Alan woke to pain. A throbbing ache pulsed at the base of his skull, each heartbeat driving another spike through his head. His wrists burned, metal cutting into flesh.He tried to move, but his arms were stretched above him, chained to a steel beam overhead. The bite of iron was cold, merciless, and absolute.The warehouse was different now. The candles were gone. A single floodlight burned from above, harsh and white, bleaching the world into cruel shadows.It left everything outside its circle in pitch black, as though he were hanging in the middle of nothing. And in that circle, across from him, was his sister.She was bound to a chair again, hands and ankles lashed with thick rope. Her head lolled weakly, but when Alan groaned, her eyes snapped open, wide, terrified, but alive.Relief surged through him, hot and painful. “I’m here,” Alan rasped, his throat raw. “I’ll get us out.”A slow clap broke the silence. From the shadows stepped Ethan. He looked immaculate, black suit perfe

The night air was supposed to be cool, but Alan felt nothing but fire. Smoke clung to his skin, the stench of gasoline and charred wood still burning his lungs.His sister trembled in his arms, her face buried against his chest, sobbing as though the world had ended. And for Alan, it almost had. Ethan was still alive.The thought gnawed at him like a vulture on bone. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Ethan’s bloody grin, heard that laughter that had echoed even as the knife sank into his ribs.He should’ve died there, in the flames, consumed by the inferno. But he hadn’t. He had slipped away, like smoke vanishing into the night.Alan clenched his fists, chains biting into his skin. “Not again,” he muttered through gritted teeth. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder. Fire trucks, police. Too late, as always. Too useless.Alan couldn’t risk staying, questions would drown him, authorities would chain him down, and Ethan would vanish for good. He couldn’t let that happen. Not

The gunshot still rang in Alan’s ears as the chair tipped and his sister screamed. Time slowed.The world vanished, the rifles, the shadows, the grinning demon of Ethan, all of it dissolved into a single point of horror: her body plunging into the black pit below.Alan’s heart stopped. His lungs seized. His mind roared one truth, louder than bullets, louder than fear.Not again. He threw himself forward.The pistol clattered across the concrete as Alan dove into the abyss, chains rattling, blood pouring from the wound in his side. His body slammed into the void, darkness swallowing him whole.Wind howled past his ears. The stench of oil and rust hit his nose. And through the blur, he saw her, the ropes snapping loose, her body tumbling, eyes wide with terror.“ALAN!”Her scream ripped him open. He stretched out, fingers clawing the air, ribs screaming as he twisted, dove, reached, And caught her wrist.The impact nearly tore his arm from its socket. Pain ripped through him like fire. H

The wind howled past Alan’s ears, the world a blur of shadow and steel as he plummeted into the abyss. Time fractured, stretching into an eternity where every heartbeat was a thunderclap, every gasp of breath a desperate fight against the inevitable.The pit yawned beneath him like the throat of some mechanical beast, broken gears jutting like teeth, fires smoldering in oil-black pools. The air reeked of chemicals and decay.Alan’s arms flailed, instinct fighting against gravity’s merciless pull. His ribs screamed, his head spun, and the thought struck him with bone-deep clarity: this is how it ends. But then, his fingers grazed steel.A hanging cable whipped against him. He latched on, pain tearing through his dislocated shoulder as the momentum wrenched his body sideways.His boots slammed into a beam, jolting the breath from his lungs. For a moment, the world shrank to the groan of straining metal and the fire in his muscles.Then silence. He dangled in the dark, suspended above th

Alan stumbled through the haze, his lungs burning with every breath. The warehouse behind him was a collapsing inferno, its steel beams groaning as fire ate through their supports.His arm hooked under his mother’s shoulders, dragging her forward through the broken glass and debris. But the sound that clawed at his skull was not the crackle of flames, nor the screaming metal, nor the frantic pounding of his own heartbeat.It was laughter. That low, mocking, drawn-out laughter that bled through the smoke as though the fire itself was Ethan’s voice, riding on the flames, chasing Alan out into the night.He had pulled the trigger. He knew he had. The recoil had kicked against his palm, and the shot had vanished into the blinding smoke, swallowed by fire.He had aimed for Ethan’s chest. He had wanted, needed, it to be over. But Ethan’s laughter still rang out.Alan tightened his jaw, forcing his mother forward. Her steps were weak, faltering, and her lips trembled as though she wanted to