She climbed first.
Not because she was braver.
Because hesitation was lethal.
I understood that instinctively—felt it in the way my body refused to pause, refused to ask whether it could still do this. The shaft above us was a throat already closing. Whatever mercy it once had was gone.
The lights flared.
White— then bleeding into red.
Warning glyphs ignited along the curved shaft walls, symbols cascading faster than my eyes could track. They weren't alarms meant to inform. They were systems confessing failure.
[ MASS DISPLACEMENT DETECTED ] [ STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY — FAILING ]
The messages weren't warnings.
They were apologies.
Systems admitting they no longer had control—
only enough awareness left to tell us how badly things were about to go.
The elevator below us jerked violently.
My knees buckled instinctively.
For a terrifying instant, my body tried to sit—
as if collapse was a reasonable response.
Yuna's hand snapped out and caught my collar before gravity could finish the thought.
Emergency brakes screamed as they engaged—ancient systems clawing at modern damage, friction howling as metal tried to remember its purpose.
Not enough to save the car.
Just enough to delay the fall.
Not a tremor.
A hit.
Something slammed into the elevator from outside with deliberate force. The sound wasn't sharp. It was tortured—metal protesting as it was bent in ways it was never designed to survive.
A circular dent bloomed along the elevator wall.
Heat followed.
Red-hot, spreading outward like infection, the steel glowing as if reality itself were being punched inward.
"Charge," Yuna snapped.
The word barely left her mouth—
The metal bulged.
I didn't think.
I threw my arm over my head as the wall detonated inward.
The blast wasn't chaotic.
It was precise.
Shrapnel tore through the elevator car in controlled arcs—steel fragments ricocheting, sparks spraying, smoke flooding the shaft as alarms shrieked like wounded animals.
My spine slammed into the wall.
Pain detonated—white, absolute, stealing thought and breath alike.
The floor cracked beneath us.
The elevator dropped half a meter and stopped with a brutal snap that rattled my teeth and sent a shock through my bones.
Dust poured down the shaft in choking clouds.
For a heartbeat—
Nothing moved.
The world hung there, balanced on the edge of collapse.
Then Yuna was already moving.
"Ceiling. Now."
For half a heartbeat, I didn't move.
Not because I was afraid to grab the cable—
but because I understood what letting go would mean.
If I missed—
There would be no second attempt.
No lesson learned.
No correction.
Only absence.
Then Renya's face surfaced again—
and my body chose for me.
Fast. Efficient. No wasted syllables.
I followed without thinking.
My hands slipped on oil-slick metal. My muscles screamed as pain surged through every nerve, my body reminding me—brutally—that I was still injured. Still stitched together by borrowed time and willpower.
Every pull burned.
Every breath felt rationed.
We reached the maintenance ladder.
Barely.
Below us, the elevator jerked again.
Harder.
I looked down.
The car was pulling away.
Not slowly.
Not hesitantly.
It was falling.
My brain tried to calculate the distance.
Failed.
All it could process was the certainty that if that car hit bottom—
there would be nothing left to recognize.
Fast.
"YUNA—!"
She didn't answer.
She kicked the ladder loose.
The metal screamed as it tore free and vanished into the dark below, spinning once before it was swallowed by distance.
Yuna had already shifted her weight—boots braced against the shaft wall, hands abandoning the ladder entirely to seize the load cables instead.
"Hold on," she ordered.
Then she jumped.
Not down.
Sideways.
Her boot slammed into the shaft wall. She twisted mid-air, momentum snapping her body horizontal as she ripped the emergency brake cable free with both hands.
"NOW!"
I reacted on instinct.
I grabbed the loose cable and wrapped it around my forearm.
The tension yanked me forward so violently I thought my shoulder tore out of its socket. A sound ripped out of my throat—half breath, half scream.
The cable screamed.
The shaft screamed.
And then—
The elevator car below us exploded.
Not beneath us.
Above it.
A shaped charge detonated against the upper stabilizers, the concussive blast punching the air out of my lungs as fire roared upward through the shaft like a living thing.
Heat scorched my face.
The shockwave hit.
I lost my grip.
For half a second—
I was falling.
No thought.
No panic.
Just the sick certainty of gravity reclaiming me.
Then Yuna caught my wrist.
Hard.
Pain detonated so bright my vision went white. It felt like my arm was being torn from my body—but she didn't let go.
Together we slammed into the shaft wall, boots skidding, bodies scraping metal as sparks rained around us like burning snow.
The fire passed beneath.
Close enough that I felt my skin tighten from the heat.
Then—
Silence.
Not peace.
Aftershock silence.
Smoke drifted upward in lazy coils.
Below us, the elevator car was gone.
Shattered.
I stared at the empty shaft where it had been.
No debris rising.
No echoes returning.
Just absence.
The kind that doesn't feel like space —
it feels like erasure.
That could have been us.
That should have been us.
If we'd been inside—
I didn't finish the thought.
Yuna moved again.
She hauled me sideways with terrifying strength, smashing through a maintenance hatch with her shoulder. The metal gave way, buckling inward as we tumbled through.
Darkness swallowed us.
Then—
Concrete.
Hard.
We hit the ground and rolled, bodies slamming into refuse and bursting garbage bags.
Rotten food. Wet cardboard. Oil and ash.
The garbage bay.
I rolled onto my side and gagged.
Not from the smell —
from the delay.
My body finally realizing it had survived something it hadn't planned for.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Not fear.
Residual.
I lay there gasping, lungs burning, heart hammering so hard it felt like it was trying to escape my ribs.
Every breath tasted like rust and smoke.
Above us, the building sealed itself.
Clean. Silent.
Like nothing had ever happened.
No alarms.
No sirens.
No witnesses.
Yuna rolled onto her back and exhaled once.
"…Told you," she muttered. "Your brother planned well."
I didn't answer.
Because all I could think was—
He planned for everything except surviving himself.
I stared up at the stained ceiling, shaking uncontrollably now that the adrenaline was draining.
The smell was unbearable.
But we were alive.
That realization hit slower than it should have.
I laughed once.
It came out broken—more air than sound, something fractured trying to pretend it wasn't.
For a moment, I almost believed it was over.
That thought scared me more than the explosions.
Because it meant part of me was already forgetting what being hunted felt like.
Then—
The air shifted again.
Not violently.
Not obviously.
Just enough.
The kind of shift you feel in your teeth before you understand why.
My laugh died in my throat.
Yuna's body went still.
She sat up slowly, eyes scanning the shadows beyond the garbage bay doors, posture shifting from exhausted survivor to alert predator.
"We're not done," she said quietly.
I nodded.
My body disagreed.
My mind didn't.
My fingers curled against the concrete.
Neither was I.
We hadn't won.
We'd escaped.
And the difference mattered.
✦ END OF CHAPTER 35 — Escape Without Victory ✦