Kai walked.

  Each step sent fire through his left leg. The ankle had twisted badly during the fight—he didn't remember when, exactly, just remembered landing wrong, feeling something tear. Now it screamed with every pace.

  He'd been moving for... how long? Time had lost meaning. Without sun, without moon, without any way to mark hours, there was only the corridor and the pain and the endless need to put distance between himself and them.

  The adrenaline was gone now. Long gone. What remained was just pain. Raw and honest and impossible to ignore.

  He found a wall and leaned against it. Let his weight rest. Breathed.

  Bad idea. Breathing sent spikes through his ribs.

  He checked himself properly for the first time since the fight.

  Ribs: bruised at best, cracked at worst. Hurts to breathe deep. Hurts to breathe shallow. Just hurts.

  Arm: the deep cut from the rat had reopened during the fight. Fresh blood matted the cloth wrapping. It had stopped bleeding again, but it needed cleaning. Soon.

  Leg: left ankle swollen to twice its size. He could put weight on it, but barely. The limp would slow him down. Make him vulnerable.

  Face: split lip, swelling cheek, something warm and metallic in his mouth that tasted like blood.

  He was a mess.

  But alive.

  Each breath was a spike through his chest. Stone pressed cold against his back through his torn shirt. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped—taunting him, unreachable, a reminder of everything he didn't have.

  Can't stop here. They might follow.

  He pushed off the wall and kept moving. One step. Then another. Then another.

  ---

  The passage changed.

  Kai noticed it slowly—the walls narrowing, the ceiling lowering, the stones becoming rougher and less shaped. This wasn't the main corridor anymore. This was something else. A side passage. Lesser used. Maybe forgotten.

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  No footprints in the dust here. No signs of others.

  Good. Harder to follow.

  He limped forward, one hand on the wall for support. The glim grew sparser here, patches of light giving way to long stretches of darkness. He welcomed it. Darkness meant hiding. Darkness meant safety.

  Then he found it.

  A recess in the wall—barely more than a crack, really. Just wide enough for a person to squeeze through. Inside, a small space. Not a cave. Not a room. Just a gap between stones where the mountain had split and never healed.

  Too small for most monsters. Just big enough for one person to curl up.

  He checked inside. Cautious. Dagger first. Empty. No bones. No nests. Nothing but bare stone and darkness.

  Safe enough.

  He crawled in.

  Darkness swallowed him whole. Not the grey-dark of the corridor with its distant glim. True darkness. The kind that pressed against his eyes and made him wonder if they were open at all.

  He pulled his knees to his chest, dagger across them, and waited to see if anything would find him.

  ---

  Time passed.

  Slow. Silent. Unmeasured.

  Kai listened. Footsteps? Nothing. Breathing? Just his own, too loud in the confined space. The scrape of stone on stone? No. Just silence.

  His body screamed. He ignored it.

  The fight replayed in his mind. The stocky man's face contorted with rage. The others watching, doing nothing. The quick one with short hair—that look he'd given. Curious. Not hostile.

  That one was different.

  And the quiet one. Broad shoulders. Sitting apart. Tending his wound without engaging with anyone. Not part of the group. Just... near it.

  Maybe not all of them are like him. Maybe some can be... something else.

  But not now. Now he needed to survive alone.

  He checked his supplies by touch in the darkness.

  Dagger: still in his hand. Still there.

  Bread: half left. He could feel the rough texture through the cloth.

  Potion vial: empty. He'd used every last drop.

  Not much. Need more soon.

  He shifted, trying to find a position that didn't hurt. There wasn't one.

  Can't stay here forever. Need food. Need water. Need to climb.

  But not today. Today he rested.

  Tomorrow... tomorrow I find a way.

  His eyes closed. Sleep came like a thief—unwanted, unavoidable, necessary.

  ---

  Darkness.

  Hours passed. Maybe more. Time meant nothing in the crack.

  He woke to the same darkness. Same silence. Same pain, but less sharp now. The ankle had stopped throbbing. The ribs still ached, but breathing came easier. The body knew its work and had done it while he slept.

  How long did I sleep?

  Didn't matter. Time to move.

  He crawled out of the crack.

  The corridor greeted him with dim glimlight and cold air. He blinked against the sudden brightness—if it could be called brightness. After so long in true dark, even the faint glow of moss seemed harsh.

  He stood. Tested his leg. Better. Not good, but better.

  He chose a direction and walked.

  ---

  Forward.

  Slower than before, but moving. The ankle held. The ribs complained but didn't cripple him. His body was a machine of pain held together by will and necessity.

  He found water—a small trickle seeping down a wall, pooling in a depression on the floor. He knelt, drank until his stomach protested, then filled the empty potion vial. Clear. Cold. Life.

  He found glim moss growing thick on a section of wall. He'd seen the rat eat it. Edible, then. He harvested a handful, stuffed it in his pocket. He'd risk it later, when hunger outweighed caution.

  No monsters. No humans. Just empty corridors stretching in every direction.

  The silence was heavy. Pressing. The kind of silence that made a man want to shout just to hear something. But also... safe. For now.

  He walked.

  Was he going up? He thought so. The corridors sloped slightly, occasionally, almost imperceptibly. Or maybe he imagined it. Maybe he just needed to believe he was making progress.

  One floor? Two? No way to know. But he was going up. Somewhere. Always up.

  The Spire had only one direction that mattered.

  ---

  The corridor stretched endless ahead.

  Kai walked.

  His leg ached. His ribs burned. His empty stomach gnawed at his spine. But he walked.

  There was only the next step. Only the next breath. Only the endless corridor and the need to move through it.

  The Spire had taken his memory, his past, his name.

  But it hadn't taken his legs.

  Not yet.

  So he walked.