around a corner—and nearly slammed into a figure blocking the path.
He stopped short, instincts screaming.
A woman stood there.
Alive.
Barefoot. Bloodied. Eyes wide with terror and something harder beneath it—defiance sharpened by desperation. Her wrists were wrapped in broken manacles, chains trailing uselessly behind her.
She stared at Kael.
Then past him.
Her face drained of color.
"Move," Kael snapped.
She hesitated.
Just for a second.
The chains burst around the corner.
Kael didn't think.
He grabbed her wrist and yanked.
They ran.
The corridor fought them immediately—steps rising too fast, floors slanting dangerously, walls tightening like jaws. The woman stumbled, nearly falling as a chain snapped past her head, embedding itself where she'd been a second earlier.
Kael pulled her up.
"Don't stop," he said, voice rough. "Whatever you hear—don't stop."
"What is this place?" she gasped.
"A mistake," Kael said. "That learned how to walk."
They burst into a wider chamber just as the corridor behind them collapsed, stone slamming shut, chains screeching as they were severed mid-lunge.
Silence fell.
Heavy.
Temporary.
Kael doubled over, hands on his knees, lungs burning. The woman collapsed beside him, shaking, clutching her ribs.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then the room exhaled.
The walls around them were different.
Old.
Cracked.
Scored with blade marks, claw gouges, scorch lines—evidence of others who had fought here and failed, or barely escaped.
This wasn't a test chamber.
This was a graveyard of attempts.
The woman laughed weakly, half-hysterical. "You… you weren't supposed to do that."
Kael straightened slowly. "Do what?"
"Break the sequence," she said. "No one breaks the sequence."
The tug behind Kael's ribs tightened—not painful.
Focused.
"Guess I'm bad at following instructions."
The floor beneath them cracked.
A symbol flared to life between them, burning itself into the stone.
ANOMALY CONFIRMED.
PRISON BREACH LEVEL: ONE.
The woman stared at the words, then at Kael.
"What are you?"
Kael wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Tired," he said. "And running out of patience."
A new sound rolled through the chamber.
Footsteps.
Not chains.
Not mechanisms.
Boots.
Multiple.
Voices followed—human, tense, alert.
"Someone breached the lower trials."
"Impossible."
"Check the western vaults."
"Alive or dead—doesn't matter."
The woman's breath hitched. "They'll kill us."
Kael's jaw tightened.
"Yeah," he said. "They will."
He looked at the fractured walls, the unstable symbols, the paths scorched by past failures.
Then at her.
"Can you fight?"
She hesitated.
Then nodded.
"Good," Kael said.
Because for the first time since waking in the Crucible, he wasn't being tested anymore.
He was being hunted.
And this time—
He wasn't alone.