There are moments in life when the air itself seems to take a nervous step back, as if even the oxygen has enough sense to know that whatever's about to happen is going to be catastrophically stupid.
This was one of those moments.
The tunnel hummed with quiet anticipation—the kind you hear right before the world decides to cough up something biblical.
The torches sputtered, throwing nervous shadows across the walls like the ghosts of better decisions. The Boss stood at the center of it all, the smirk on his face so self-satisfied I wanted to swat it off with a chair.
Brutus stood beside him, silent, hulking, unreadable. You could've sculpted him from guilt and granite and still not captured the sheer weight pressing on his shoulders.
His shotgun hung loose at his side, every muscle in his body looking taut enough to hum if you plucked it. Freya was still trembling beside me, her tears drying in the warmth of the torches, her gaze locked on the man who'd just slapped her heart out of her chest.
The Boss clapped once, slowly, theatrically—because of course he did. "At least one of you has the brains to see sense. I was beginning to think I'd be forced to promote the corpse in the corner," he said, voice dripping like honey over broken glass.
He turned toward Yolmear with a grin that could've sold snake oil to saints. "You see, my dear warden, loyalty isn't extinct after all. It's merely… hard to come by."
Yolmear made a noise halfway between a snort and a chuckle, his hand covering his mouth like a man trying to hide his amusement during a funeral.
"Hard to come by indeed," he said dryly, his voice carrying the practiced boredom of someone who'd seen a thousand betrayals and was simply grading the presentation. "Though I must say, your management style leaves something to be desired."
"Oh, come now," the Boss replied, eyes glinting with mischief. "If I were any more desirable, I'd be illegal."
He threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing through the tunnel like carnival music in a morgue. But it wasn't just laughter—it was a declaration, a man too drunk on his own myth to realize the ground beneath him was cracking.
I leaned back, watching the scene unfold with the surreal detachment of someone trapped between tragedy and farce.
My body still ached from the crash, my ribs singing protest with every breath, but my mind was sharp enough to see the writing on the wall—or in this case, the splatter waiting to happen.
The Boss turned back to Brutus, smile widening, eyes gleaming like wet knives. "Well then, my old friend," he said, his tone almost jovial. "I suppose our past gripes are settled then?" He stepped closer, the smell of cigar smoke and arrogance wafting around him in equal measure. "No hard feelings, no grudges. Water under the bridge—blood in the river, and all that."
For a second, Brutus didn't move. The silence stretched long enough for me to count the beats of my heart and wonder which one would be my last. Then, with the slow inevitability of a descending guillotine, he raised the shotgun.
There was a tiny click—the most delicate sound in the world—and then the tunnel erupted in thunder.
The blast tore through the air with the fury of divine punctuation. The Boss's head vanished in a crimson bloom, a grotesque fireworks display that painted Brutus's face in arterial confetti. His body dropped to the floor, twitching once before collapsing in a heap of blood and viscera.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. Even the fire seemed to hold its breath, unsure whether to keep burning or join the applause.
Brutus lowered the shotgun slowly, smoke curling from the barrel like a satisfied sigh. Blood trickled down his cheek, a vivid streak against the stoic calm of his face. Then he spoke, voice calm, even cheerful.
"Yup," he said. "Done and dusted."
And that was it. My composure died on the spot.
I broke out laughing so hard I nearly blacked out. Gods above, I doubled over, clutching my stomach, tears burning down my cheeks. I collapsed to the floor in a fit of hysteria, half catharsis, half madness. "Oh, Saints," I gasped between fits, "Brutus, you big beautiful bastard!"
Yolmear's amusement curdled into stunned horror. His composure—always the hallmark of his bureaucratic tyranny—fractured like glass. His eyes widened, his lips parted, and for one glorious instant, he looked human. Then the shock hardened into something else: cold, furious determination.
"You," he said slowly, his voice low enough to chill bone. "You've just sealed your fate."
Brutus cocked the shotgun again with mechanical grace, tilting his head just enough to meet Yolmear's gaze. "Fate," he said, "can go fuck itself."
