What happened next was all a blur to Owen. The chaos around him seemed to swell, the confused screams and blind shuffling of others in the dark never ceasing. The three of them stayed where they were for several moments, also unsure where to go, until a trail of lights opened below them, directing towards the exit. Soul-powered lights, Alexis had said. The concept of harnessing such energy both fascinated and disgusted him. After all, these souls were once the souls of living people, each with their own dreams. Now only left without memory, used to serve the basest of functions.

"So... are we hiding or not?" Owen snapped out of his thoughts, turning to face James. "Y'know, what you said. So that they won't find us and take us outside like everybody else."

He nodded, gesturing over to the bathroom door at the far end of the building. Behind them, several guards were - or at least trying to - maintain order. A line of people were hurried out of the building, followed by the next, with several brief explanations and reassurances that they would resolve everything in due time.

Of course, Owen was hardly assured himself. In fact, he was almost convinced the opposite when the building abruptly began to shudder and groan.

"James, I'm beginning to doubt what you actually did," Owen muttered as they stepped into the bathroom.

The man shrugged. "Eh, nothing much. Did exactly what you said - give it a gash here, punctured it there, and watched it burn." He grinned. "Hey, at least everything's going how it planned now, or am I wrong?"

Owen frowned, bothered by James' wording. "It... it'll be fine for now. I guess that the quicker all of this goes, the better, too."

James nodded. "Then there you go."

Glancing at Hob, Owen fell silent, thinking. Planning. Imagining what could go wrong, and imagining what he could do to avoid it. Remembering - what he was fighting for, and all that he and Jessica would lose, should he fail. Wondering what exactly transpired in the generator room, and why Hob was so shaken.

The noises outside eventually died down as the remaining people crowded out of the buildings, amid the confused voices and stern instructions. A bump here, a cry there, the occasional grunt or groan. Sirens. Sirens in the distance, wailing from afar, but coming closer. What if they came too soon? That was something else he had to worry about.

The sounds went on, gradually dimming, like a candle that slowly blew out.

And then everything fell silent.

Only the sirens remained, off in the distance, and their own breathing, sharp and heavy.

The three of them stood still, almost in a moment of reverence, only broken as James pushed open the door and walked out of the bathroom. 

The building looked different, deserted. Perhaps not different in its physical form, but there was a shift in the atmosphere that was there. And it unnerved Owen. Something about the place no longer felt welcome, almost haunted, now stripped of its collective vibrance and excitement. Now brought to its purest, undisturbed form - not a store, not a headquarters, but a cemetery. A place where the dead were buried, left and forgotten.  

The place rumbled again as they walked over to the stairwell door, the sound of pebbles crunching under their feet or clattering as they were kicked away amplified. This is it. Taking a deep breath, Owen quickly thought back to what Alexis had told him moments ago, and then entered the PIN into a strange machine beside the door.

Five. He pressed one of the pegs into the machine. The building rumbled, though this time softer.

Nine. He pressed another peg, the rumbling now a rhythm in his ears.

"Are you sure you know the PIN?" James asked. Owen flinched, surprised by the break in silence, and then softly nodded. Do you want us to be caught, James?

One. The door clicked - though it could hardly be heard over the constant rumbling of the building, yet Owen knew it was there. Pushing the entrance open and walking into the stairwell, he was greeted by the familiar smell of moss, infesting each and every cement brick that made up the path.

"Seriously, who maintains this place?" James gave a distasteful frown. "And since when does a stairwell only go down?"

A chill went through Owen, though he was unsure whether it was himself or a gust of wind. "Count your blessings. We won't have to guess which direction to take, then."

James laughed as they began to walk downwards, Owen in the front, Hob trailing behind. He wasn't sure how many minutes had passed, but at last, they seemed to reach the bottom, where it intersected into two different paths.

"I believe we've found the dungeons." A reckless grin began to creep over James. "Alright, you said there's a factory and a vault somewhere around here, so who goes where? Personally, I'd prefer going after the vault myself if you're fine with that, y'know. But I guess this was all your idea in the first place, so I'll trust your judgement this once."

"I'm sticking with Owen either way," Hob murmured, with a touch of fear in his voice. "Do we even know which path leads to where?"

Owen shook his head, and James clapped his hands together. "Wonderful, then! Are we going to draw straws to see which direction each of us go? Or should we just take a blind guess and go with it?"

Owen shrugged. "Your pick, James. It won't really matter, anyway."

James closed his eyes, as if he was actually thinking about it. "Eh, right sounds promising. No, left. Hm, I guess right does have a certain feel to it, but left..." Catching the other's looks, he sighed. "Oh, fine. I'll stick with right."

Without Hob and Owen even agreeing, James sauntered off, and Owen could almost catch the man humming to himself.

"I suppose that means we take left, then? Don't answer that, that was just me talking to myself." He smiled and began to follow the trail that led away from James. "Left we go."

