The air in the hallway grew tense as Elara and I exchanged a horrified glance.

My heart pounded against my ribs, the sound deafening in my ears as I stumbled back, shock rippling through me. Shadara stumbled to a halt at my side. Elara hovered closer to the body, her expression a mix of horror and concern.

“No. Please, not again,” Elara whispered. She hesitated for a moment before rushing towards the fallen person.

The urge to turn away from the gruesome sight filled me, but my legs refused to move. “Who—who is that?” I managed to choke out.

Elara crouched beside the figure and placed a hand on them. There was so much blood. The pool of crimson around the corpse was a stark contrast to the cold stone floor, and it was growing.

“Whoever did this could still be here.” Shadara stepped forward, her ears swiveling and bow pulled back with a glowing white arrow notched.

Shadara’s words sent a shiver down my spine. My head snapped away, and I frantically spun around, looking for anything out of place. I couldn’t see anything.

May we suggest switching to infrared? You could follow the culprit’s trail by following their temperature trail.

I followed Orange’s suggestion, letting everything in sight filter into a kaleidoscope of blues, oranges, reds, and yellows. Orange thankfully gave me a guide on the side of my vision of what temperature ranges the colors were.

The blood was rapidly cooling against the cold stone floor. The body was hot. Their temperature was hotter than Shadara’s, who, covered in fur, sat at a warm one hundred and two degrees Fahrenheit. Staring at the body as a featureless blob of color made it easier to look at.

“Yeah, the body is still warm, very warm.” I pointed to some yellow spots next to the edge of the pool of blood. “But what’s that?” I magnified my vision on the spots. “Are those footprints? No… paw prints.” I looked at where Shadara had stepped and saw the same thing. “Yeah, just like Shadara’s, only larger.”

“Where are they going?” Shadara raised her bow and aimed towards the body.

“Over there!” I pointed to the door they stopped at. The handle was even still warm. I shifted my vision back to normal to try to catch the number on the door. But its number shimmered, changing to seven. “We missed it. Now they could be anywhere.”

Elara continued to kneel over the body, her ghostly body darkening. “Who would do this? Why?”

I walked up and tried to put my hand on her shoulder, only to watch it pass through. “I don’t know. What are the chances we even should’ve seen this?”

Elara sniffled. “We shouldn’t. The halls are supposed to be uniquely created each time a group enters it. They are constantly created and recycled. Whoever killed this man walked in here with him. He likely knew his killer.”

Shadara returned her bow to its holster on her back. She kept looking around while staying out of the blood. “But you said that the cooks hadn’t seen anyone for a while now. Could this have anything to do with that?”

“I don’t know what’s happening.” Elara buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know!” Her voice raised higher, almost sounding like a shriek. Her clothes were shredding at the edges.

“Who were they?” I squatted down, not wanting to soak my pants in blood, and carefully turned them over.

As the face came into view, I recoiled, my stomach churning. There was almost nothing recognizable left. Something had savagely torn the flesh and exposed most of the skull underneath, with deep gouges in it. One eye was missing, along with the bottom half of his jaw. His once expensive-looking shirt and jacket were shredded, leaving a large hole where his heart should’ve been.

I slipped and stumbled backwards. Scrambling, I crawled away from the horrific sight and dry-heaved once I reached the dry stones.

Shadara gasped and covered her mouth. “Goodness. That’s not just murder. That’s…sick.”

“You have to go.” Elara’s voice had become even more shrill.

I turned to follow Elara’s movements. She clawed her fingers against the nearest door. Her hair flowed wildly, and the hems of her clothes were shredding further. Her normally blue, transparent body had become a deep indigo.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Elara? What’s happened to you?” I pushed myself to my feet as the blood dripped from my hands.

Elara turned towards me with solid black eyes, pulling the door open. “Go!”

Her voice ripped through the air. I flinched as my ears felt like something had stabbed them. Shadara screamed as she fell to a knee.

My head throbbed as my ears continued ringing. “Elara, what’s wrong?”

“You wanted to leave? Well, this is your door out. Our problems aren’t yours, remember?” Elara’s voice shredded my hearing. “Someone is killing people, and it’s just like what happened when I died. I wanted your help. I asked for your help. But you said no!”

Her wail left Shadara and me both screaming and on our backs.

But she didn’t stop, and her voice ripped at the very core of my being. “All I wanted was someone to spend time with. Someone to talk with and have fun with. If you’re going to be selfish, then you can leave me alone! I don’t want to see another person alive.”

“I’m sorry.” My whimper barely earned the attention of Elara. “What I said was wrong.”

