Adam hit the ground hard, his shoulder singing with a distant pain that brought him back to his senses.

  He found himself lying flat on cold concrete, staring up at a featureless gray ceiling. Trying not to move his head, he took in his surroundings. Elevator shaft. Staircase. Access door. He moved to sit up, and that’s when the world started to spin.

  "Point taken," he grunted, closing his eyes and focusing on not passing out. The floor felt like the most comfortable bed he'd ever slept in, and for a moment he wondered what it would be like to close his eyes and just… drift off.

  A few moments later, he tried to sit up again and this time found he couldn't. His shoulders rose a few inches before the radiating pain in his shoulder forced him back down. He laughed bitterly. The irony of making it to the top floor only to be too broken to finish their mission settled over him like a lead blanket.

  The seconds ticked by and eventually he found the strength to move his head again. He tilted it gently left toward the elevator shaft, then to the narrow staircase on his right. Just beyond his feet loomed the door to the roof. Its small window shone with a soft golden light.

  And from that light poured a song.

  It flooded into his ears like a rising tide. The runes on his cheeks flared brightly, then dimmed with a gentle curl of smoke. The burn of the dying rune quickly faded into the background hum of his other pains.

  He couldn't cover his ears. Couldn't turn away. All he could do was lie in place while the song burrowed into his skull. The wordless melody scoured his thoughts as the volume swelled, scraping him clean with every rising note.

  And the more he resisted, the more it hurt.

  It didn't strike him, or rend his flesh. It grieved him. The pain wasn't of flesh and blood. It was the agony of losing a wife. A child. A parent. A friend. All at once. It was the pain of loss given substance, and it hollowed him out, pouring salt into the gaping void left behind.

  But the pain was seductive. It promised that if he just let go, just gave in, it would all go away.

  All he had to do was stop fighting. He could rest and it would strip away everything that could hurt, until blissful numbness was all that remained.

  And god, he wanted to. He couldn't deny that. It would be so much easier to just give in and… let it happen.

  He thought of his parents. He couldn't save them. He would probably never see them again.

  He thought of Mr. Dixon, and how he'd died because he was too shocked and scared to act.

  He thought of the others, maybe fighting and dying right now because he wasn't there.

  He thought of his baseball coach. His teammates. His first girlfriend. His most recent.

  He thought about everyone he had ever failed.

  A long string of disappointments stretched back through his life until it felt like failure was all he was, and all he could ever be.

  And still, he didn't let go. Some stubborn, masochistic core in the center of his mind refused. This is nothing, it said in its silent voice. This was just doubt, just uncertainty, just pain. And we know pain.

  He thought back over the last several weeks. How many times had he believed he was at the end of his strength? How many times had he thought: This is the end.

  With a sudden clarity, he realized he had never been at the end. Not really.

  The end was when you died, and not a moment before.

  So no, he wouldn't let it in. Not if it flayed him alive and packed his remains in battery acid. He would swallow the pain like the bitter medicine it was. He would say thank you, and then he would ask for more.

  He welcomed the pain and greeted it like an old friend.

  The song rose into a single, agonizing note. One last-ditch effort to pierce his defenses.

  Where before it had been seductive and heavy, this note was a scalpel, precise and ruthless.

  But he saw it for what it was, a final desperate strike aimed right at his heart. And he welcomed it all the same.

  Just like that, the song faded, and all he could hear was his own shallow breathing. Sweat soaked his entire body as he broke into relieved laughter. Everything hurt. Every single inch of him and he just didn't care.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  He was alive. And he was whole.

  Bent but unbroken.

  "That fucking sucked," he half-sobbed, waiting for the tears that never came.

  Natalie's head appeared over the edge of the stairs.

  She looked as battered as he felt: one eye caked in blood, the hair that normally spilled past her shoulder burnt away to just below her jaw.

  "You look like you’ve been through it," she said weakly.

  "You could say that," he agreed. "You?"

  She shook her head. "Later." Climbed the last few steps, she dropped heavily to her knees beside him. "Your shoulder really shouldn't bend that way."

  "Tell it that," Adam muttered. He thought about trying to sit up, but she placed a hand on his chest and he gave up on the notion. "Where is everyone else?"

