The first metal panel swept past them in a screaming arc, and the bridge made its truth brutally clear: keep moving or die trying.
These weren't random obstacles. The panels swung and dropped in a sequence that Elijah's mind started mapping before the second one even appeared. A high arc from the left, then a low scythe from the right, a vertical drop through the center, a brief stillness, then two panels crossing high above. The pattern was vicious but predictable. Something you could learn if you had the time and the focus. A deadly rhythm waiting to be understood.
Elijah shifted his weight and found his position with careful intent. Not directly in front. Not quite beside Marcus either. Just behind him and to the right—close enough that Marcus would catch his movements in the edge of his vision, far enough that it wouldn't seem deliberate.
The second panel came roaring in low, aimed to sweep their legs out from under them.
Elijah jumped. But the jump was wrong on purpose. He timed it correctly, landed in the safe zone, but added a slight wobble at the peak—a tremor in his legs that made the whole motion look uncertain, desperate. His boots hit the metal grating with too much force, the sound echoing his apparent instability.
Marcus was already in motion when Elijah's awkward jump registered in his peripheral vision. That flicker of doubt wormed its way into his reflexes instantly. He cleared the low panel, but his landing lost its confidence. His feet stuttered on the grating, momentum stolen.
The third beat arrived: a panel dropping straight down like an executioner's blade. The correct response was to duck low and move forward immediately.
Elijah ducked smoothly. But as he straightened, he let his body lurch hard to the left—a wild, uncontrolled sway that served no purpose except to look like he'd barely avoided disaster. His hand shot out to grip the railing, fingers white-knuckled, selling the image of a man clinging to survival by his fingertips.
Marcus caught the movement. Saw Elijah's apparent struggle. He ducked under the descending panel but came up too fast, movements sharp with panic. Instead of stepping forward into safety, he froze for a heartbeat too long, caught in indecision.
The bridge punished hesitation without mercy.
The fourth beat was different: a pause. A single moment of stillness in the chaos.
Elijah used it to "recover." His chest rose and fell in exaggerated heaves. He dragged his forearm across his forehead, wiping away sweat that came as much from the intense mental calculation as from physical exertion. When he glanced toward Marcus, his expression was completely neutral—the hollow stare of someone fighting just to stay alive.
Their eyes met. Marcus found nothing sinister there. Just shared fear. Just another player drowning in the game. The poison was spreading through his instincts now. He began doubting the rhythm he'd been building internally, started trying to sync himself to Elijah's deliberately flawed tempo instead of the bridge's true pattern.
On the far side of the crossing, Chloe moved through the obstacle course.
Her motion was completely different from the others. No wild flailing, no desperate scrambling. Every movement was economical. A slight knee bend to let a high panel pass overhead. A smooth pivot to avoid a low sweep. A quick two-step advance during the pause. She stayed roughly parallel to Elijah's path but maintained her own clean rhythm—uncontaminated. Living proof of what she'd claimed earlier. This wasn't just survival. This was navigation.
Vivian clung to Marcus's arm like a drowning woman, screaming with every swing of metal, her terror an anchor dragging them both down. Marcus hauled her forward with gritted teeth, barking instructions that got lost in the mechanical thunder. "Left! Move now! Duck! Vivian, for fuck's sake, MOVE!"
They moved like broken clockwork, their timing jarring against the bridge's brutal cadence. Marcus, who might have been capable of leadership, was reduced to stumbling forward, his internal metronome poisoned by the corrupted reference point at his back.
Then someone died.
One of the other captives from the gala—a young man they'd seen in the white room but never spoken to—misjudged the dual high pass. Maybe his rhythm was off. Maybe he was just unlucky. He jumped, but the arc was too shallow.
The panel caught him square in the torso with a sound like a hammer striking meat. The impact didn't knock him down. It lifted him, bent him around the steel edge, and carried him along its arc. At the highest point of the swing, his body slipped free.
He went over the railing without a sound.
The fog swallowed him. The silence that followed was worse than screaming.
A thick smear of blood marked the bridge where the panel had caught him, a dark streak painted across the metal grating.
*User 'TempoKing': Holy shit, the quiet one is sabotaging the Saye kid's rhythm! It's spreading like a virus!*
*User 'Vulture': This is natural selection. The weak fail because they hesitate. Look at the Halvern girl—she moves like she's been trained for this.*
*User 'Gambler': Taking bets on who's next. My money's on the screamer or the poisoned rich boy.*
Elijah registered the death as information. Approximate weight and the force required to kill. The fog's sound-dampening properties. Confirmed. He filed it away and kept moving. No reaction. Just adjustment.
The pattern cycled again. Low sweep, high strike, center drop.
This time Elijah added a stumble to his performance. As he landed from avoiding the high strike, his lead foot seemed to catch on the grating. He pitched forward, arms spinning in wide circles to catch balance that was never really lost. He dropped to one knee with a grunt that sold the illusion perfectly.
Marcus had just cleared the high strike. He was about to move forward for the center drop when he saw Elijah go down in front of him. His brain, already fractured by doubt, screamed warning signals. He jerked backward, pulling away from his planned path.
The center drop panel slammed down exactly where he would have stepped.
Metal shrieked. The entire bridge shuddered with impact.
Marcus stood frozen, one foot away from the embedded panel, his heart trying to punch through his ribs. He stared at the deadly obstacle, then at Elijah, who was climbing shakily back to his feet. The tremor in Elijah's movements looked like genuine shock and exhaustion.
Something new flickered behind Marcus's eyes—sharp and hot, cutting through the panic and frustration. Suspicion. It vanished almost immediately, buried under the next wave of adrenaline as the pattern reset. But it had been there. Elijah caught it. Right on schedule.
The rhythm poisoning was complete. Marcus's confidence lay in pieces. His body operated on corrupted signals now, forced to move on borrowed, unreliable timing. The mental exhaustion showed in every line of his body, dragging at his limbs. His breathing came in ragged, inefficient gasps.
Elijah continued forward, his performance of desperate survival absolutely flawless. His own breathing was quick but controlled beneath the act. The tremor in his hands was voluntary, precisely calibrated. The sweat was real enough, but it came from the massive cognitive load—tracking the bridge's pattern, orchestrating Marcus's destruction, maintaining the charade, all while keeping Chloe's position mapped in his awareness like a fixed star in the screaming chaos.
He never looked back to check on Marcus. Only forward to the next obstacle, and sideways to confirm Chloe remained within the calculated sphere of his protection.
The Swinging Passage stretched ahead, an endless gauntlet of pounding steel and corrupted timing.
And Elijah, playing the role of struggling survivor, conducted the symphony no one else could hear.