Ein jolted awake as violent tremors shook the dark room. He grunted, shivering as his bare feet touched the icy metal floor. The screaming of metal on metal and the deep clunking of distant gears didn’t bother him anymore—it was simply the way of Hel.

“Everyone up and out! Time to move!” Ein’s voice was rough and slow, commanding despite his exhaustion.

“By the Dark One’s immortal soul, already?” Tin asked, yawning and stretching languidly. Her wild blonde hair stuck to her broad face, matted with sweat despite the cold.

Jav cursed as he stubbed his toe on something in the darkness. “It’s been what, two hours? The Change is happening more erratically.”

Ein nudged Zia awake with a foot. “Up, girl. We have about two minutes before the Change crushes us into roach food.”

The youth remained silent but began gathering her things. Even after a year together, she was still quiet and dour. Ein couldn’t blame her, not after what she’d been through.

Jav and Tin clicked on their torches, filling the bare metal room with sudden, blinding radiance. Within thirty seconds, the four of them stepped out into a thin hallway, wary of the increasing tremors.

“Hel’s in a foul mood today,” Jav muttered, casually sidestepping a falling steel plate.

“This bastard of a place is always in a foul mood.” Tin’s laugh echoed down the hallway, too loud and cheerful.

“Would’ve been nice for it to be considerate enough to be foul after we got more than two hours of sleep,” Jav snapped, clearly on edge like the rest of them.

The usual dread smothered them as they quieted and continued down the twisting, nonsensically laid out hallway. They weren’t family, or even true friends. Hel, they were hardly acquaintances despite surviving together for countless years. But they were all each other had.

Ein trailed behind the others, covering their rear. His spear—little more than a malformed and broken pipe—served as both weapon and walking staff. He let the familiar darkness consume him, straining his ears to ensure nothing followed. The shaking gradually lessened as minutes bled by, concluding after twenty minutes in a hellish cacophony of living metal consuming itself.

His body and mind refused to release the paranoia and tension that had kept him alive for so long. Each step was purposeful, even if he never knew where they were headed. Ein had one goal: keep the group alive.

He halted as the others continued forward, whipping around with gray eyes wide. Ein waited, tugging at his unkempt black beard. Silent darkness stared back, as if in competition. He scowled and—

There. Golden pinpricks of light in the distance.

Damn the dead gods, he thought, lips pulling back in a silent snarl.

Ein spun and stomped forward, spear thunking against the floor. It took only a minute to reach the now-still group.

“Demons,” Ein said slowly, his expression grim.

“Seriously?” Jav muttered, his pale face blanching as he clutched at the twisted knife on his belt.

“Even in their absence, the gods toy with us.” Tin’s icy blue eyes were tired. Watching her proud, muscled shoulders slump—her height shrinking as if she collapsed in on herself—was like taking a helfire bolt to the gut.

Ein strode forward, clearing any trace of fear from his face as he ruffled Zia’s short, uneven shock of red hair. “We will persevere. As we always have.”

Zia’s thin, gaunt face was a mask of pure terror. Ein crouched, his large bulk still towering over the girl. He didn’t attempt to hug the skittish youth, but stared deep into the emerald pools of her eyes.

“They won’t harm you, Zia. We’ll simply outpace and avoid them as we always have. Don’t be frightened, child—they’ll need to get through me regardless,” he rumbled before rising and nodding to Jav and Tin. “That goes for you two fools as well. Let’s hurry on.”

That quelled their fears slightly, and they quickened their pace. Ein stayed a dozen paces behind Zia, with Tin taking point and Jav close behind her. Every minute or so, Ein looked behind them. The golden pinpricks of light still came, just as distant as before.

He followed the group around a sharp corner, sighing when he saw what appeared to be an endless staircase. They ascended, minutes bleeding by as the stairs twisted and curved at odd intervals. Ein knew the others were likely thinking of their possible impending death, and he needed to distract them.

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“With any luck, we’ll find a stream or crossroads after these stairs, then we can speed things up and lose the demons,” he said, trying—and failing—to sound hopeful.

“That’d be nice, but I’m more worried about finding food,” Tin predictably said with a hollow chuckle.

“If we find food, we’re likely to find trouble…” Jav was, as always, a bit of a pessimist.

“Perhaps today the humans we stumble across won’t try to kill us!” Ein forced a laugh. “We have some good things to trade, after all.”

“Hey Ein. Do you think today will be the day you tell us what you remember about your past?” Zia asked softly. That made the others perk up. It had been days since she last spoke.

Ein sighed, then considered the question. He…he was nothing before he found these three. For the thousandth time he wracked his mind. Decades of a life of hardships and glories that he felt he must have lived—the body of a warrior of some kind, with the scars and exhaustion to match. Yet a void sat where the memories should be. He remembered nothing beyond this cold, metallic Hel.

