They did not leave the door behind all at once.
The four-skull threshold remained visible longer than it should have, its purple veins pulsing softly as the group retreated down the concourse. Even when distance should have swallowed it, Caelum could still feel its presence—like a thought he hadn't finished yet, hovering just behind the mind.
Only when the corridor curved sharply and the light shifted back to dull red did the pressure ease.
Not vanish.
Ease.
"That thing's not done with us," Ysara said quietly.
"No," Seraphine replied. "It's just patient."
They moved deeper into Floor Two.
The space opened gradually, without announcement. Corridors widened into fractured halls. The ceiling lifted, then dropped again, uneven and unreliable. Ruined structures emerged—pillars snapped in half, stairways that led nowhere, archways collapsed mid-span as if the floor had grown tired of finishing things.
This place wasn't built.
It was edited.
Sound behaved strangely here. Footsteps dulled after a few paces. Voices carried only when they were meant to. Caelum noticed it first when Iscahrel spoke again—his voice clear to those close, swallowed entirely just a few steps away.
"Quiet Zone rules without the comfort," Iscahrel murmured.
"Selective silence," Mireya said. "It lets you think you're alone."
They slowed.
Not out of fear, but instinct. The floor punished speed without intent. It rewarded attention.
They crossed a wide plaza littered with broken stone slabs, each etched with symbols worn nearly smooth. Caelum paused long enough to trace one with his boot.
No reaction.
Not everything here was a trap.
That made it worse.
They reached a narrow pass between two leaning walls—stone pressed so close together that they had to move single file. The air thickened there, heavy with the scent of damp iron.
Caelum went first.
Red Amendment rested low in his grip, blade angled down, daggers still folded tight along its edge. He stepped carefully, each footfall deliberate.
Halfway through the pass, something changed.
Not a sound.
Not a movement.
The absence of both.
Caelum took another step—and realized he could no longer hear Ysara behind him.
He stopped.
Turned.
The corridor behind him was empty.
Not collapsed.
Not sealed.
Just… empty.
"Ysara?" he called.
His voice did not echo.
It did not return.
It simply ended.
A chill ran through him—not panic, not yet, but recognition. This was not an ambush.
This was a division.
"Mireya," he said, louder.
Nothing.
Caelum backed up a step.
The stone beneath his foot shifted—not violently, not dramatically—just enough to alter his balance. The floor adjusted like a living thing correcting posture.
He froze.
Moved forward again.
The corridor ahead remained intact.
Behind him, it did not.
The walls where the pass had been were now smooth stone, unmarked, as though the path had never existed.
Caelum exhaled slowly.
"No combat," he muttered. "Just choices."
Elsewhere—
Mireya realized she was alone when her hand brushed stone where Seraphine should have been.
She didn't stop walking.
Stopping was how the floor noticed you.
She counted her steps instead. One. Two. Three. The sound of her boots faded too quickly, swallowed by space that refused to carry noise.
She reached a small chamber—circular, low-ceilinged, its walls lined with narrow grooves that caught light unevenly. In the center lay a shallow pool of dark water, perfectly still.
Not blood.
Not poison.
Just water.
That made her wary.
She knelt, dipped two fingers in.
Cold.
Clean.
She withdrew her hand and waited.
Nothing happened.
Mireya sat back against the wall, blade resting across her knees. She closed her eyes briefly—not to rest, but to listen to herself breathe.
The floor did not interfere.
Across the floor, Ysara found herself standing at the edge of a broken bridge.
It spanned a wide gap, stone shattered in the middle, leaving only narrow ledges along the sides. Below, darkness stretched down farther than sight.
She laughed softly.
"Of course," she said to no one.
She tested the ledge with one foot.
Solid.
The rules here weren't about fighting.
They were about trust.
Ysara adjusted her grip on her weapon and began to cross sideways, back pressed to the wall, movements slow and measured. Halfway across, she felt it—the sensation of being watched, not by eyes, but by expectation.
She smiled faintly.
"Not today," she whispered.
Elsewhere—
Seraphine stood perfectly still in a wide chamber filled with broken mirrors.
They were not reflective in the usual sense. Each showed a slightly different angle, a slightly different version of the room.
Some showed her standing alone.
Some showed her with the group.
One showed her with someone missing.
She cataloged them quickly, methodically.
Illusions were only dangerous if you reacted emotionally.
She stepped forward—and the mirror shattered silently.
Good.
Iscahrel sat where the floor left him.
A small alcove. No exits in sight. The air here felt heavier, pressing against his chest, making breath deliberate.
He closed his eyes.
This was not punishment.
This was examination.
He whispered a prayer—not aloud, but inside—and waited to see if the floor would correct him.
It didn't.
That scared him more than pain ever had.
Time passed strangely while they were separated.
Not minutes.
Not hours.
Just… intervals.
Caelum moved carefully through a branching corridor, testing each turn before committing. The floor allowed exploration, but only one direction at a time.
He found markings on the walls—fresh, deliberate.
Someone else had been here.
Not long ago.
Aurelian.
The realization hit him quietly, firmly.
Not dead.
Not lost.
Just… elsewhere.
The floor pulsed faintly, as if acknowledging the thought.
"Not done chewing," Caelum murmured.
A sound answered him.
Laughter.
Low. Familiar. Mocking.
"MISS ME, YOU SCARED LITTLE BITCH?"
The Warden's voice did not echo.
It didn't need to.
Caelum's grip tightened.
"Bring him back," Caelum said.
The laughter deepened.
"SOON. FLOOR AIN'T FINISHED TEACHING YET."
The presence withdrew.
No spectacle.
No explanation.
Just the certainty that this separation was intentional.
Gradual reconnection came without announcement.
Paths looped.
Walls shifted.
The floor allowed them to find each other again—not all at once, but piece by piece.
First Ysara.
Then Mireya.
Then Iscahrel, shaken but intact.
Seraphine arrived last, eyes sharp, expression unreadable.
They did not embrace.
They did not speak immediately.
They simply stood together, confirming what remained.
Five.
Still five.
The floor hummed softly beneath them, not satisfied—but not disappointed either.
Ahead, the corridor widened.
Not toward the purple door.
Toward something else.
Something that waited.
Caelum lifted Red Amendment slightly.
"Next time," he said quietly, "we don't let it decide where we split."
Seraphine nodded. "Next time, we decide first."
They moved forward together.
Behind them, Floor Two shifted.
Remembering.