The crackling of the campfire was the only sound breaking the silence of the night, casting dancing shadows against the nearby trees. Alex's group was gathered around the fire, the heat of the flames contrasting with the chill of uncertainty surrounding them. As they shared their rations, Yuki sat almost pressed against Alex's shoulder, watching his every move with silent, protective attention.
A few meters away, the rhythm was different. Under the orange glow of the embers, Dante moved with a precision he hadn't possessed before. His strikes were fluid and his breathing controlled. He still felt the weight of the trauma, but fear no longer paralyzed his arms.
"Look at him go..." Foxy's voice cut through the silence, dripping with his usual sarcastic tone as he cleaned his dark lenses. "Careful, Dante. If you keep training like that, you'll end up scaring a butterfly. Or, who knows, maybe you'll actually manage not to die in the first five minutes of the next game. It would be a pleasant surprise for all of us."
Dante stopped mid-motion, wiping sweat from his forehead. He looked at Foxy, and though a shadow of hesitation remained, he did not back down. "I don't intend to die, Foxy. And if I survive, it'll be to make sure you have someone to annoy the next day."
Alex smiled briefly at Dante's retort, but his expression soon turned serious again. He wiped the last bits of food from his hands and stood up, gazing at the dark horizon where the mysterious structure lay hidden.
"Everyone, time is a luxury we don't have," Alex declared. "We don't know how much time is left until Smith's next announcement. We need to explore that place before the rules change again."
Elisa, who was organizing supplies with almost mathematical precision, stood up and adjusted her posture, speaking with her characteristic formality: "Alex's reasoning is logically irrefutable. Remaining static in an environment of unknown and hostile variables increases our vulnerability in geometric progression. The structure seen previously is our only tactical lead at the moment. We must proceed immediately."
Without protest, the group packed their belongings with agility. Yuki was the first to step to Alex's side, her hand resting lightly on the hilt of the knife at her belt.
"I'm going up front with you, Alex," Yuki whispered, her voice low but firm. "Wherever you go, I've got your back."
They began the march, guided by the path Dante and Foxy had mapped out. The way proved surprisingly merciful under the faint morning light. The ground was firm, allowing the group to maintain a brisk pace.
Dante followed right behind Alex, keeping his eyes sharp on the vegetation. He was still the scout, but now he walked with a body ready for action, no longer like prey waiting for the strike. The silence of the hike was broken only by the sound of boots on dry earth and, occasionally, by one of Foxy's biting comments about the forest's "rustic decor," which, in a strange way, served to keep the group's sanity intact as the towering silhouette of the structure began to rise before them.
The path to the structure was marked by a tense silence, interrupted only by the rhythmic sound of the group's breathing. As they approached, the forest seemed to recede, giving way to a perimeter of cold concrete and barbed wire. Dante felt his heart hammering against his ribs; every time one of the rotating cameras swept its red light nearby, he flinched, but this time he didn't retreat. Harry looked at the Salazar diagrams in his hands, feeling the weight of responsibility.
"Sector 4 has a three-second blind spot," Elisa whispered, checking her watch with surgical precision. "If we don't cross now, we'll be detected by thermal motion sensors."
"Three seconds?" Foxy let out a nasal laugh, adjusting the knife at his waist. "That's enough time for me to have a coffee and still make it there. Come on, Blondie, don't freeze now."
Alex gave the signal. The group moved as a single shadow. Yuki didn't stray an inch from Alex; her eyes scanned the top of the walls, her steady hand ready to draw her weapon if a single guard appeared. They reached the ventilation grate indicated on the maps. With a coordinated effort, they removed the cover and slid into the metal bowels of the structure.
The interior of the ducts was claustrophobic and smelled of ozone and machine oil. The sound of metal creaking under their weight seemed deafening to their strained ears.
"This is... degrading," Elisa murmured, crawling stiffly to avoid getting her uniform excessively dirty. "A far from glorious entry for a reconnaissance operation."
"Less complaining, more crawling, Princess," Foxy shot back from right behind her, his voice echoing with a metallic ring. "At least up here there isn't anyone trying to take our heads off... yet."
Dante, who was leading the way following the pipes, suddenly stopped. He felt a shiver. Through the slits of a grate below them, the glow of dozens of monitors illuminated the duct. They had arrived.
One by one, they descended silently, landing with agility on the carpeted floor of the command room. The environment was cold, filled only by the hum of servers and the bluish glow of screens showing every corner of the island—including the now-extinguished campfire where they had been moments ago.
In the center of the room, with his back to them, a man sat in a high-backed leather armchair. He didn't move at the sound of the intrusion.
The silence that followed was broken by a sharp, rhythmic sound: clapping.
Slow. Deliberate. Mocking.
"My congratulations on making it this far," Smith said, slowly spinning the chair to face them.
He wore an impeccable suit that seemed offensive in that savage environment. His smile was predatory, and his eyes sparkled with genuine satisfaction, like that of a scientist observing rats that had finally found the exit to the labyrinth.
"I confess I bet with my associates that you would die trying to cross the swamp," Smith continued, crossing his legs and resting his chin on his hand. "But to see you here, using old Salazar's 'toys'... it's truly fascinating. You've just raised the viewership level for the next game."
Alex stepped forward, placing himself between Smith and the rest of the group, fists clenched. "The game is over, Smith. We found you."
Smith let out a short, cold laugh, looking directly at the camera recording the room. "Over? Oh, my dear Alex... You haven't broken into my castle. This is merely a temporary facility. Welcome to the secret game."
