It’s dark... It hurts... I can’t breathe...

What floor am I on...? I guess it doesn’t matter now anyway.

With shaky hands, I pull out the folded-up paper big sis Mei-Mei gave me. It’s got my name on it—‘Biscuit’—as well as some kind of metal thing taped to the page. I don’t know what it is but Mei-Mei didn’t say anything about it so it must not be very important...

Inside the paper is a step-by-step plan to wake up Lust and meet up with everybody else again outside the Curse Ward, but...

It’s covered in blood. Maybe mine. Maybe not. I can’t tell... The only step I can make out now is the last one. ‘Everybody escapes’. I don’t think I’ll be escaping with the others anymore though... Well, as long as Bran, Pepper, and Mei-Mei escape then it’s fine. As long as those three make it in the end, I’ll be happy...

I think back to the events that led me here...

...

"It's poop," big sis Pepper sniffled. “Poop and wee.”

I held back tears of my own as I watched Bran wet himself all over the floor, pretending to be dead. I was using my Curse to hide away in the corner where nobody would notice me, waiting for a chance...

“We’re opening up now so back away from the door,” the guards called back from the other side.

After Pepper and Mei-Mei stepped away from the door, the guards opened it and came inside. That was my chance! Quickly and soundlessly, I slipped in behind them, through the door and into the hallway behind. Shortly after, the guards came back into the hallway, complaining about Bran not being dead. With my Curse, I sat in the corner and waited. And I waited. And waited. And...

“Ah. It’s time for the switchover, I daresay.”

“Yep. Let’s get outta here.”

Eventually, the guards started to move and the door at the end of the hallway opened up. I continued following them through. Through one door, and then another, and another, and then—

I was in the elevator waiting room. There were a bunch of guards standing around but, because of my Curse, none of them noticed me. I still had to be careful though. If I made too loud a noise or bumped into somebody by accident—if I did anything to draw attention to myself—people would notice. I didn't want that.

Avoiding the guards, I sneaked my way into the stairwell and up the steps before arriving at the very top. Floor one hundred. Creeping past all the guards on the new floor, I made it to a big door at the end. Locked, of course. Big sis Mei-Mei said I’d probably have to open it myself.

Slowly and quietly, I reached up and unlocked one of the locks on the door. In response, it unlatched with a heavy thunk. Looking around, none of the guards seemed to have noticed. As long as I was careful and quiet, I wouldn’t bring attention to myself. Because of my Curse, they would never notice me. I just had to take it slow.

I reached up again. Slowly... Carefully... I unlatched another one of the locks on the door.

Thunk.

Two down, five to go.

As I attempted to unlatch the third lock...

Ding!

A noise pinged out behind me and I turned around to see a man step out of the elevator and into the room.

“W-Warden, sir! What are you doing up here?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling that those three are planning something down there,” the man growled back at the startled guard. “I’ve come to check on Lust myself.”

It was the Warden. He wasn’t supposed to be up there yet. That wasn’t part of Mei-Mei’s plan...

I hid in the corner as the Warden approached the door I was trying to unlock.

“Hm?” He looked at the door and gave a scary snarl. “Why is this door unlocked?! What have you fools been doing up here?!”

“I-I have no idea, sir! Nobody’s touched the door, I swear!”

“Fools!” He snarled again and started unlocking the rest himself.

Another chance! It wasn’t part of the plan but I pushed ahead anyway. As the Warden unlocked the door and burst through, I followed close behind him. Hurrying through the hallway, we quickly came to a big room. It wasn’t as big as a prison wing like the Curse Ward. It was just a room that was kind of big.

Around the room, colourful tubes and cords snaked across the floor and up the walls. Metal boxes with glowing lights shined brightly from different corners of the room, softly humming to themselves. Glowy lights shone out from weird devices and funny machines everywhere I looked. And in the centre of the room—

“Lust...” the Warden spat, looking up at the big tube in front of us.

