The evolved ripper lunged.
Noir barely had time to raise his brass knuckles before the creature was on him, those too-long arms wrapping around his torso with crushing force. The impact drove them both backward, Noir's feet leaving the ground as the ripper's momentum carried them across the basement.
"Noir!" Piers shouted, his hands already weaving patterns, frost spreading across the concrete.
But it was too late.
Noir's back slammed into something that gave way with a sound like thunder. Glass exploded around him—an old industrial window, forgotten and dust-covered, shattering into a thousand glittering pieces.
He hit the ground hard.
Glass rained down on him like razor-edged snow.
For a moment, Noir couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. The world was nothing but pain—sharp, immediate, everywhere. He could feel shards embedded in his back, his arms, his legs. One particularly large piece had buried itself in his shoulder, the jagged edge grinding against bone with each shallow breath.
Through blurred vision, he saw Piers dodge the ripper's attack, flash-freezing one of its arms. But the arm simply reformed, flesh rippling like water.
"Stay down!" Piers called out, his voice cracking.
Noir looked down at himself. Blood was spreading across his crimson suit, making the fabric stick to his skin. Glass protruded everywhere—his forearm, his thigh, his side—each shard a small agony that grew with every movement.
He should stay down.
Instead, Noir pressed his left hand against the concrete—felt glass crunch beneath his palm—and pushed.
His body screamed in protest. The shard in his shoulder shifted, sent white-hot pain shooting down his spine. But he kept pushing until his legs were under him, until he was standing, swaying, bleeding.
Piers glanced back, his blue eyes widening with something between admiration and horror. "Noir, you can't—"
"I can," Noir said, though he wasn't sure he believed it.
The ripper's faceless head turned toward him, and that stomach-mouth opened, teeth glistening wet.
"Just an absence where a person should have been," it said in Noir's voice.
The mockery cut deeper than any glass.
Noir moved forward, each step sending fresh jolts of pain through his legs where shards were embedded. His brass knuckles were slick with his own blood. The crimson scarf around his neck pulsed with silver light, trying to keep him conscious, trying to anchor him.
His strike connected with the ripper's side just as Piers flash-froze its legs. The creature staggered, and for one brief moment, Noir felt something like hope.
They fell into desperate rhythm. Piers would freeze sections of the creature—his hands shaking now, ice forming in uneven bursts—and Noir would strike with everything he had left. Which wasn't much. Each punch felt weaker than the last, his body running on nothing but stubbornness and fear.
But it was working.
The ripper was slowing. Regenerating less efficiently.
Then the stomach-mouth opened impossibly wide.
And screamed.
It wasn't sound—it was force. A supersonic blast that bypassed Noir's ears entirely and detonated inside his skull. He felt his brain rattle against bone, felt something fundamental rupture deep in his head.
Liquid heat spilled down the sides of his neck.
When Noir touched his ears, his fingers came away red. Dark red. Too much of it.
The world went silent.
As if someone had reached inside his head and cut a wire.
Noir saw Piers' mouth moving—shouting something, warning—but heard nothing. The basement had become a nightmare pantomime, all movement and violence with the audio removed. Even his own ragged breathing was gone, swallowed by the void.
He took a step forward, intending to keep fighting, and felt the floor shift beneath his feet.
Crumbling.
The concrete was disintegrating like sand, falling away into darkness below. The supersonic blast had destabilized the already rotted foundation.
Noir tried to jump to stable ground, but his body betrayed him. The glass in his legs made every movement agony. His balance was destroyed without his hearing to orient him.
The floor collapsed.
Noir fell into nothing, his hand shooting out on pure instinct. His fingers closed around something solid—fabric, an ankle, didn't matter—and he gripped with everything he had.
Piers.
If he was going down, he wasn't going alone.
They fell together into the black.
Hit something hard with bone-crushing force.
