She’s gone. She left.

  Unshed tears burn behind Rivin’s eyes. There’s something ugly gnawing at his gut, spewing vitriol into his organs. Was this her plan? Are they her way in? Or are they her way out?

  There’s no time to linger. No time to stew.

  Alongside Ricket, he scoops up the last two children—they don't have enough arms or strength, and Rivin practically drags Ricket and the fifth behind, face flushed with residual anger and hurt.

  They're slow. Too slow.

  This close, he can really smell them. The children, that is. They smell like the steam. Like salty water flushed with ripe alcohol. Their exposed wounds are not bleeding; in fact, they look clean, remarkably so. Their pink skin is tender, and white prints bloom where Rivin’s fingers shift to and fro. There are clear signs of burning — or rather, boiling — and around their ankles and toes sheer blisters have formed.

  Rivin tries to lift higher. Tries to keep the welts from tearing against the filthy stone. He’s not so sure he’s successful.

  When they make it past the door, it’s another upward-leading stairwell. Slink moves to assist, taking his share of the load. There’s little hope but to run. They’re useless to an attack. The rest of the haul sits abandoned. Only the ledger takes up space in Rivin’s pack.

  They rush upwards to a landing with three more doors fixed to stone, all articulated by high mosaic windows above the seam. Of the three, the one in the centre lay open. The wall across is dotted with several rectangular lookouts. Beyond, only vast darkness stretching on forever.

  “Where are we going?” Ricket whimpers.

  Rivin doesn’t know. Chip was right. This was suicide. Idiot. Idiot. You’ve killed them all for nothing. For her. Idiot.

  “We just need—”

  The moment they pass the second door, the one in front bursts open.

  Suddenly, like a wave of muscle, several Squalor Angels spill onto the floor, plumes of smoke billowing around them like a halo, ichor-black talons scraping against the tile. Behind, the door also ruptures.

  Someone shrieks. Someone cries out.

  No one can fight back.

  They all clamber into the only place they can. The open centre room.

  Chip holds the door until the others can help; casualties dropped thoughtlessly in favour of survival. Rivin shoulders the steel with all of his strength, but the pressure is too much — a hand reaches through, claws scraping against the flesh of Slink’s thigh, and the teen howls in agony before Rivin unsheathes his blade and brings it quickly down against the nightmare’s wrist, hacking off the meaty weapon. It falls heavy and dormant to the ground, twitching in the dust.

  With the space free, the door slams closed. Chip bolting the latch while it’s flush.

  Beyond, the Angels continue their onslaught, violently charging against the steel.

  “Where's the girl!?” Slink seethes through spit, cupping his thigh where blood spurts between a few fingers. Ricket is already tearing his sleeve and wrapping it around the wound, small hands trembling against him.

  Rivin sucks in a breath, still strained against the door. Untrusting of the bolt. “Gone.”

  Slink scowls. “I knew it—”

  “Forget about her. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  They canvas the room. It’s quaint. Bare-bones. Filled with empty cots and no sheets. Completely sealed in. They’re trapped.

  Again, the door bursts inward, the lock blowing free from the force — the very ground shaking as they’re thrown perilously forward. Those that manage to keep their feet spring back towards the steel, mightily holding off an onslaught once more.

  Ricket struggles, having taken the lock to chest when it pulled free, gasping for air to return to his lungs. Slink urgently rushes to his side before something shatters overhead. “Above!”

  Rivin glances up as glass rains down upon them; he spies arms and blades reaching through the remnants of a shattered windowpane. Soon enough, a head appears, completely wrapped—bar thin slits for the eyes and mouth—in oiled gauze. Then shoulders. A torso.

  They’re climbing through.

  Chip launches back to aim his rifle — the door blockade suffering all the more for it as Rivin faces the shove alone — mercifully, Slink is quick to rejoin him, but it doesn’t matter. Not really. They’re growing weaker quickly. They can’t keep this up for long. They are, after all, just children.

  “HOLD!”

  Ricket is helping again too. He hasn’t quite caught his breath.

  Chip shoots a round, then another and another. Rivin doesn’t look up, but he can soon feel the blood dripping over his head, down his neck, and into his shirt. The snap of each fire is deafening this close. He squeezes his eyes closed.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Bang. Bang.

  “What do we do?” Gasps Ricket.

  Rivin glances around, but he can’t see anything clearly. The world is spinning. His head — his head is full — “I…” He can't bring himself to finish the sentence. What was the sentence? What… What…

  What will they do?

  I don't know.

  The door beats hard against his back.

  I don’t know.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  “Out of bullets!”

  “Riv—”

  I don’t know!

  The pressure stops.

  The barging ceases.

  There’s scuffling, metal tapping. Then, beyond the door and all at once, the Angels grow quiet.

  His eyes snap open —

  What’s happening? What’s happening? What’s happening?!

  He glances around. All look on perplexed. Everyone holds their breath.

  They wait.

  Then, for the first time in his life, the Angels speak a word that Rivin recognises. Rather, they scream it — echoing and savage. “YOU!”

  A blinding light spills in like sunrise — unnatural and uncanny. Then, a burst, something pulsing, the first and final heartbeat of something enormous.

  Immediately after, screaming.

  Outside of the chorus. Outside of song.

  He hears them being swept away — metal grating for perilous grip against walls and floors. Dragging. A wind tunnel’s worth of force sucking up the hallway. The door slams flush, air syphoning through the window. The hungry wind howls as it devours and then — a thunderous sound. A roar. Lightning vaults across what they can see of the hallway ceiling. Cracking and vicious.