*     *     *

Schultheiss frowned, walking down the stairwell. He had heard others passing by too, yet nobody seemed to notice a stray door tucked away, hidden from the casual eye. Thank goodness. He was sure that somebody had finally caught notion and had come to finish him - and that all his year's work would fall apart right before it blossomed. Everything's almost in place, after years of waiting. All the pieces are in play, and nobody's noticed or suspected that something was corrupted from within.

Yet, if those who passed by were not looking for him, then there was only one other thing they were looking for. And Schultheiss wasn't sure if that was any better or worse.

Gripping the knife, he continued to walk down the stairs. Whoever it was, they wouldn't end his life's work now. 

No, but they would make another fine soul that he could harness.

*     *     *

James continued to walk down the path, humming to himself a tune that he'd heard somewhere, yet wasn't sure what it was called. Either way, it'd been stuck in his head for quite a while now.

Muttering the lyrics under his breath, he continued walking straight, ignoring where the path occasionally opened to the side. Vaults had a tendency to hide away in the furthest corners of the building, he'd learned - and all the other paths were quickly cut short, short enough that he could already see the end of it as he walked by.

Which meant that he was on the right path to the vault, or possibly the factory, too. There was something about the path he'd chosen that resonated with him, though, how it seemed to almost point to the vault. How it stretched into the endless abyss, into the darkest crevices of the earth. Was the darkness endless? He wasn't sure how long he'd been walking now, walking endlessly down an endless road.

At last, there seemed to be some sign that he was somewhere, coming face to face with a wooden beam that he suspected meant to block the way. Ha! Perhaps Schultheiss regarded him as a fool, or maybe the man just believed that he could simply intimidate others into turning back. 

Do not cross, area beyond dangerous and restricted. Monitored 24/7. James scoffed, reading the warning on the beam. All the more reason to cross, then! Monitored, you say? He looked around. Code Yellow would've shut down all electrical mechanisms, according to Owen's word. Not putting too much thought into it, he ducked under the beam, continuing to walk further down the path. 

To his surprise, it only took several more moments before something else unfolded in his view - a flimsy metal door, with nothing unusual about it. But it meant there was an end to this abyss. And who would've gone through all the effort of extending a hallway so far, unless they had something to hide? James rattled the doorknob. Locked.

Well, he wasn't disappointed either - determined now, if anything. Smiling to himself, he took out a knife, and then stopped. No, he had to wait until Code Red for this. The security wasn't completely shut down either, was it? Owen simply said it was reverted to mechanical means - but until the security was completely shut down, he would have to bide his time. 

But it seemed he hardly had to wait, as the trail of lights under his feet shut down a moment later.

*     *     *

The factory room was not far off from where they separated ways, and it hardly took a while before the entrance door loomed over the two of them.

"It's not locked." Hob twisted the doorknob and then stepped inside, suddenly taking a sharp breath. "Woah."

Curious, Owen walked in after Hob, and then frowned as he saw the factory with his own eyes. It was like a cross between a science fiction and horror movie, with massive machines and complex feats of steel that made the most of the spacious room. Rows and rows of conveyor belts were lined up to go through a machine, with soul jars coming out of the machine, and strange clumps of something going in. Something all too familiar, Owen thought. Something like-

Owen's froze as he realized what he was looking at. Going into the machine were thousands of corpses, each piled above the other and stretching endless lengths. How many of the dead were there on a single belt? Uncountable, like an entire row in the field of life was harvested with a single stroke, brought here. He began to turn away. The corpses themselves were already enough - but imagining what the machines were doing to them, what horrors even the dead could be going through, was too much.

"We've seen enough." Owen could hear the worry in his own voice. "Let's go."

Hob didn't say anything - only stood there, staring at something in the far corner, finally shaking his head. "Not yet. Well, I guess we should go. But..." he paused and pointed at the place he was looking at. "See that? That thing... it bothers me. There's something about how different that machine is from the others, that... that..." Hob shuddered. "See for yourself."

Owen turned back to face the factory, barely able to contain the horror already there, which only grew as he understood what Hob meant. There, where Hob gestured to, was a machine significantly smaller from the other conveyor-belt ones. Was it supposed to be that small? After all, it looked incomplete - some wires leading nowhere, and a metal extension from the top of the machine also disjointed and unconnected. 

But it was the machine itself, that chilled Owen. Unlike the other machines - shovel-shaped, as if to scoop up the corpses into the conveyor belt and do whatever more there - this one was in the perfect form of a chair. A metal, mechanical chair, with wires and extensions attached to it. Almost as if, while the prior machines were meant for the dead, this machine was for... those living.

But what did it all mean? Owen suppressed a shiver. Everything else about the chair was the same as the other machines - the same design to extract souls. But what would Schultheiss be doing, extracting souls from people who were alive? He didn't even want to think about the possibilities.

"I've seen enough too," Hob said, turning around. "Let's catch up to James while we still can."

Owen nodded, and they left the room, though the memory of what they'd seen continued to haunt them.

