Location: Kelthar-3 — Spirepoint Echo, Top Floor

  Agent: Nicolette "Nyx"

  The elevator vibrated softly as it climbed.

  A tinny, cheerful tune played from the cracked overhead speakers, some ancient piece of music, upbeat and painfully out of place.

  Nyx tapped her foot to the rhythm, dead-eyed, counting the floors.

  Top floor — Crown Level.

  The panel blinked.

  Ding.

  The doors peeled open.

  She stepped out.

  Straight into a sea of rifles.

  Dozens of soldiers crouched behind overturned tables and broken lounge chairs, weapons raised, eyes wide, fingers trembling on triggers.

  The stupid music still echoed behind her.

  Then the commander screamed.

  "Open fire!"

  The room exploded with sound and muzzle flashes as bullets ripped the air.

  Nyx vanished and she reappeared behind the first line of rifles.

  Someone shouted, panicking. "Where is she?! Where the fuck is she?!"

  Her claws slid up under a soldier’s jaw, slicing through soft flesh and out the back of his skull, blood spraying across his squadmates.

  Before the body even hit the ground, she disappeared again.

  She flickered behind a second line, tail lashing out, skewering two men through the chest before they could even scream.

  The guns shifted toward her and another volley of fire shredded the space she had been a breath before.

  Too slow.

  She appeared atop a broken lounge, boots crashing into a rifleman’s skull, snapping his neck backward with a crunch.

  The remaining men tried to turn and track the blur that was cutting them apart.

  One man fired wildly into a velvet couch, screaming. "She's teleporting! She's—!"

  Nyx appeared behind him.

  Silence.

  Another step.

  She crashed down atop a sniper trying to set up by the broken lounge.

  "Backup! We need backup! She's a fucking—!"

  Nyx flickered again dragged him down by the collar and slit his throat clean.

  The last men standing fired wildly into the walls, screaming orders nobody followed.

  "Fall back! FALL BACK—!"

  She slid through their ranks, hamstringing three in a blink.

  The soldiers crumpled to the marble floor, howling, clutching at ruined tendons.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  She scooped a fallen rifle off the ground and without a word, turned and mag-dumped the writhing bodies.

  Three more messy kills.

  The magazine clicked empty.

  She let the rifle clatter to the ground without a second glance.

  The last surviving soldier dropped his rifle, hands raised high.

  "P-please! I… I don't know anything! I swear!"

  Nyx tilted her head slightly, breathing hard.

  A low ringing buzzed in her ears from all the gunfire.

  She winced, tapping the side of her head lightly with two fingers.

  "What?" she said, half-smiling, "All zis noise... mon pauvre oreilles."

  Glass crunched under her boots as she stepped forward slowly as if she had all the time in the world.

  The man stumbled backward, still babbling.

  "I-I swear, I don't know anything! I was just following orders!"

  Nyx shrugged lightly.

  "Following orderz?"

  She clucked her tongue, mock-disappointed.

  "You zound like every dead man before you."

  She took another step.

  "Maybe," she said, voice soft, almost playful, "I just wanted to use le restroom. 'Ave you ever thought of that?"

  The soldier blinked at her, confused and terrified.

  "I… I can show you! "I'll show you where it is... just please..."

  Nyx tilted her head again, amused.

  "I was joking, idiot."

  Her tail twitched behind her ready to strike.

  She shifted her weight forward, prepared to end it.

  Then she froze.

  Before she could finish him, movement caught her eye from down the hall.

  One of the luxury suite doors creaked open and a slender figure peeked out.

  Blue skin.

  Glowing markings.

  Wide, panicked eyes.

  Xyrelian.

  The alien girl's skin flushed bright violet the moment she realized she'd been spotted.

  The door slammed shut with a metallic clang.

  Nyx stared after it for a heartbeat, ignoring the stammering soldier still half-crawling at her feet.

  "I recognize you, ‘andsy bitch." She murmured under her breath, almost too quietly to hear.

  The man flinched, thinking she was talking to him.

  "Wh-what?!"

  Nyx didn't even glance at him.

  "Not you."

  With a casual flick of her tail, she drove it through his throat.

  He collapsed in a heap.

  Nyx wiped the blood still dripping from her hands across her pants and continued toward the suite.

  Halfway there, she touched her nose absently.

  Wet.

  She pulled her fingers back and frowned slightly at the thin smear of her own blood staining the back of her hand.

  Wonderful.

  Her whole body felt heavy now, like someone had tied anchors to her bones.

  Her legs ached.

  Her vision blurred at the edges.

  "Merde," she muttered, tired.

  "Too many Ashsteps... too fast."

  She leaned against the wall for a second, pretending it was casual.

  The old Ashpriests warned about it.

  Not in training manuals or any place official.

  In ghost stories.

  They claimed the Hollow wasn't just dead space between worlds.

  It was death itself. A realm of drifting ash and broken light.

  Every time you Ashstepped, you left a piece of yourself behind.

  Every time, the Hollow took a little more.

  Nyx exhaled slowly, forcing her body upright.

  She needed to find Timus.

  Fast.

  Or there wouldn’t be enough of her left to bring him back.

  Nyx shuffled to the door, more tired than she would ever admit, and rapped her knuckles lazily against the frame.

  "Ey," she called, her voice a little too soft, a little too amused.

  "You can open up now, yes?"

  No answer.

  She smirked tiredly, resting her forehead lightly against the cool metal.

  "I could jus’… teleport inside," she mused aloud, tapping the door lazily.

  "Of course... if I miss ze mark—"

  She tapped the door twice, slow and lazy.

  "Maybe I end up ‘alfway through ze wall. Maybe… through your chest. ‘ard to say, mm?"

  She closed her eyes for a second, just breathing.

  Another lazy knock.

  "C'mon, ma petite coureuse," she said, the words slipping out like an old song.

  "My legs... zey ’urt. My tail ’urts. Mon... everyzing ’urts."

  A tired chuckle under her breath.

  "Don’t make me turn us both into abstract art, just because you are shy, hein?"

  The lock clicked and the door cracked open just a sliver.

  A single blue eye peeked out. Wide, glowing faintly, terrified.

  The Xyrelian girl.

  Nyx smiled soft, tired, but still sharp enough to cut.

  "Good girl," she whispered.

  She was just about to push her way in when the world buckled.

  A low, monstrous boom rolled up from the city below, deep enough to shake the marrow in her bones.

  The floor heaved underfoot, throwing hairline cracks across the marble.

  Chandeliers tore free from the ceiling, crashing down in showers of crystal and twisted metal.

  Tables and shattered furniture flipped over, skidding across the floor like toys in a storm.

  The overhead lights flickered, then snapped off, plunging the hallway into pulsing emergency red.

  Nyx barely had time to lift her head before the shockwave hit.

  The hallway’s windows exploded inward with a shriek of tearing glass.

  The half-open door she leaned against slammed wide and Nyx was flung through it, and into the Xyrelian girl standing frozen just behind the door.

  They hit the floor hard.

  Nyx sprawled half on top of her, one arm braced against the ground, the other instinctively locking the girl down by the throat.

  The Xyrelian gasped, her skin flashing bright violet in terror, struggling weakly beneath her.

  Nyx coughed once, tasting blood and dust.

  Then she smiled sharply, exhausted, but unbothered.

  "Bonjour, petite," she rasped, her voice low against the chaos still shaking the tower.

  "Now... we talk."