And then—chaos.
The beastman launched from the shadows like a cannonball forged from nightmares. One moment, Yolmear was the picture of vengeful authority; the next, he was ducking for dear life as his own pet crashed through the first line of guards with a guttural roar.
The creature hit the wall of bodies like a wrecking ball through wet paper, claws ripping, jaw snapping, sending armored men flying through the air like confetti tossed by some violent god.
The tunnel exploded into motion.
Both sides surged forward at once—a tidal wave of fury and flesh colliding in the dark. Crossbows fired in a chorus of snapping cords and whistling bolts. Steel met steel in a cacophony of screams and sparks. The air filled with smoke, blood, and the faint scent of ozone. Torches fell and guttered, shadows dancing madly across the carnage like drunken specters.
I stumbled to my feet, the world spinning, every nerve alight. Someone shouted my name—maybe Atticus, maybe Freya—but the sound was drowned beneath the din.
My hands found a discarded blade on the ground, slick with someone else's regret, and I swung it just in time to parry a strike from a guard twice my size. The impact rattled my arms to the shoulder. I ducked under his follow-up swing, drove my elbow into his ribs, and used the momentum to shove him into the path of a falling torch.
The flame caught instantly—an eruption of orange racing up his back and neck. His shriek split through the air like a jagged note, high and piercing.
Brutus was everywhere at once, reloading and firing in fluid bursts, each shot punctuating the chaos like thunder. He dropped one guard with a blast to the chest, spun, and took out another with a shot clean through the helm. Blood sprayed across the wall, glittering like molten rubies in the firelight. He barreled through the melee toward me, covering the ground with impossible speed.
"Loona!" he barked, stepping up to me.
My lungs burned, my body trembled, and yet the grin on my face only widened. "Brutus, darling," I shouted back, slicing through another guard's arm in a spray of crimson, "I could kiss you if we weren't surrounded by psychopaths!"
"Save it for later," he grunted, blasting another guard off his feet. "Preferably never."
Freya had stopped crying. Her expression went blank for a moment, hollowed out, like the emotions had been vacuumed right out of her. Then, suddenly, the emptiness shattered.
She sprinted forward, ducking past falling debris and flying bolts, straight into Brutus's arms. He froze for just an instant—long enough for her to slam into him, clutching him tight, her sobs raw but alive.
"I thought you were gone," she cried, her voice muffled against his chest.
He exhaled roughly, one massive hand coming up to pat her head awkwardly, like he wasn't sure whether to comfort her or apologize for existing. "Don't worry, I'm here," he said.
It was almost sweet—if you ignored the part where the world around us was collapsing into slaughter.
I pivoted, eyes scanning the chaos. One of our men went down hard, a crossbow bolt buried deep in his neck. Another screamed as a sword split his shoulder. The beastman was still rampaging, tearing through Yolmear's ranks with reckless abandon, but even he couldn't stem the tide. There were too many of them.
"Dregan!" Brutus roared over the noise. "Atticus! Gather the men—we're falling back!"
I almost argued—I really did. I opened my mouth, ready to protest, ready to shout that we could push through, that we weren't done yet, that victory was still somehow buried in this heap of blood and noise. But then I saw it. The truth, ugly and undeniable, sprawled across the battlefield like a corpse left out for the flies.
We were losing.
Badly.
Half our men were down now, bleeding or worse, the others stumbling through the smoke in blind panic. Every shot, every swing, every desperate scream of defiance was swallowed by the precision and brutality of Yolmear's forces.
These weren't the drunken and half-starved guards of the lower tiers—these were the elites, soldiers bred for violence. Their movements were crisp, their kills methodical. Saints, they moved as if bounded by one machine, a living wall of armor and intent.
And us? We were barely a band of survivors playing rebellion with borrowed weapons and stolen time.
"Who's going to cover the retreat?" Atticus shouted.
All of us turned at once to face the beastman.
He stood at the end of the tunnel, a towering silhouette framed by fire and ruin. His fur was matted with blood—some his, mostly not—and his breathing came in ragged snarls, chest heaving like a bellows on its last wheeze. Dozens of bodies surrounded him, a ring of carnage and broken blades.