“What?” Elara’s voice returned to a normal volume, but it held its sharpness. “What’s wrong?”

My ears buzzed as I felt my nanites working to repair the damage to my eardrums. Shadara panted heavily as she stopped writhing on the ground.

I tried to calm down and apologize for rejecting her like I had before we entered the hallway. “We should’ve tried to help, even if it was a little.”

Elara’s form flickered as she wavered between transparency and solidity. Her face contorted in anguish, and she collapsed against the doorframe, her translucent figure quivering.

“You’re right, I was selfish.” My voice trembled. “We didn’t understand what was happening. Please, Elara, let us help now. Let me make this right.”

Shadara staggered to her feet. “Elara, what are you? This isn’t like you.”

Elara’s translucent form gradually stabilized. She clutched at her ghostly form, her voice a quivering whisper as she stared at the ground in front of her. “I-I don’t know. Something’s wrong with me. I can’t control it. I’ve never felt like this before.”

Shadara approached slowly, her tail swishing behind her. “Is it connected to what’s happening here? The missing people, this… murder?”

Elara’s eyes grew wider. “I hope not. But just now, I felt so much emotion, anger, and despair. It’s like something amplified my feelings, making them uncontrollable. I still feel them. It’s like I need to let them out and make everyone feel the pain I feel.”

I clenched my fist as I watched ghostly tears fall down her cheek.

Elara shivered. “But there’s more. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced in the Nexus before. I’ve never felt this much… power. It’s almost intoxicating. Watching you two reel in pain was sickeningly comforting.”

Shadara swallowed hard. “Elara, I think you’ve become a banshee.”

I looked at the panther beast woman and saw her fur standing on end. “So, can we fix this?”

Elara’s eyes flickered between us. "I don’t know. But you have to leave. I can’t control it. I’m too dangerous. My voice is a weapon—a deadly weapon.”

I wanted to reach out to her and hold her. But I knew I would pass through her ethereal body. So I reached out with the one thing I could touch her with. “We’re not leaving you alone like this. I won’t abandon you again.”

“I know who did this.” Elara folded her knees to her chest and hid her face in her arms. “So please leave. Before I lose control, or she comes back.”

“She?” Shadara asked.

I kneeled in front of her and whispered, “Could this really have been your sister?”

Elara gave a weak nod. “Those are claw marks, just like the ones that killed my friend. And his missing heart—that was her greatest infatuation once the lycanthropy started taking its hold on her. She’s still alive, and she’s still killing.”

“Do you want us to kill her?” Shadara’s blunt question nearly floored me.

Elara shook her head. “I can't... How can I ask you to kill my sister? Yeah, I know I’m not the real Elara, and therefore she’s not my sister. I can’t help but feel that she is.”

“Can your sister kill the sphinx?” I asked.

Elara’s eyes glistened with tears that never fell as she looked at me. “After all this time, maybe. She’s been in the Nexus for years now. Always evading, always lurking, always hunting. Now that I know that she’s still alive, that’s what she would’ve been doing. But now...she wants something.”

Shadara turned to me. “You want to do something? There might be something we can do. Maybe we stay and help the sphinx. The sphinxes are powerful, but if Elara’s sister on this floor can challenge one, maybe all we need to do is balance the scales in the sphinx’s favor.”

“That’s brilliant.” I reached out to hug Shadara.

She pushed me back. She pointed at my hands. “You still have blood on you. I just got my fur cleaned. Can I keep it that way for a while longer, please?” She flashed me a playful smile.

I chuckled. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

We turned to Elara. “Does that sound like a plan? If your sister is causing this and she’s targeting the sphinx, now is the time she’ll strike. We might be able to end this right here, right now.”

Elara stood up and gave a half-hearted smile. “Maybe you’re right. But I can’t shake the fact that this is all my fault. If I had stopped her back then, she wouldn’t be doing this to the Nexus. All of this wouldn’t happen. This person wouldn’t have died, and I wouldn’t have lost control and hurt you two.” She’s breaking down again.

I held up my hands. “Calm down. There’s plenty of blame to go around. But blaming anyone won’t solve anything. We need to do something, and our best plan right now is to help protect the sphinx. Can you help us with that?”

Elara wiped her face with her shredded sleeve. “This door will take you to them. I can’t join you because I’m not allowed. Even if I wanted to, an invisible force prevents me from entering.”

As if to prove her point, she raised her hand and extended it to the open door. But she fell through with a shriek. Shadara and I exchanged looks and turned to the still-open door. Once the confusion cleared through our minds, we followed in after Elara. Maybe she has the wrong door.