“I don’t, sadly. I remember nothing besides Hel,” Ein said as the group climbed a tight spiraling section of stairs.

“I remember…ash and pain. Wilting grass and burning corpses…” Zia trailed off.

The words hung heavy in the cold air. Ein frowned as the silence stretched. Jav and Tin both had about as much memory as Zia, though theirs were less unsettling.

Before anyone spoke again, the Change came down upon them. Tin and Jav both nearly fell backwards as they stumbled, trying to avoid the collapsing staircase ahead.

“Down everyone, now!” Ein roared, snatching up Zia with his right arm.

The other two hurried past him, but Jav hesitated. “But…the demons…”

“We’ll deal with that when we need to! Keep an eye out for new paths and maybe we can still avoid them.” Ein’s voice brooked no argument.

Metal screamed behind them as the passage and stairs collapsed, though Ein didn’t waste time looking. They made good time, but the stairs just kept descending. The end was nowhere in sight.

Ein reached forward and yanked Tin back as a massive pipe swung down from the ceiling. It crashed against the wall, denting it and making Tin curse.

“Thanks Ein,” Tin muttered, nodding at him before continuing.

Ein felt the tremors increasing, as did the screeching of metal. But under it all, he could just make out the distant footsteps of demons. His grip tightened on his spear, useless as it was against monsters like them.

They couldn’t outpace the Change, and the passage started morphing before their eyes. Long wall panels of metal fell away into infinite darkness, others clattered off smaller sections, revealing rougher panels like it was shedding skin. The stairs began curving erratically, some parts of the passage closing in on them before expanding, as if Hel was breathing.

Falling panels and pipes steadily grew in frequency, their path growing more dangerous by the second. Zia was a quiet, trembling weight under his arm. Ein silently commended her for not crying or making a sound of fear.

“Ein…” Jav said, his voice thick with dread.

The golden pinpricks flared in the darkness far below, but they were alarmingly close. Ein stomped forward, handing Zia over to Tin as he stopped in front of the group. His considerable bulk shielded his companions, but he knew the demons could burn through him in mere moments. He waved them forward, and the group hesitantly followed him down the unstable passage.

Toward the demons.

After a few minutes, the demons’ eyes flickered, and Ein blinked. They were far too close for comfort. Ein shielded Jav from a falling pipe, letting it painfully smash against his back. It banged against a wall panel to the right, knocking it loose with a clatter.

“Here! Looks like there’s a passageway behind this panel—help me pry it free,” Ein said with urgency.

With the help of Jav and Tin, the panel was slowly pulled away from the hall, but not far enough. Gold light filled the stairway as something roared past Ein, exploding against the stairs a dozen paces above them in a shower of molten flame. He grunted and they managed to get the panel far enough for even Ein to fit through. He ushered Zia through first, then Jav.

Ein glanced down at the demons’ eyes just as another bolt of helfire shot from the darkness. He growled and tossed Tin through the gap in the wall as the bolt reached him. It grazed his left arm, exploding against the ceiling above. Ein hissed and tried to ignore the streak of blackened, burned flesh and the searing pain pulsing through his arm.

He squeezed through the gap right as another bolt hit some pipes above the loose panel. Molten steel sprayed and massive sections of pipe blew apart, partially covering the gap. Ein turned and hurried to catch up to the others, who had smartly continued forward instead of waiting.

The passage was flat and wide, so without a word they gradually started jogging, trying to put distance between themselves, the demons, and the Change. Ten, then twenty minutes flew by in a haze. It took another twenty for the rumbling of the Change to be nothing but small vibrations.

“Are you alright Ein?” Tin asked, huffing.

He nodded, though he didn’t speak. After a moment he held up a hand, causing the others to slow to a brisk walk. His wound was agonizing, but he pushed the pain down. He couldn’t afford the distraction.

“Your burn will need tending soon, regardless…” Zia said softly, gazing up at the mountain of a man’s hard face.

Ein grunted in response. Jav was lanky and a mediocre fighter, but he had extensive knowledge about mechanical things and even some of the odd technology they sometimes found across Hel. Tin was good in a battle, and almost as scarred and large as Ein—yet she knew how to safely make the vile food they found edible, sometimes even capable of nearly making it taste good with the right supplies. Ein himself was little use to them outside of combat or hunting.

But Zia was the only reason they were still alive. She was the only one of them who knew anything about medicine and healing. Without her, they would’ve never found the salves and sterile bandages they carried. They wouldn’t even be able to stitch a small cut or make a rash go away without the youth.

But that could wait until they were safe and fed.