"No," I said instantly, my voice snapping out before my brain could stop it. "No, absolutely not! He's—"
"Loona." Brutus's voice cracked like thunder, cutting me clean in half. "No time for debate."
I froze. The world seemed to pause just long enough for the truth to crawl into my chest and sit heavy there. He was right. Of course he was. There wasn't any other choice. Someone had to hold the line, and right now, that someone wasn't human.
I swallowed hard, the taste of iron thick on my tongue. "Damn it," I muttered, more to myself than anyone. Then I cupped my hands to my mouth and whistled, a sharp, wild sound that sliced through the air and echoed down the tunnel, bouncing off stone and smoke alike.
The beastman's head turned. For a fleeting heartbeat, our eyes met across the battlefield.
I saw it then—something quiet, almost gentle. A sense of resignation, the calm understanding of a creature who'd already accepted his fate long before anyone else had the courage to name it.
He nodded once. Then, without a word, he turned back to the nearest guard, grabbed him by the arms and legs, and ripped him clean in half.
"Move!" Brutus bellowed, his voice a living force that pushed the rest of the crew into motion. "Fall back! Now!"
Atticus and Dregan echoed the order, shouting at the stragglers, hauling wounded men to their feet, dragging anyone still breathing toward the tunnel beyond the wreckage. The sound of boots scraping on stone, of clattering armor and broken weapons, filled the air like the song of retreating ghosts.
I tried to follow—gods, I tried. But my legs gave out halfway through the wreckage, my strength flickering out like the last ember in a dying fire. My body hit the ground hard, the world tilting, colors blurring at the edges.
For a moment, all I could do was breathe, shallow, uneven, each inhale scraping my throat like sandpaper. The floor was cold beneath my cheek, the vibrations of distant booming rumbling through it like a heartbeat too large to belong to any living creature.
Then a shadow fell over me. "On your feet, sweetheart," Brutus said, crouching down, his voice gruff but oddly soft around the edges.
I blinked up at him, eyes unfocused. "Can't," I wheezed. "Legs are on strike. I tried to negotiate, but they're demanding better working conditions."
He didn't laugh. He didn't even smile. He just turned, crouched lower, and said, "Then hop on."
I didn't think twice. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, clinging tight as he hoisted me up like I weighed nothing at all. His muscles coiled and moved beneath me, a force of pure, relentless will.
"Hold on," he grunted.
"Never planned on letting go," I muttered, breathless, my words barely audible over the roar of fire and steel behind us.
We ran.
The tunnel stretched ahead, dark and endless, its mouth wide and hungry. Behind us, the battle raged on—a storm of metal and screams echoing through the smoke. The beastman's roar carried through it all, deep and raw, shaking the very air.
I turned my head weakly over Brutus's shoulder, just once, just long enough to see him.
He was still standing, still fighting. One massive hand gripped a guard by the throat, lifting him effortlessly off the ground. The man kicked, clawed, and begged. The beastman didn't even flinch. With a twist of his wrist, he snapped the man's neck in a spray of red and bone that painted his forearm crimson.
Yolmear's voice cut through the chaos, shrill and furious. "Kill it! Kill that thing!"
For a second—just one, fleeting heartbeat—the beastman looked almost peaceful. And then the tunnel swallowed us whole.
The roar of chaos dulled to a muffled storm, fading beneath the sound of Brutus's pounding footsteps. Each stride was a drumbeat in the dark, steady and unyielding, carrying us deeper into the bowels of the earth.
It hit me then—not in the chest, not even in the gut, but somewhere deeper, that hollow space where all the jokes froze still. The beastman had stayed behind. He'd known what it meant when he turned back toward the fire, and he'd done it anyway. Saints above, what a stupid, glorious bastard.
Somewhere far behind, the beastman roared one final time—a sound so raw it shook the stone around us, then vanished into nothing.
I closed my eyes, letting darkness take me, heavy and absolute. The world could burn for all I cared. We were alive, for now. And that, in this place, was victory enough.