--This chapter is written in Ellie's POV--
The girls and I dropped to the floor at the base of the stairs leading to the fifth floor. Ragged breaths escaped us as we stared up at its towering steps.
If not for Ceres' constant, escalating provocations, we wouldn't have struggled so much against the endless squads of AOTG soldiers blocking our way at every turn.
She wrote text across the screens to provoke us, detonated the computers on the desks we used for cover, and even created fake images to trick me into shooting at nonexistent cameras, only to mock me for it.
It was beyond annoying how easily she got reactions out of me!
Paired with the flashing lights, her methods drained us of patience, energy, and will.