*     *     *

The door was quickly taken care of after Code Red went off, as was the other stronger door behind it. James gave a breath of relief, followed by a feeling of victory as he saw what was ahead of him. With the area around him illuminated by his phone's flashlight, he could clearly recognize the vault of souls in front of him, all in his reach. Like a knight's journey to the castle, at last reunited with what he sought.

Stepping in, he swung his phone around, observing row after row of soul canisters. Endless canisters, endless souls, endless money. It was a shame he couldn't take it all - looking down at his shopping bag, he frowned. No, it would at most fit half a dozen, though even that was a stretch.

He continued to walk down the aisles, smiling to himself and thinking about how he could fit the most souls. Perhaps he could still carry some in his free arm, perhaps one or two more. None of them could fit in his suit, though. It was far too fine to be stretched, with the pocket barely even permitting enough room for his phone.

But there was something else - another opportunity in the room, he realized as he walked to the other end, where a lone table sat. It wasn't too big of a table, fairly sized and small enough to fit between the rows of souls. But it was the open laptop on it - conveniently open for reasons he could not understand, that intrigued him. And beside the laptop, a sheaf of papers with numbers that could've meant something, too.

Well, I'd take any ace that I'd find. James knelt down, using his phone to brighten the area around as he read the log that the laptop was opened to. Is it only locked to this log? James frowned. Well, it was better than nothing.

And hey, if it was written by Schultheiss himself, it had to be interesting.

*     *     *

It was only several moments after they left that factory, that the soul-powered lights below them abruptly went dark.

And as if that wasn't comforting enough, the groaning and trembling of the building seemed to crescendo, to the point where Owen wouldn't be surprised if it collapsed at that very moment.

"Code Red shouldn't have been triggered so quickly," he muttered. "Hob, if you know what exactly happened... this would be the right time to tell me."

Hob sighed. "I..."

"But don't feel any pressure, either. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

Hob paused, thinking, and then explained, "James did a number on the generator. I watched him go into a frenzy and just hack at the thing until there were open gashes here and there. Not to mention he jammed a knife into the main exhaust. There's something about him that just... he seemed to enjoy it."

Owen grimaced. "Well, that's James, something we'll have to worry about later. But for now, if the generator is already split open here and there..." Owen's shoulders sagged. "Truthfully, I don't know what'll happen next. Same with him jamming the exhaust. I don't know what'll happen exactly, but if it triggered Code Red so quickly, then who knows how much longer there is until this place just falls apart while we're in it?"

On that note, they began to walk quicker, though hesitant in the dark. Uncomfortable with the silence, Owen asked, "I can kind of see the walls, can you? Like, the outlines of them."

Hob squinted. "Now that you mention it, I can kind of see them too. Though-" He fell silent.

"Hm?"

Hob didn't answer, and Owen didn't press the question further. Let him be. Though now something troubled him too - a feeling of being watched, or at least a feeling of not being alone. Like something was there in the shadows, just out of his reach, just out of his sight.

Ideas began to spin, ideas that Owen wished were never there. Who that could've possibly been lurking into those corners - demons plucked out of his mind, brought into this very world. His fears, taking on a shape that was not quite right, yet couldn't be ignored either.

Since when did I fear the dark before? Hadn't there once been a time when he'd embraced it? But now... darkness was an escape, a final resort when the light burned unbearably. But now, with Jessica so close to salvation... he had to step into the heart of the light one last time, should he be swallowed by it, to save her.

The thought only reassured him the slightest as they passed the bottom of the stairwel, or at least the vague shape of it. The feeling of being watched grew stronger, but he forced himself to ignore it. Who else could be there? Everybody was evacuated, and even if somebody was left behind, what would they be doing here?

Suddenly, Owen knew.

As if on cue, a figure rammed into them, slamming Hob against the wall and pinning him there. Owen couldn't make out each separate person as he stood nearby, frozen in shock, but intuition told him that the outline of a knife was clearly there in the attacker's hand.  

It was all pandemonium after that. The attacker seemed to wrench Hob back away from the wall, then place a knife over his throat, as if daring for Owen to come closer. Owen urged himself to do something - run or fight, either way! - yet his mind was split. Should he save Hob, or run to warn James? Who knows what'll happen if I leave Hob? But if I try to save him... would it really be worthy if I fail? 

James also has a knife. If I warn him-

There's not enough time. Maybe if save Hob now-

But if we catch up, then James can outmatch whoever-

Maybe James will hear if I try to get Hob out of this man's grasp-

Hob grunted, thrashing and struggling against the attacker until he finally yelled, "Run, Owen! Don't go for me now - just run!"

Owen paused for a final moment, weighing his decisions. Between saving Hob, or giving up on his companion for his own intentions. 

"Damn you, Owen! Just this once, forget about me and save somebody else!"

Memories of the somebody else suddenly flashed through his mind. I promised. And Jessica trusted me. I can't let her down. Sighing, he took one last glance at Hob, still flailing about, and then ran.

It was just like the movies, wasn't it? Like fate had planned this final scene for him, one last tragedy in the final act.

Can fate simply let me save one person?