Anna and Sid arrive at the entrance to the lowest level. There is a wide clearing before the final flight of stairs. The passage is almost pitch-black, and nothing inside is visible.
Anna is about to walk in when Sid stops her.
'What is it?' Anna questions her.
'You can't do that,' Sid answers bluntly as she begins searching for something along the walls of the entrance.
'Why can't I?'
'There are dogs in the entrance. They will kill you if you move,' she explains with the same bluntness.
'Dogs? If there are dogs in there why didn't you tell me about them before?' Anna questions her again.
'I wanted them to kill you. They were supposed to be my ticket out of your grasp, but now you are,' she explains, not hiding anything from Anna.
'You damn, sloozy,' Anna curses in anger. 'I'm lucky I did what I did, your only giving me more reasons to feel unremorseful.
'But forget that. How many dogs are there that they could kill me, and how are we supposed to pass?'
'Three.'
'Only three?' Anna exclaims, bewildered.
'They are called Cerberus, and they are no normal dogs. You need to be holding a special candle for them not to attack you.'
Sid looks up from where she was searching.
'And it looks like we are out.'
'Out of candles?' Anna questions. 'Then how are we supposed to pass?'
Sid gets up and starts leaving.
'We will have to go look for more.'
'Leave? We can't leave. We caused a big ruckus up there. That will be suicide,' Anna refutes.
Sid continues leaving, unbothered.
'Then choose how you want to die.'
Anna, sceptical, doesn't follow her.
I can't trust a word she is saying. She is probably just stalling for more time since I'm this close to saving Zane.
There probably aren't any dogs to begin with. Even if there are, I can just run past them quickly. The other exit is so close.
Anna ignores Sid's warnings and lunges into the darkness.
Sid turns to see Anna running in.
'I said no!!!' she yells turning to give chase.
What is she shouting about? Is it because I'm almost at the other side
No good bitch, as always
Anna reaches halfway through the clearing when she sees a giant head lunging out of the darkness towards her.
Anna stumbles backwards, and its jaws miss her by a hair's breadth.
Because of the faint light entering the passage, she is able to make out its silhouette—a massive four-legged creature about eight feet tall, its two glaring eyes the only thing visible in the darkness.
Anna is struck still, her instincts taking over due to fear.
Damn it, Sid curses inwardly. I told her not to go in.
The massive beast sniffs the air in order to locate her, then goes in for another bite.
Right before it reaches Anna, Sid rams into it from the side, pushing it slightly off course.
'Run!' Sid yells at Anna, already sprinting back towards the entrance they came in from.
Anna gets up and starts following her.
Right as she is about to enter back into the stairway, she hears a low growling coming from beneath her.
Her instincts tell her to stop for a moment, and she does.
Right at that moment, a smaller dog lunges past where she would have been.
It misses its target, Anna, but doesn't waste any time. It immediately springs back to give her another bite.
It is a fast one, and Anna is unable to dodge it. It clamps onto her hand, shaking its head vigorously in an attempt to rip it off.
Anna moans in pain, but she knows she doesn't have any time to waste because the other dog will catch up to her, so she continues running with the dog still attached to her hand.
Anna and Sid flee up the stairs to the second-to-last floor. There, Anna swings her arm with the small dog attached to it into the wall, causing it to let go of her arm.
Not seeing it as a threat, she ignores it and speaks to Sid.
'They can't come up to this floor, right?'
Sid shakes her head in refusal.
'They follow that one,' she says, pointing at the smaller dog. 'As long as it is here, they will come here.'
Hearing that, Anna turns to face the growling little dog. Looking at its small stature and annoyed by the sting of the injury it gave her, an idea comes to mind.
She pulls out Sid's knife, and as the dog jumps to bite her again, she grabs it and stabs it in the neck.
It falls to the floor, squirming as its blue blood pools onto the floor and stains its green fur. Then it stops moving, lifeless.
'What did you do?!' Sid scolds Anna.
'You said they'd follow it, so I killed it, and now they won't come,' Anna explains.
'You fool!' Sid yells, pointing at the neck of the dead dog. 'They follow it—it's chain. They might have left us alone if we lost this one, but when they come and find out it's dead, they will definitely be out for our blood.'
'Keep running!' Sid yells at Anna, and the two begin sprinting across the second-to-last floor's hallway.
A medium-sized black and green dog, about the size of a tiger, comes up the stairs and into the hallway. It goes up to the dog on the ground and pushes it with its nose.
There is no response.
Realising that it is dead, the dog sets its sight in the direction Anna and Sid were fleeing.
Right then, the bigger dog, black and blue, comes up the stairs. Seeing its companion dead on the floor, it lets out a loud howl in mourning.
The medium-sized dog begins the chase, and the bigger one follows behind it. The chains used to bind them are not as long as the one connecting them to the smaller dog, and they are much thicker.
Hearing the mourning howl released by the big dog, Sid and Anna realise that the dogs have begun chasing them.