  The temple shudders. Fissures form in the ground — the door itself flies completely off, knocking Rivin and the others onto the floor. The spire quakes and rumbles, the structure moaning from the impact. He’s not sure it will stay standing, ancient and wounded as it is. He expects to be buried.

  He already is in life. It seems fitting.

  Yet it does hold. For now.

  Remarkably, the spire stills, and yet there is no cause for celebration. Not yet.

  Not as true, and horrid silence envelopes them all.

  The song has stopped.

  Perhaps it’s only because Rivin’s ears are ringing. No. He can hear breath. Coughing. Dust settling on the floor. Movement. Winded, he looks up. The doorway is empty. The hall too — although it’s caved now in some places.

  When Rivin rises to his feet, he’s clutching his side, glancing desperately around for the others. He helps Slink up. Chip and Ricket are already on their feet, eyes wide and frightened. Confused most of all. The rest are still unconscious. Who knows if they’re dead?

  He relocates his sword before hesitantly approaching the doorway.

  What he finds is carnage.

  Several limbs litter the passage, thrust about in various places. Putty against the walls in some. Blood splatters the ceiling and floor. There are talons still clinging to the doorway, stuck into the tile, grating the earth where something sucked them out. Flesh still clings to the parts wrenched from the bone, bolts screwed into nothing.

  He can’t breathe. He’s forgotten how to.

  “Rivin?” Someone calls from the room. Cautious and small.

  He doesn’t answer. He can’t. It doesn’t make sense.

  What happened?

  And then she appears.

  Roach rounds the corner staircase, flushed and panting — her shirt is torn at the front and bloodied, exposing hints of a nasty, albeit old, burn strapping around her sides. Her pockets are lighter than when they’d first left, her trousers singed in places, and her belt completely absent. Her copper eyes are as wild as her hair; one is bruised, quickly swelling closed. She’s covered in ash. He can’t see her freckles.

  For a long moment, no one says anything. Before she shrugs and tilts her head, eyes bulging. “Well?!”

  He doesn’t move. He doesn’t understand. He only knows:

  “We need your help.” His tone is level. Even. Nothing else is.

  “I know.” She comes closer, stepping beyond him and into the room. “Come on, sad sacks, I know a way out.”

  “You came back!” Ricket cries with relief.

  There’s still a ringing in his ears.

  “Daisy 2.0 bought you time.” She still sounds bitter as she moves to grasp one of the children's limp wrists, hoisting them to their feet. “Are you just going to sit there?” She looks to Rivin.

  He can’t move. How are you alive?

  Slink, still caught in the throes of shock, sputters pitifully, “D-Daisy? Th-That was Daisy?”

  How are we still alive?

  “2.0,” she corrects.

  Why did you come back?

  “Rivin! Get a move on!”

  She barks the order. He moves.

  He’s still breathless as he returns to the others. He must shake the blur away. The questions. He’s filed so much away. It’s all overwhelming him now. Still, they proceed quickly, gathering the children from the floor. In the distance, screeching can be heard, rumbling too overhead — Saint reinforcements, he assumes.

  “Where—”

  “Follow me.”

  They do. She leads them back into the cylindrical room. Much of the structure has fallen away, including, and most importantly, the room above. The window, once broken, is now completely absent alongside an enormous portion of the wall where deep cracks run on either side.

  Filing cabinets and binders litter the floor; singed papers are spewed across the entirety alongside bodies and blood. Angel corpses lay scattered, pieces spread and tangled. A wrapped torso and legs dangle from the open gash in the wall, a trail of red painting the stone beneath them.

  Beyond, they can see the light of the bridge. Closer now than ever before.

  The giant grate, too, is busted and partially caved in, exposing the murky depths below. The water rushes onward beneath them. Ignorant of human struggle. The temple groans. Dust spittles the air when the cracks continue to grow.

  His eyes track the horror. The devastation. His tongue feels fat in his throat.

  “Roach, what did you do…?”

  “Hush. No more questions. Follow me or die.” She sounds serious. He knows that she is.

  “Roach—”

  She spares him a sharp look. He bites his tongue.

  Eventually, they all stand before the grate's jagged and twisted opening.

  “So?” Slink clears his throat. He’s fiddling. “Where is the way out exactly?”

  “Down.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding…”

  “Roach—” Rivin tries again.

  “What?!” Her eyes are livewire.

  “You're loot?” He sounds small. He hates it.

  Roach curls her lip, and yet her words surprise him. She looks away. Back to the hole. The screeching looms closer. “I made my choice,” she murmurs to the dark. “For better or worse.” She looks entirely torn — gaze glistening with something else left unsaid.

  He understands it. Or perhaps hopes that he does. I chose you.

  “Where does this lead?” Chip queries—just as a deafening horn blares in the distance, vibrating the floor. The temple is shaking again. Creaking as the fissures run deeper webbed tracks.

  It won't be long now.

  Roach shakes her head, bites her lip. “Somewhere else.”

  “You just expect us—?”

  She doesn't wait, only pulls the child tight to her side and advances. She looks back just once — and then steps over the edge.

  Another explosion rattles the facility.

  They’re out of time.

  “Come on!” Rivin darts after her, no hesitation.

  He holds the youth tightly and holds his breath as well, and he leaps.

  For a heartbeat he sees Roach below him, hair like ink in the abyss, before she’s gone. Devoured.

  Then, he hits the violent and icy water, and the darkness swallows him too.