Chapter 26: Rising Tension

Kael kept watch on the map. Making sure that both enemies and allies were visible. The faint screen hovered in front of his face like a thin pane of ghost glass, the glow weak enough that it barely lit his hands, but steady enough to make the dots unmistakable. He had learned fast in this place that the moment you let your focus slip, even for a breath, the tower took that breath as permission to bury you.

Besides his own blue dot and John’s blue dots, the area was full of red. It was not just “a lot.” It was the kind of density that made his stomach clench. Packed and stacked in the building that isn’t too far away from them, the red dots layered so tightly together that the map almost looked bruised in that direction, like someone had pressed a wound into the screen. It felt wrong, seeing that many enemies sitting so close, as if the building itself was a nest, as if the concrete and steel had grown a heartbeat, and that heartbeat was hunger.

And just beyond it, within separate buildings were several other blue dots, humans in hiding, waiting for a chance to either strike, or steal from those who fall first, or those who don’t pay attention to their surroundings. Kael didn’t need to see their faces to understand the kind of people those dots belonged to. The tower made everyone a little desperate, but some people didn’t get desperate; they got sharp. They got patient. They got the kind of calm that only comes from deciding you’re willing to step over someone else’s corpse if it buys you another day. Those blue dots were still, tucked behind walls and broken windows, tucked behind rubble and shadows, waiting like carrion birds that hadn’t landed yet because the animal wasn’t dead enough.

Kael swallowed, and the sound of it felt loud in the storage room. The air was stale and bitter, dust heavy enough to taste, and the tight space made every small movement feel like it echoed. The bones on the floor, the old cans, the empty bottles, all of it sat in the dark like proof of what waiting too long looked like. He kept his breathing shallow, and he kept his eyes on the map because the map didn’t care if he was scared. It only told the truth.

John’s fidgeting couldn’t stop, restless and anxious. He kept shifting his weight like the floor was hot, like the place was crawling. His shoulders rose and fell in small, uneven motions that screamed tension even when he tried to hide it. They were too far deep in enemy territory, and one mistake would probably be the end of them. Kael could see it in John’s jaw, the way it clenched and unclenched as if he was chewing through fear. He could see it in the way John’s eyes kept flicking toward the door, then the ceiling, then the door again, as if expecting the dark to suddenly become teeth.

“You’re creeping me out, dude,” John said in a laughing manner.

Kael didn’t look up right away. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to feed John’s nerves by showing that he was thinking too hard. He kept the map steady, kept his thumb hovering near it like he could physically hold it in place.

“What did I do?” Kael replied.

John let out a breath that was half laugh, half curse, and ran his palm over his face like he was trying to wipe sweat that wasn’t there. “Exactly, nothing, we’re neck deep in shit if we get found, I can’t even get my body under control, how are you so… calm?”

Kael flexed his hand a bit. The motion was slow, deliberate, like he was checking that his fingers still listened to him. He could feel the stiffness from the day, the soreness from carrying and climbing, the faint sting in old scrapes that the tower seemed to love reopening. His hand looked normal in the dim light, but nothing about his life was normal anymore. Maybe that was the thing. Maybe once everything becomes absurd, panic starts to feel like a waste of energy.

“I don’t know,” Kael said as he flexed his hand a bit, “Maybe because being anxious would serve us no purpose. What’s the point of it then?”

John stared at him like Kael had just offered him a lecture in the middle of an execution. “Fuck, it’s like saying to someone to calm down when they aren’t calm, how does that even work?”

Kael shrugged. It was a small shrug, barely more than the roll of a shoulder, but it carried something honest in it. He wasn’t trying to be brave. He wasn’t trying to look cool. He just didn’t have the energy to shake like a leaf when the shaking didn’t change anything.

“I don’t know, maybe because I don’t smell too many enemies nearby, perhaps that’s the reason.”

John’s lips twitched, and for a second the tension cracked just enough to let bitterness seep out. “Ah, must be nice to be able to sniff out foes. I’d probably be less stressed if I had that.”

Kael almost answered with something dry, something snarky, because there was a part of him that wanted to say, yeah, wouldn’t it be nice to have that power… you’d probably kill me since I’ll be useless. But he didn’t. He kept the thought in his head where it belonged because the tower punished jokes if you let them distract you.

Kael then said, “Quiet, the smell is getting stronger now, they’re moving.”

The words made the air heavier. John’s posture changed instantly. The little fake laugh vanished. His hands stopped fidgeting, not because he was suddenly calm, but because fear had finally decided where to sit. They could barely see each other through from their eyes getting used to low lighting, but he could feel that Kael was tensing up now, finally. John didn’t have Kael’s nose, but he had instincts, and his instincts recognized the shift in Kael’s tone the way animals recognize the first tremor of an earthquake.

At first, a couple of red dots moved in the black building, then soon more of them began moving. Waking from their daily nap, apparently. It started small, almost harmless, like a few ants stirring, but then it grew. Dots slid across the map, slow at first, then in clusters. Kael’s eyes narrowed as he tracked them, trying to understand the pattern. His mind kept doing the math whether he wanted it or not. How many still inside? How many are leaving? How many would remain as guards? How many would come back if they heard something?

But just a few weren’t enough, there were almost a hundred or so dots still there, probably goblins, hopefully just goblins, if it was something like the zombies that Kael saw in the under tunnel or something new, then it would spill disaster for them. The thought of those zombies crawled up the back of his neck, not as an image, but as a sensation. A memory of wrongness. Goblins were filthy and cruel, but they were alive in their own way. Zombies were something else. Zombies were the tower reminding you that death was not an escape route, but chains for imprisonment in this hell for all eternity.

After what felt like ages, more dots kept leaving, the only issue that the majority of the mob was still packed tightly inside the underground parking lot. Kael watched the slow trickle become a steady flow, watched red dots peel away from the cluster and drift outward like blood leaking from a wound. It was working, but not fast enough. Not clean enough. Not safe enough. The cluster was still thick. Still ugly.

“Still?” John asked for the umpteenth time.

John’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried impatience, the kind that comes from sitting still when your body wants to run. His eyes kept flicking toward the door as if he expected it to explode inward at any second. He was trying not to be loud, trying not to be obvious, but his frustration made him careless in small ways. Kael could see it, and it made his own shoulders tighten.

“No, still too many inside.”

John exhaled hard through his nose. “Are you sure your nose is working right, by now there are probably no more monsters left, so many had gone out before…”

Kael turned his head slightly, not fully, just enough to let John see his expression in the dim light. His face didn’t change much. He kept it flat, because letting emotion rise was like letting smoke rise. Someone would smell it.

“I won’t stop you if you want to go check, but I’ll definitely not recover your corpse… if any is left.”

John clicked his tongue, but the sound was more relief than annoyance. “Tsk, fair point,” John couldn’t help but stay put waiting alongside Kael.

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