The concrete wall pressed cold against Owen's back, but the chill he felt wasn't from the stone—it came from the presence in front of him.
Victor.
The monster in human skin.
Owen's eyes darted around.
Samuel was down.
Lying limp on the bloodstained floor, his chest barely rising, lips torn and body bruised to near-unrecognition.
A few feet away, Ava's form remained motionless.
Her nose still bled, her chest rose in shallow, unconscious rhythm.
She wasn't waking up any time soon.
It was just him now.
Owen.
The weakest.
The supply master.
The coward.
He gulped. Every instinct screamed at him to run—but there was nowhere left to go.
"Our little supply master... Owen."
Victor's voice slithered through the silence, almost musical in its mockery.
He stepped forward, each footstep echoing like a death toll through the cell block.
"Now you're trapped... with the devil himself."
Another step.
A grin stretching wider.
Owen's fists curled by instinct—though his heart knew it was useless.
Victor was faster.
Stronger.
A killer.
"Do you have anything to say... Samuel's little dog?" Victor's tone was cruel, dripping with condescension.
Silence fell.
The kind of silence that makes the air feel heavier.
Owen's breathing grew rapid, chest tight.
Their eyes locked.
Victor's—merciless, unblinking, wild.
Owen's—trembling, but not yet broken.
Victor shifted slightly, knees bending, about to leap forward—
"WAIT!!!"
Owen screamed, voice cracking, hands raised in a surrendering posture.
"Just—just wait a second—don't come any closer!"
Victor halted, only inches away now.
His grin never faded, but his eyes narrowed with amusement.
"Oh? Now the pup learns to speak."
He chuckled darkly.
"Go on, bark something meaningful."
Owen's hands trembled, but his voice returned, shaky yet defiant.
He wasn't a fighter.
But in this moment—
He could still be a survivor.
Owen blinked, stunned that Victor had actually stopped.
A single breath.
That's all the time he'd bought.
But maybe... that was enough.
His mind raced. He needed to survive.
He needed to distract Victor, make him speak, stall him—anything.
And in the chaos, in the terror, one question echoed in his head.
A question that didn't make sense.
A truth he had ignored... but maybe, just maybe, could buy him more seconds.
Owen straightened a little, just enough to meet Victor's gaze.
"How did you get... the key?"
His voice wasn't loud, but it carried.
It carried doubt.
It carried betrayal.
It carried the desperate need to make sense of everything.
Victor's smile froze.
The air stilled.
Like the question had plucked a wrong string in a cursed melody.
Victor tilted his head slowly, eyes glinting with something unreadable.
"Hah... Now that's a question," he whispered, almost delighted.
He took another step closer, gaze never breaking.
"Why do you want to know, Owen?"
"Want to hear a bedtime story before I bash your skull in?"
Owen's throat went dry. He didn't respond.
Victor chuckled.
Victor stood tall. Unshaken.
His gaze never wavered from Owen's trembling figure as he slowly raised his hand, pointing directly at the prison block.
"That's where I found the key."
His voice was calm, too calm.
Owen didn't respond.
He couldn't.
He didn't want to.
No—he just stood there, wide-eyed, trying to make sense of it all, hoping that hearing the truth might somehow soften the weight of it.
His eyes instinctively flicked toward the direction Victor was pointing.
A place of death. Of pain. Of loops.
A place where things didn't end.
Where they began.
Victor grinned, sharp and sinister, as if feeding off Owen's confusion.
"I planned it all from the start."
Owen's head slowly turned. His stare now locked with Victor's, as if trying to search for the man they had once trusted inside that grinning monster.
"You… planned it?"
His voice cracked slightly with disbelief.
It didn't make sense.
When did he have the time?
How did he hide it?
Victor laughed under his breath.
"Yes, Owen. I did. I planned it all…"
His voice carried the weight of certainty.
A truth forged in the dark.
"It was a reckless plan, too." He took a step closer.
"Wasn't even serious at first." Another step.
"But you guys…" He shook his head.
"You're just—"
His voice dipped into venom, words seething with mockery.
"So dumb."
Victor's eyes widened now. His smile spread unnaturally, face contorting as emotion erupted.
"Even my most reckless, stupidest, UGLIEST PLAN—"
"Would have WORKED!"