The impact drove what little air Noir had from his lungs. Glass shards embedded throughout his body were driven deeper—he felt them punch through skin, scrape against bone, bury themselves in muscle. Fresh blood welled from a dozen new wounds.
For several seconds, Noir simply lay there in the darkness, his chest heaving uselessly, trying to remember how breathing worked.
Beside him, Piers was moving. Pulling himself up with visible effort, his movements jerky and pained. Even in the near-total darkness, Noir could see his friend checking himself for injuries with shaking hands.
Noir tried to stand.
Failed.
His legs wouldn't cooperate. Wouldn't bear his weight. Every nerve in his body was screaming at him to give up.
He tried again.
Braced his left hand against the rubble—felt broken concrete and shattered glass beneath his palm—and pushed. His arm trembled violently. The wound in his shoulder tore wider, blood running hot down his back.
But slowly, agonizingly, he got his knees under him.
Then his feet.
Noir swayed dangerously. Nearly fell. Caught himself on a support beam that might have been rusted metal or might have been his own stubborn refusal to quit.
He stood.
Piers turned toward him, and even through the pain and fear, relief flashed across his friend's face.
For one heartbeat, they'd both survived.
Then Piers' expression shattered.
His eyes went wide with horror. His mouth opened in what must have been a scream—terror, warning, something—but Noir heard nothing but silence.
Noir started to turn, started to raise his brass knuckles, but his body was too slow, too damaged.
The ripper was already there.
It moved with impossible speed, its wrinkled flesh rippling as it lunged from the shadows. Noir caught a glimpse of that faceless head, that stomach-mouth opening impossibly wide, teeth catching what little light existed—
The mouth closed around Noir's right arm.
Just above the elbow. Where his flesh was exposed through torn fabric.
Noir felt pressure.
Felt the teeth sink in.
Felt something give way—tendons snapping, bone cracking, muscle tearing.
Then the creature's head jerked backward with brutal force.
And Noir's arm went with it.
Blood sprayed in a wide arc through the darkness. It splashed across Piers' face, across his dark green combat suit, painting him in black-red that glistened wet.
Piers' face was frozen. His mouth open. His eyes wide with the kind of horror that comes from watching your friend destroyed in front of you.
The ripper tossed Noir aside like garbage.
He hit the ground hard, his left side taking the full impact. His vision swam, darkness closing in at the edges like a tunnel collapsing. Through the shock that was trying to shut his brain down, Noir saw Piers moving.
Dodging.
Weaving.
Desperately trying to create distance as the ripper lunged at him with renewed hunger.
Piers' hands formed patterns—frantic, jerky, nothing like his usual precision.
Ice kept forming and shattering, forming and shattering. But the ripper was too fast, too aggressive, pressing the attack like it could smell victory.
Noir tried to stand.
Couldn't.
His legs had finally given up. Wouldn't respond to any command his brain tried to send.
He looked down at where his right arm should have been.
And saw nothing.
Just a ragged stump ending above the elbow. Torn flesh and exposed bone and blood—so much blood—pulsing out in rhythmic spurts that matched his failing heartbeat.
The shock hit him all at once.
His arm was gone.
His arm was gone.
Noir's mouth opened, and he screamed.
He couldn't hear it—couldn't hear anything in the absolute silence his ruptured eardrums had left him—but he felt it tear through his throat raw and ragged. Felt his lungs empty completely with the force of it. Felt something fundamental break inside him that had nothing to do with his body.
His vision darkened further.
The world tilted sideways.
He saw Piers still fighting, still desperately trying to survive, but it was just shapes now. Just movement and darkness and the spreading warmth of his own blood beneath him.
So much blood.
Growing in a pool that kept expanding, kept taking more of his life with each pulse.
Noir's head hit the concrete.
Beside him, close enough to touch if he'd had an arm left to reach with, Piers was being overwhelmed by something that shouldn't exist.
And Noir was dying in the dark.
Alone in the silence.
His crimson scarf pulsed once around his neck. Weak. Desperate.
Then went still.