Smith remained seated, arms open in a grand gesture, as if embracing the very fate he himself had mapped out for those young people. The glow of the monitors behind him created an artificial bluish aura, making him look less like a man and more like an extension of that killing machine.
"The game is simple," he said, his velvety voice carrying an implicit threat. "Escape from here. But first, I must give you the reward for reaching this place... You came exactly as I expected."
The group took a step back, instinctively closing into a defensive formation. Yuki gripped Alex's arm, her eyes fixed on every movement of Smith's hands, searching for any sign of a hidden weapon.
"Reward?" Alex's voice came out hoarse, laden with hatred. "The only reward we want is your head, Smith."
Foxy took a side step, his eyes behind the dark lenses scanning the room for emergency exits or hidden guards. A crooked, nervous smile appeared on his face. "You know, Smith, I usually charge a lot for private performances. I hope this 'reward' isn't a motivational speech, because I prefer cash... or the exit key."
Elisa, on the other hand, kept her gaze fixed on the control panels behind the villain. Her mental gears were turning at high speed. "You speak of a 'reward,' but your body language and the context of this environment suggest a Trojan horse," she stated, her formal tone sounding strangely clinical in that desperate situation. "You wouldn't let us into your nerve center without a guarantee that we won't leave unscathed."
Dante, who had been silent until then, felt a cold sweat run down his neck. He looked at the cameras surrounding them. "He's filming..." Dante whispered, his voice trembling slightly. "We aren't intruders, Alex. We are the content for today's episode."
Smith let out a low, almost paternal chuckle and pressed a button on the console of his armchair. A large central monitor descended from the ceiling, showing a digital timer counting down: 05:00 minutes.
"The reward, my dears, is the truth and the privilege of choice," Smith declared, finally standing up. His suit didn't have a single wrinkle. "Salazar was a genius, but a cowardly genius. He left those diagrams hoping someone like you would come to 'save the day.' Your reward is knowing that by entering here, you have activated the structure's purification protocol."
He walked slowly toward a reinforced door that began to open behind him.
"In these files being downloaded to the device young Dante is carrying lies the key to the next level of the game. The question is: will you have the courage to wait for the download to finish while neurotoxic gas fills the ducts you came through, or will you flee now, empty-handed, only to die like amateurs in the next draw?"
Smith stopped at the threshold of the door, looking at them one last time. "Choose. Heroism or survival. I'll be watching from the VIP box."
The timer on the central monitor pulsed a visceral red, each tick of the second sending an echo of panic through the metal corridors. The sound of an air compressor turning on above them indicated that the gas Smith promised was no bluff.
"Whatever that information is, it's not worth the risk!" Harry shouted, his voice cracking with despair as he watched a dense, greenish mist begin to leak from the ceiling joints. "We need to get out of here fast! If that gas hits us, no download will bring us back to life!"
Alex looked at the console, where the progress bar for Salazar's data was slowly rising. He felt Yuki's firm grip on his arm; her look was a silent plea for him not to try to be a martyr.
"Damn it!" Alex punched the control panel but pulled Dante by the shoulder. "Forget the files! Harry is right. Everyone, to the main gate! Now!"
The group bolted down the corridor opposite the door Smith had disappeared through. The setting, once impeccable, transformed into a labyrinth of automated traps.
As soon as the group crossed the first security arch after Smith's room, a low-frequency alarm began to vibrate through the floor itself, making Dante's teeth chatter. It wasn't just a warning; it was the sound of a crushing mechanism being activated.
"Run! Now!" Alex roared, shoving Harry forward.
The corridor, which was about three meters wide, began to shrink. The brushed steel plates of the side walls released a jet of hydraulic steam and started a slow but steady movement toward each other. The sound was an excruciating metallic grinding, as if the structure itself were chewing the air.
"This is mathematically inefficient for containment!" Elisa exclaimed, though her legs were moving faster than ever. "They're trying to grind us like debris!"
Ahead of the group, a metal plate from the ceiling gave way, descending like a slow guillotine to block the path. Foxy, with his sharp reflexes from a dangerous past, didn't stop. He dove shoulder-first toward the ground, sliding across the linoleum floor as the walls already reduced the space to less than a meter and a half.
He drew his combat knife and drove it with brutal force into one of the exposed gears at the base of the advancing wall. The metal of the knife shrieked, sparks flew into Foxy's eyes, but the mechanism jammed for a crucial second, gaining an extra few inches of space.
"Don't stand there staring at my ass, get through!" Foxy screamed, the effort showing in the bulging veins of his neck. "The blade won't hold the pressure for long!"
Yuki went through first, agile as a cat, pulling Alex right after. The space was so narrow that Alex's shoulders brushed the cold metal on both sides. Harry, panicking, almost tripped over his own feet, but felt Dante's firm hand on his back.
"Breathe, Harry! Just run!" Dante encouraged. The boy who used to tremble was now using his sprinter's strength to stabilize his friend.
They scrambled past Foxy at the exact moment the tempered steel knife snapped in half with a sharp crack. The walls slammed shut. Foxy propelled himself forward, escaping by millimeters before the corridor became a solid block of steel behind them.
The group stopped for a second, chests heaving violently. Where there had once been a corridor, there was now only a closed metal seam. They were safe from that trap, but the smell of ozone and the sound of the next defense mechanisms were already echoing ahead.