Ein woke to an aching body, someone shaking his shoulder, and the sound of metal tearing apart. He groaned, throat scratchy and dry as he coughed and opened his eyes. He didn’t push himself up immediately as his eyes were drawn to scratches on the metal floor near him.

  Words? he thought, running a hand across the frantic inscription. They were only partially legible, warning against trusting the child of god.

  He sat up, deeply unsettled for some reason. Only a mild lance of pain shot through him, thanks to whatever Zia had done while he’d been unconscious. Ein glanced at the many bandages he was swathed in, mildly amused.

  He swatted Zia away, then heaved himself to his feet, unsteady due to more than just the strengthening tremors. The teen hovered nearby, eyeing her handiwork critically before rushing off to gather her pack and gear. Tin and Jav were already packed and ready to go.

  “Surprised you’re moving so well after only a few hours of rest,” Jav said, arching one thin eyebrow, then turning his dark gaze upwards, toward the groaning ceiling far above.

  “I’d love to banter, bicker, and laud Ein for being an absolute unit, but uh…” Tin said with a cheerful, broad grin. “Maybe we should get moving. I’d rather not get buried in this whirlpool under a mountain of steel.”

  Ein nodded in agreement. He wasted no time, and within thirty seconds he was laden with gear and already moving. He held his glowing shard of crystal high as he led the group up the stairs ringing the circular hole of a room.

  The Change came down on them with fury as they were half way up the stairs. Ein let the others pass him, unable to keep up his brisk pace. Above him, red light flared as fissures opened in the ceiling. To his horror, waterfalls of blood, gore, human corpses and mechanical pieces thundered down toward the whirlpool.

  He steadied himself with one hand on the wall as he looked down. The whirlpool was crimson and tainted now, torrents of water frothing like a thing enraged. Ein widened his eyes when he realized the water was rising rapidly, filling the space and creeping its way to the group.

  He hurried upward, trying not to think of the watery grave reaching for them. It took them a few minutes, but they reached the top of the stairs just as they started collapsing. Metal screeched as nearby walls and pipes were torn apart, spraying shards of metal into the air to mix with jets of steam.

  They ignored the barred door to the trapped halls, focusing instead on a new route to their right. A massive jagged tear had appeared on the wall there, almost hidden by the growing steam. Ein followed the others through the tear just as massive portions of the ceiling crashed down behind him.

  The Change evaporated like droplets of water hitting molten steel. In a single heartbeat, the tremors and screeching stopped. It left them in an eerie silence, save for their blood rushing in their ears and their gasping breaths echoing in the rough, metallic tunnel.

  “I guess we should be grateful for the rest we did get,” Tin said, elbowing an exhausted and frustrated looking Jav.

  He lashed out at her, slapping her arm away from him as he turned on her, snarling. “I can’t take this anymore! I—” his voice cracked, “I’m tired. This isn’t living. It’s an agonizing, drawn out death!”

  “Woah, Jav. I know how—”

  “I don’t think you do! You lot make it seem like you were born for Hel. Me, on the other hand? My bones scream, my heads always pounding, overworked by constant fear, I hallucinate demons and monsters every second of the day! Only to dream of them during the few hours of sleep we catch before everything tries to kill us again…”

  His shrill, hysterical voice echoed through the tunnel, making Ein wince. He stomped forward, pushing Tin aside and grabbing Jav by his rag of a shirt. Ein pulled him close, until their foreheads touched, his dark, hard eyes staring into Jav’s darting, wide ones.

  “What two options do we have, Jav,” he rumbled, voice low and laced with exhaustion.

  Jav finally focused on his eyes. He stared into those bottomless pits of such pain and soul crushing exhaustion, trembling. It took him a moment to respond.

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  “We survive…” Jav murmured.

  “Or we die. Our only purpose in Hel is to survive. We do that as a cohesive group, or not at all.” Ein let go of him, then added, “Plus…we might have grim destinies, by I’ll be damned if I don’t go down trying to burn this place out of existence.”

  Jav nodded frantically, falling to the rear of the group as Ein shook his head at an amused Tin. He started off again, Zia, Tin and Jav spread out behind him. Their torches danced across the path ahead, barely cutting through the dense shadows.

