Ashes of the Elite

I make it back to my floor, lungs burning a little from the dust. The hallway is just as I left it, cracks zigzag up the walls, some cracks so wide it looks someone took a battering ram to the wall, some of the cracks were dark and wet with something that looks suspiciously like sap. The floor is still warped and uneven tiles heaved up, some broken entirely, threatening to give way underfoot if I put my weight wrong. My boots crunch and slide with each step, making me nervous.

Plants are everywhere, roots snaking out from under doors and curling up through the floor, their pale tips questing blindly into the open air. Some rooms are half-choked with greenery, vines climbing the walls and tangling across the thresholds. It's uncanny, unnatural like the building is being reclaimed by something wild and hungry, even as chaos reigns inside. Whoever has the mark of power is one sadistic bastard.

I force myself into one of the ruined rooms, boots crunching over shattered tile and splinters of wood. The door hangs crooked on its hinges, and what's left of the frame is tangled with thick green vines, their tips slick with blood. The bodies inside are barely recognizable as boys—more like rag dolls torn apart by some animal. Roots have punched through their chests and mouths, curling around limbs and necks, lifting one of them half a meter off the floor as if the plants themselves are showing off their handiwork. The smell hits me a second later: piss and blood. My stomach clenches. I double over, retching onto the floor, the acid taste burning my throat. Even after I stop, my hands shake as I wipe my mouth on my sleeve, forcing myself to breathe through my nose, to look away from the carnage. Blood has pooled and dried in sticky patches, glinting dark on the cracked tiles. A third body is half-hidden behind a toppled wardrobe, his face ghostly pale except for the streaks of crimson across his jaw. I stop, just for a heartbeat, staring at the carnage in disbelief.

I stumble back into the hallway, vision swimming, and try to focus on something anything but the image of those bodies keeps replaying behind my eyes. I move on, careful not to touch the walls, not to let the roots brush my skin. Every step feels heavier, the horror settling into my bones.

When I reach my own room, I stop short. The door is exactly as I left it shut tight, not a scratch or smear of blood, not even a stray leaf curling across the threshold. Now that the first wave of panic has faded, a cold realization creeps in. Whoever or whatever did this skipped my room entirely. Why? Did they know who I was? Was it random, or intentional? The fear is different now, more personal. I stare at the door, heart thudding, trying to puzzle out whether my survival is luck, or if it's the worst omen of all.

I glance into another room. More bodies, more carnage. A boy hangs suspended from the ceiling, vines wrapped tight around his wrists and ankles, skin scored by a thousand razor-thin cuts. A third room: two dead, faces contorted, one clutching at his ruined eyes. The floor is slick with blood, roots weaving between ribs and out of mouths. Whoever did this didn't just want to kill. They wanted to make it hurt as much as possible. The knowledge sits heavy and sour in my gut, but it's the malicious artistry that really turns my stomach. This was deliberate and sadistic. Every wound is purposeful, every body arranged for maximum suffering and spectacle. They wanted whoever came after to see. This is the work of an Elite who knows exactly how to inflict pain, who wants their victims to suffer and everyone else to notice each room I pass is a new lesson in cruelty.

I don't even know how long I've been walking. Could be have been an hour or it could have been half a day. This fucking hallway stretches and folds like it's alive another joke from whatever twisted Proctor designed this gods damn building. Every few steps, I think I've reached the end, only for the corridor to stretch again, distant and wrong like it's sneering at me.

And with every room I pass, my hatred for the killer curdles hotter inside me. It's not just the slaughter it's the joy, the twisted artistry in every wound, every mutilated body left behind like a signature. I can feel it in the air, the taunt of it: they want to be seen, want someone to bear witness to their handiwork. Rage claws at my insides, so hot it makes the voices at the back of my mind hiss in glee. I want to find the bastard responsible. I want to carve their smile off their face.

At last, the battered steps to the fourth floor come into view, twisted iron rails hanging loose and roots snaking up through the broken stone. I'm just starting to climb when a faint sound barely more than a breath catches behind me. I spin, sword raised, muscles tensed for a fight.