Metal screeched and groaned, wrenching out unwanted memories of the Cryers and their eerie dirge, as though they had never succumbed to a nightmare far worse than the mealy waste feeders could ever appear.

The security gate no longer served any purpose other than to heighten the unease welling in the pit of my stomach. I turned to look back again toward the lab I'd left behind. Those delusions from earlier weren't so incredible now.

Every fiber of my being begged me to flee from what laid inside the lab. Oh, it was a different matter when it was 'contained'. Not that I ever had the luxury of safety around it behind reinforced steel knowing its capabilities. Not to mention the condition of the gate, double-plated fixtures I was assured could withstand two full barrages of high-tier demolition magic, which didn't impress me in the slightest considering #601's raw destructive and indestructible power when enraged. All without magic...

Stifling a hysterical laugh, I already knew the bulkheads to its containment cell were most certainly compromised. #601 was free.

I very nearly bolted through the faulty barrier, terrorized and more shaken than a newborn foal. I suppose my legs were more shaky than I thought. As I careened toward the gate's threshold, my ankle twisted, hurling me to the floor. The sharp crack of my chin meeting steel plating sent waves of pain reverberating through my skull.

Dazed, I blindly groped the floor, struggling to regain my footing. As soon as a foot found purchase, I lurched forward, paying no heed to lopsided, swaying walls or the tendrils of smoke seeping from freshly buckled cracks along the white-washed halls.

"Oh... ah... Gods, what in Ghenna... what...?"

I didn't have the presence of mind to realize how delirious I was. My head still ringing after the fall, and the thickening smoke was beginning to catch on the back of my throat, it was no wonder. Before long I had to force myself against a wall to regain my balance.

"A-anyone! Is there anyone here!"

I managed to cry out through a fit of coughs, hoping that maybe someone had an idea of what had happened. A silent, pitiful plea echoed back, only to be met with a few choice words spat out in the heat of the moment.

What am I thinking! I'm on the eastern wing of the second sublevel. There's no one around here at this time of day except me.

I couldn't stay here. Normally the ventilation system would mitigate heavy smoke like this within minutes. Maybe so, under normal circumstances. It appeared that it wasn't. A dense smog filled every corner and hall. Holding a sleeve over my face didn't improve things either. Forget the smoke, I couldn't see through murky tears and swollen eyelids.

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"Cough..."

I'm going to die here.

No. I'm not. That's the first thing I should tell myself. That is, if I were sure of myself. My faltering steps begged to differ.

There were some programs for personnel safety training when I first began working here... how ironic that I can't remember any of it.

One precarious step after another. Head injury, smoke poisoning, or some combination of both I wasn't too sure, I could have sworn I felt the floor shaking.

Soon I came out to the second sublevel's egress point. Just like the ninth floor down, it was those damn stairs. The stair guard wasn't at his post, of course. While he failed his duties, he instead found the composure to reseal them after a presumable floor-wide evacuation to the transit room. Security, naturally, was his highest priority.

"No way..."

I slumped at the edge of the landing, blankly staring into the hazy abyss below. I was too late.

Considering my sorry state, rationalizing this outcome came bluntly. I saw no one else, not in the short while I sat there. I couldn't have been that slow. Surely.

"Anyone? Pl-ea-augh.."

Swift, and subtle. A slithering grasp deep inside my chest. I tried to call out again, exhaling only smoke.

Deep, throbbing pain erupted from deep inside my ribs, cleaving my body up to the head.

"Gahhgh... wh-at is this?"

It wasn't normal smoke. Every part of my body buzzed, tips of toes and fingers tingling on a needle's point. I read about this back at the academy.

No way... Ether poisoning?

The smoke wasn't really smoke. It was vaporized Ether, rapidly sublimating and dissipating into mana.

But how? From where?

Soon, all the veins in my body would burst. Not the arteries, so I'd live for another minute longer than if it were the arteries. Mana only accumulates in stagnant or slow flowing blood. That was basic Mana theory.

What a relief that is... damn.

Rolling over onto my side, I stared back into the hallway I came from. It loomed, bleary and tinged red from the blood pooling inside my corneas. Breathing erratic. Extreme heart palpitations as it strained against swelling flesh.

Mom... Dad... Lizzie, Kurt... I'm sorry. I won't be coming back home. I promised but...

My fate sealed itself in the very next breath. I couldn't inhale anymore.

My insides are spasming too much to breathe. I can't hold anything in without it coming right out again.

The pain subsided, but that only meant the nerves in my body finally fried as all the Ether absorbed in my body returned to its invisible, deadly form. I really am dying.

I thought I might go out in a better light than this. Not alone, at least. Or more gruesomely in some abomination's gullet, which might seem odd to wish for. I wouldn't consider myself a sane man in that moment, frankly speaking. And in that moment, now with eyes eternally blotted out with dark crimson, and immobile, the sounds around me became unnaturally sharp. Perhaps this was my body's last attempt at survival, heightening the only sense I had left to save myself from this ghastly end.

I awaited my final moments, attentively listening.

Low, guttural rumbling of the lower floors.

The sly, venomous hiss of Ether.

A sloppy pit-pat against stone, meaty and weighty, precariously tumbling towards me.