  Ein’s mood soured as he considered his own weariness and lack of hope. Not to mention his sometimes lackluster talents for keeping this group together and alive. He couldn’t explain why he was originally drawn to these weaker survivors, or why he had always felt the need to protect their sorry behinds. It was as if his entire being wouldn’t allow for anything else from him.

  Ein cursed as he stumbled and fell. The floor sloped downward, and he should’ve been more aware of his surroundings. He tumbled a few times but settled at the bottom of the slope relatively uninjured.

  He raised his sword and unsteadily rose to his feet. The wide hall before him was unusual, to say the least. Smooth dark gray paneling, lights and screens along the walls flickering on as he stepped forward. Debris and bones were scattered across the length of the long hall.

  “Careful on your way down!” Ein shouted up at the others.

  He glanced around the room, annoyed at the constant flickering of the dim white lights that ran through the walls like veins of crystal. Most screens were broken or sparking. He squinted, eyeing an odd section about forty feet away from him.

  That can only mean good things, surely, he thought. A figure sat on the floor against one wall, and humanoid looking skeletons—some partially metallic—protruded from the walls and floors further down the hall. Some reached out in desperation, or screamed in terror, but they were all frozen as if the hall were built around them.

  The others slid down the slope with a few curses of their own, before momentarily being rendered speechless as they took in the hall. Ein waved them forward, taking lead.

  “Such odd qualities…I haven’t seen monitors and lights like this in over two years! Even if they’re all broke,” Jav said, hands tracing some of the lights and screens as he passed them.

  “Don’t freak out when we get to that area ahead. Horrific and unsettling, yes, but nothing that’s moving.” Ein strode ahead, his sword at the ready despite his words. To his right, a broken screen let out a hissing pop, followed by a shower of sparks.

  The air was dank and stale, smelling of decay and something burnt. They reached the corpses melded into the walls and floors, but Ein slowed as he neared the figure slumped against the left wall. He narrowed his eyes—the cloak covered figure was pinned by a crystal spike.

  As Ein stepped closer to it, Jav said, “Is that a demon?”

  The figure turned out to in fact be a demon, albeit an ancient looking one. It was lankier than most he’d seen, with an oddly long, uncomfortably familiar face. The machine was heavily damaged, its left arm and leg shattered to bits of metal and wires. The ceramic plating on the rest of the body was cracked, though Ein didn’t know what could do that.

  The crystal was too familiar. He hesitated, then held up his own, comparing them. Besides cracks and chips, they were the same. He let his sword drop to his side when Tin approached.

  “Oh we might be able to use that,” she said, perking up and reaching for the shard.

  “Leave it,” Ein snapped without meaning to. “We should hurry on. Something is off about this hall.”

  Tin eyed him before shrugging and walking to catch up with Jav and Zia, who were pulling wires from within a screen. Ein stayed there though, before crouching and staring at the demon. The crystal pierced where the golden orb usually sat, and the runework on the ceramic plates was utterly destroyed.

  He idly gathered up a few metal scraps and devices that weren’t too beat up, knowing Jav had been wanting some demon parts. His eyes drifted to the wall next to the demon—

  One word was inscribed in the metal there.

  Broken.

  It felt like something clawed at his mind as he forced himself to look away, rise, and stride back to the group. He’d noticed no such similar inscriptions before this one and the last one at the whirlpool. They gnawed at him for some reason.

  They exited the stretch of hall with the corpses, then walked another hundred feet before turning right and coming to a fork in the path. Ein swore he could hear something grinding away from the depths of the left path, so they went up the gently inclining right path. Maybe this section of Hel might be more hospitable to them for a time.

  The clean, metallic hallway—all bolted paneling and out of reach wires and pipes—continued on for ten minutes, until it emptied out into a chamber lit by glowing stalagmites of some type of crystallized substance. The room was small and hexagonal, but he ignored all other features as he noticed the center of the room.

  Four shattered and rusted human sized tanks stood there, machines, mechanical arms and tubes surrounding them. Each had their doors twisted, as if something broke out from within. Red sludge leaked from the tanks, looking fresh and wet, despite the tank’s apparent degradation.

  Zia voiced what they were all thinking as she said, “We shouldn’t stay around here too long. I can feel something watching us.”

  That filled him with dread, and the sensation of being watched grew as soon as she mentioned it. Ein nodded in agreement, then led them around the outskirts of the room. He’d be glad to put this room—and the hallways that led to it—far behind him.