A big glass tube filled with some kind of liquid, buzzing with a gentle hum. Inside the tube, a giant, muscular woman floated inside the liquid, smaller tubes sticking out from her mouth. Her eyes were closed and she was clearly asleep, but even in the situation she was in, she still looked happy for some reason.

“...ha..ha..ha...” Bubbles started to form in the liquid, and the sleeping woman shook around a little inside the glass. She was laughing.

“—!” The Warden reacted in shock, and then instantly forced himself to calm down. I smelled the anger and bloodlust he was feeling slowly die down as he did. After that, the woman inside the tube stopped laughing.

“This was a mistake...” The Warden sighed as he turned around and left the way he came.

Another chance!

Waiting for the warden to leave, I went around to the back of the big glass tube and started pulling on various cords and ripping them from different machines. It was all in the plan Mei-Mei gave me.

As I pulled on more cords, a voice suddenly rang out.

“[WARNING. BREACH IN ORGANIC STASIS CHAMBER #0000.]”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was the voice I heard in the mist the other day...

I kept tugging on cords, pulling them away from the big glass tube.

“[WARNING. ACTIVATING AUTO-DEFENSE SYSTEMS IN— ]”

Before the voice could finish, I pulled out one last cord— And then it stopped.

After I did, the tube opened up and all the liquid spilled out onto the floor. The sleeping woman inside rolled out and onto the floor with a heavy thud. She wasn’t moving. She was still asleep.

I carefully approached the woman. She had long red hair and dark skin—darker than mine. Her whole body was covered in thick muscles, even bigger than big sis Pepper’s.

It was Lust.

Suddenly, she grinned—and her yellow eyes flicked open. I quickly scampered backward and hid in the corner of the room.

“Ah... ‘Twas a most wonderful dream...” she said, picking herself off the ground and ripping the tubes from her mouth. “Truly wonderful...”

“What the hell is—!” The Warden burst back into the room and instantly paused in shock when he saw Lust in front of him. “How...?”

—And then I left. Slipping behind the Warden, I left the room and ran back towards the stairs like Mei-Mei had planned. But—

“Gyahaha!”

There was loud laughter and a big explosion. The walls and ceiling collapsed around me, burying me in rubble. I was in a lot of pain, but I tried to dig myself out. I dug, and dug, and dug, and—

“Gyahahaha!”

An even louder laugh and an even louder explosion.

It was louder and more powerful than anything I had ever heard and felt. The sound of screaming metal and shredded concrete filled my ears and shook my body. It seemed to last forever. And when it finally ended... I dug.

Pushing, squirming, and twisting my way out from underneath the collapsed metal and concrete, I finally pulled my body out from the rubble to find myself—

Outside... I could see the sun up in the sky, the clouds slowly shifting above and below me, the view of the lake peeking out from the ones below... I was outside. The wind was whipping my hair and tail around wildly and I had to dig my claws into the floor to stop from being blown away. What was left of the floor anyway...

The room where Lust and the Warden once stood was now a hole—a massive, gaping pit that stretched down further than I could see, even with the sunlight shining down into it. I didn’t know where the Warden and Lust were but they weren’t here. That’s all I knew.

I hoped everybody in Curse Ward was still okay...

Behind me, the stairway back down was caved in, but the room with the elevator still stood. Making my way to the elevator, the stuck-open doors jittered as they struggled to close again—nothing but a dark endless shaft on the other side. A big, bloody claw-print was planted on the side of the wall. The Warden’s, maybe...? He might have taken the elevator back down again...

Peering between the jittering doors and into the dark shaft behind, I noticed a ladder against the side. It seemed to go all the way down into the darkness. Climbing through the doors, I grabbed hold of the ladder on the wall, and then made my way down it.

As I passed floor ninety-nine, I noticed the blood and bodies dripping out of the broken open doors. Bran and the others must’ve already left the Curse Ward, I thought. As so I kept climbing.

Down and down I climbed, passing many other floors along the way.

BANG!

From below me, I could see the elevator zooming down the shaft, further and further away from me.

BANG!

