The air changes as you descend—thickens, turns metallic, clings to your tongue like old pennies.

Your father's lab sprawls out before you, cluttered with instruments you don't recognize. Glass vials filled with murky liquids. Iron contraptions with rusted hinges. Symbols carved into the stone floor that seem to shift when you're not looking at them.

You pass through it all, drawn forward by something you can't name.

Then—the last door.

It's heavier than the others, bound in iron, marked with symbols your father etched himself. The handle is warm despite the cold stone around it.

You push.

The room beyond is vast. Candles gutter in iron sconces, casting shadows that writhe like living things. Chains hang from the ceiling, from the walls—thick, cruel things lined with barbs and dried blood.

Seven figures hang in them.

They're human-shaped. Barely. Skin pale as death, limbs slack, heads bowed. Blood pools beneath them in dark, tacky sheets.

One of them stirs.

Dark eyes meet yours from across the room—sharp despite the exhaustion weighing them down. The youngest-looking one, with a face carved into cold defiance even now.