The prison echoed with his voice.
A storm of cruelty wrapped in a confession.
Owen stood frozen, throat dry, heart thumping against his ribs like a drum signaling death.
Victor leaned forward slightly, eyes burning.
"Because none of you ever questioned me."
"You trusted me."
"You followed me."
"You let the Warden sink into your nightmares…"
He gestured toward the fallen bodies of Samuel and Ava.
"While I played your fears like a violin."
Owen's body was frozen—
But his face told everything.
Sweat slid down his temple like a slow drip of time itself.
His eyes no longer carried anger.
Only heartbreak.
Confusion.
Terror.
His lips trembled, his shoulders lowered slightly. And his expression—It asked what his voice could not.
"Why…?"
Why would you do it?
Why would you betray us?
Victor tilted his head, watching Owen like a predator savoring the moment a rabbit realizes it's cornered.
"Remember when I asked us to split up…?"
His tone softened. Too calm. Too casual.
Owen's heart skipped.
A jolt of panic stabbed his chest as his eyes widened—His mind flashed back—
That moment.
The prison, when they realized that to escape this prison, we need to stop fearing.
When they split up to confirm Victor's theory about the puzzle of this prison,
Victor had been the one to suggest it.
He had said it with such confidence.
He had led the group.
He had smiled.
And they had listened.
Owen's gaze returned to Victor—
Now filled with the horror of realization.
Victor saw the shift in his expression and smiled wider.
"There it is."
"That face… That exact moment of understanding."
His voice laced with cruel satisfaction.
*Scene Shifted to the past, To what Victor was doing*
The four of them stood at the center of the old cell block.
The plan was simple: split up, search, regroup.
Left — Victor.
Right — Samuel.
Front — Jace.
Back — Owen.
One by one, their footsteps faded into different corridors.
The rusted silence of Hallow Prison swallowed their sounds whole.
But once the echoes of the others had completely vanished…
Victor stopped.
His body stiffened mid-step.
His head slowly turned back, as if sensing something behind him.
And without a word, he turned on his heel—
And sprinted back toward the cursed cell where it all began.
The same cell where the loop started.
Where time twisted.
Where everything had changed.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
His boots echoed like hammers against fate.
He stopped outside the cell, staring at the skeleton that sat slumped in the corner
Victor's lips curled into a twitching smile. His voice was low. Crooked.
"There has to be something here…"
He whispered it like a secret shared with the dark.
Then his head tilted—
"Yes, Dave. Yes…"
"I hear you loud and clear, Dave…"
His voice sharpened to a mocking sing-song as he spoke to… no one.
Or maybe someone—
Someone only he could hear.
Victor dropped to his knees and began ransacking the cell.
Frantic. Possessed. But precise.
And then—
Click.
His hands froze.
Behind the skeleton, tucked beneath its brittle spine…
A sliver of rusted metal glimmered in the dim light.
The key.
"Too easy…"
Victor muttered with a smirk, as if disappointed.
As if the game hadn't even tried to stop him.
He stood there in the silence.
No urgency. No panic.
Just waited.
Like a predator waiting in a trap of his own design.
*Return to the Present Scene*
Owen stared at the floor.
Motionless.
Silent.
Broken.
His mind reeled, spiraling back through everything they had searched, every dead end, every wasted second.
The key was there all along.
Right in the cell.
Exactly where Samuel thought it would be.
But it was never missing.
It was stolen.
Before they even knew there was a key in this Phase.
By him.
Victor.
The betrayal wrapped around his spine like a noose. Cold. Heavy.
His hands trembled.
Across from him, Victor grinned—mocking, cruel, almost proud.
"You get it now?"
Victor's voice sliced the silence.
Dripping with venom.
Amusement.
Owen's wide, stunned eyes slowly lifted off the cracked floor.
They locked with Victor's.
Something shifted.
His breath hitched. Muscles tightened.
And then—
He turned.
He ran.
"SOMEONE HELP ME—!!"
The scream tore out of his throat in pure, primal panic.
His boots slammed against the old concrete.
He didn't look back.
He didn't have to.
Victor moved the moment Owen did.
Like a shadow.
Like a ghost.
A blur of motion—
Victor reached him in seconds.
WHAM—!
A brutal shove to Owen's back.