Ignoring the loud noises coming from it, I continued climbing down. Down and down and down and—

“Gyahahaha!”

—A fiery explosion echoed out from below me and I felt the whole Spire shake and groan. Hot black smoke billowed up the shaft and I shut my eyes, continuing to climb my way down. Down and down and down.

I didn’t know where Bran and the others were but I hoped they were okay. We were supposed to meet up again on the ninety-ninth floor, but... I don’t think big sis Mei-Mei planned on this much destruction. She couldn’t have known... We’d have to all meet up again at the bottom instead...

Eventually, I reached the end of the ladder. Or as far as I could climb anyway. The rest of it had been snapped and twisted by the explosion. Below me was the wreckage of the elevator—scraps of warped metal trailing down into a hole beneath.

Floor sixty-six. I knew where I was because Mei-Mei said this was as far as the advanced elevator went. From where I was, If I wanted to go down any further, I knew I had two choices.

The first was to run through floor sixty-six, find another elevator, and go down from there. However...

A heavy red mist lingered below me. Gas. From inside, I could hear a wet buzzing noise, with the occasional thunking of something metal hopping across the floor.

And so I picked the second choice. Holding my breath, I jumped down into the mist and into the wreckage of the elevator. Squeezing myself through the hole in the floor, I made my way down. The hole continued down even further, and so I did too—still holding my breath. Eventually...

I had made it to a floor with no mist. ‘64’ the numbers on the wall said. And then I kept running. Past guards and prisoners, past metal monsters with drills on their heads, past all the fighting and screaming and dying—I ran. Down the stairs, down the floors, down and down.

“... pudding, pudding, pudding...”

I passed a kitchen, a lone woman swatting at the giant metal monsters with nothing but the saucepan held in her tail as she focused on whisking the bowl in her hands...

“Get down, I daresay!”

“—Oof!”

I passed two guards—one of them pushing the other out of the way of the collapsing ceiling—and kept running. Down and down and down. Until...

A massive explosion echoed out somewhere above me—just as big as the one on the hundredth floor. Everything shook around me. The walls collapsed, the ceiling caved in, dust and debris showered my body with pain, and then...

...

Here I am...

Caught in a small pocket beneath all the rubble and debris, there’s no place for me to dig, no opening for me to squeeze through, and no chance of me pushing any further on. This is the end for me. With every pained breath, I feel the air inside the tiny space become thinner and thinner and my mind drifting further and further away...

I’m sure Bran, Pepper, and Mei-Mei must have made it out by now. They must’ve made it to the first floor and escaped the Spire together by boat. Right now, they must be rowing across the lake to freedom, having completely forgotten about me because of my Curse...

I don’t mind though. It’s better this way. It’s better if they forget. At least if they forget, they won’t have to feel sad about it. I don’t want them to feel sad...

As my mind starts to slip away, my final thoughts are of all the new friends I made in the Curse Ward of the Surstrom Spire prison. Spending time with those three was the most fun I’ve ever had in my whole life. I just wish I could’ve spent just one more day with all of them... Just one more...

As a dull ringing hums in my ears, my vision fades to black...

...

—And then the ringing becomes louder. Sharper and sharper, it seems to move closer towards me. It’s not a ringing in my ears. It’s coming from—

Suddenly, the rubble shifts and a tiny ray of light shines down from above.

“... still can’t fit. Tell the gorilla to keep lift...”

I hear a muffled voice from the other side.

“... the hell is a slow loris? Tell her to stop being an idiot and...”

They seem to be arguing with somebody.

“That’s it!” the voice shouts, as the rubble shifts again and the gap becomes wider.

A tiny pale hand reaches down from the gap and hovers in front of my face. Instantly, I reach my own hand up and grab it. For a moment, it recoils a little in surprise at my touch—and then quickly wraps its fingers around mine.

Her hand feels cold and dead to the touch, but...

“Keh-heh-heh!” she laughs, squeezing my hand even tighter. “I did promise we’d all meet up again soon, didn’t I?”

... It’s warm.