His balance shattered.
His legs tangled.
He hit the ground hard—chest-first—skidding across the floor, a gasp forced from his lungs.
"Hh—!"
Pain. Shame. Terror.
He coughed as dust filled his mouth.
THUD—THUD—THUD—
Victor's boots echoed against the concrete as he closed in.
Owen, trembling, scraped at the floor with his hands, trying to rise—
But he was too slow.
He turned, desperate to flee again.
CRACK—!
A swift, brutal kick crashed into the back of his skull, the boot hitting the back of his head with force.
"AGHHH—!!"
Owen's body jolted forward, nose-first into the cold floor.
A spray of red burst from his nostrils.
His lips split on impact—skin tearing like paper under pressure.
He screamed in raw agony.
"FUCK—NO!!"
His voice cracked under the weight of pain and panic.
One hand gripped his mangled nose, trying to stop the bleeding.
The other pushed helplessly at the floor, dragging himself backward like a wounded animal.
Blood trailed beneath him.
His mind screamed for escape—
But his body wouldn't listen.
Behind him, Victor stood tall.
Unshaken.
Smiling.
"Look at yourself, pet," Victor said, his voice calm, cold—like a disappointed owner addressing a dog who'd bitten the hand that fed it.
He stepped closer, towering over Owen's crawling form.
"You're bleeding. Broken. Pathetic. Still crawling."
A dark chuckle escaped his throat.
"You were never made to fight back."
Owen's breathing grew faster.
The floor was spinning.
Blood in his mouth.
Tears in his eyes.
And still—he clung to life.
Owen's back slammed against the cold wall, heart pounding like a war drum inside his chest.
"Go away, you fucking freak!!"
He screamed, voice cracked with fear. His fists clenched, but his body was trembling.
Victor didn't stop.
Step.
Step.
Step.
His shadow swallowed Owen whole.
Panic gripped Owen's chest like a vice. His thoughts spiraled—
"Shit—!"
"He's actually going to kill me—?"
"Samuel is still alive... Ava too"
"He's going to kill them... all of us..."
His knees buckled as he tried to stand, hands gripping the wall for balance.
Blood dripped down his chin. His head hung low, eyes fixed on the ground.
He barely got to his feet.
And then—
CRACK!!
An explosive uppercut landed square on his already broken nose, bone crunched.
The sound was sickening.
Blood splattered upward in a crimson arc.
"GHHH—AHHH!!"
Owen's body shot up from the impact, and he fell back against the wall—sliding down like a puppet with its strings cut.
His legs folded beneath him.
He clutched his face, crying, choking on blood, air, terror.
Victor leaned down slightly, watching.
Like a lion watching his prey twitch for the last time.
"This is what happens when the dog barks at the devil."
Victor's voice was soft now—intimate—almost sympathetic.
Almost.
Victor's hand gripped Owen's throat.
Not like a warning—like a sentence. A death sentence.
Owen's fingers shot up, instinctively clawing at Victor's forearm, but it was like trying to break concrete.
The grip only tightened.
Breath wouldn't come. Air no longer listened to his lungs.
"S–t... op..."
His voice cracked, barely audible—
Victor's face came closer, and the look in his eyes wasn't human anymore. His teeth clenched, nostrils flared, sweat and blood painting his face in horror's purest expression.
"DIE!!"
"THIS IS WHAT YOU DESERVE!!"
"YOU ALL SHOULD—"
"FUCKING—DIE!!"
His screams were pure madness. He wasn't speaking anymore—he was vomiting hatred straight into Owen's soul.
Owen felt the pressure rise—his vision shook.
Colors blurred.
His ears rang.
A high-pitched whine began in his brain, like a bomb about to go off.
"I'm dying—"
"I'm— I'm actually dying—"
"I can't see."
"I can't breathe."
"I can't think—"
His thoughts came like falling dominoes, faster and faster until—
Nothing.
Saliva slid from Owen's mouth, running down his cheek. His face pale, eyes bloodshot and unfocused.
Victor looked down at him like he wasn't a person—like he was filth.
"Disgusting."
He clenched tighter.
Owen's eyes fluttered, red veins exploding across them, a single tear slipping free—
And then—
BAM!!!
A fist slammed into Victor's face like thunder breaking the silence.