  Instead of answering, Natalie reached for his arm. She shifted it slowly until it lay in a more natural position. The adjustment made his stomach churn, but he didn't move. She prodded his arm gently, looking at him with a tired expression. "They're coming."

  As if on cue Hector, Samantha and Jessica appeared at the top of the stairs.

  They looked just as battered as Natalie, and he felt something loosen in his chest. Relief flooded him and he relaxed for the first time since they set foot inside. He was alive, and so were they.

  Without warning, Natalie seized his arm and jammed the bone back into its socket with a wet, grinding crunch. Adam's eyes widened and he would have cried out if he had the energy. Instead, he settled for glaring at Natalie.

  "Sorry. That was going to hurt no matter what." She ran her fingertips along the joint, pressing here and there. "Can you try to bend it for me?"

  Adam nodded and raised the arm with a grunt. The pain was rough, but mild compared to before. "Ouch," he wheezed. "I thought it was supposed to stop hurting once it was back in the socket."

  She patted him on the other shoulder. "That's a movie thing. Joints get very angry when they're pulled out. It takes time. What else hurts?"

  "Everything," he said honestly.

  Natalie chuckled and put one hand on the center of his chest and the other on his good shoulder. She closed her eyes and mumbled something too low for him to make out.

  Adam let his head loll to the side. The others slumped along the wall, their shoulders drooping, their faces drawn. Samantha had a nasty gash across her jaw that would definitely scar. Hector's knuckles looked like he'd gone ten rounds with a concrete wall and won, barely.

  He turned his head toward Jessica. She sat slumped in the corner, head in her hands, her arms caked in blood from fingertip to elbows, so thick it looked like scales.

  "Hey guys. How are you do-" A cool ripple of relief swept through him, cutting off the remainder of his sentence. He groaned in relief.

  Natalie sniffed and a single drop of blood fell from her nose, landing on his shirt. She took her hands back, looking pale. “That’s about all I can do,” she said, pinching her nose shut. “I’m running on E. I think we all are.”

  "Really fucking empty," Hector agreed, resting his arms on his knees.

  Adam finally found the strength to sit up, feeling better, but still like he'd rolled down a mountain. He tested his arms and legs, flexing his fingers and toes. Everything moved, more or less. He let out a slow shaky breath.

  Looking at the others, he could see their cheeks were free of runes. He didn't need to ask. They'd all gone through their own ordeal. The exhaustion in the room was palpable, but they had all made it through.

  They could still do this.

  "We probably don't have long," Samantha said, breaking the silence. "I welded every door I could on the way up." She held up a swollen, blistered finger. "But they won't hold forever."

  Adam nodded, taking in her words. "More drones?"

  Hector lifted his chin. "Drones?"

  "Ah, sorry. I met some of the... architects, I guess, of this little slice of hell. They explained a few things, but no guarantee any of it was true. That's what they called the people that are still in the building."

  Hector grunted and nodded. “I wish it had only been the people.”

  "You talked to them?" Samantha asked, a sliver of her normal curiosity showing through the fatigue.

  "Yeah," Adam said. "Long story. But yeah, I talked to them. There's nothing left in those people. The song hollows them out until only fragments remain. That's the only thing I know they were telling the truth about. They almost sounded... proud."

  "That's twisted," Natalie grunted, her voice raw. She cleared her throat and spat a wad of bloody phlegm on the stairs. "But yeah. Drones, and creepy cables, and a lot of things in business suits. Not people. Things. We killed what we could and ran from the rest."

  "A lot of things," Jessica repeated, sitting up and picking uselessly at the blood caking her fingernails.

  “I’m glad you all made it. Really glad.” He felt the tiniest hint of a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

  He was proud of them. He was even a little proud of himself.

  Samantha gave a tired nod of agreement and leaned her head back against the wall.

  They sat in companionable silence until a distant crash made the floor vibrate.

  "That would be our friends breaking down one of the doors we sealed" Natalie said, pushing wearily to her feet. "I think that's our cue. Time's up."

  Adam sighed and joined her, using the rail to haul himself upright. "When this is all done, I'm going to sleep for a month."

  "If we're not all dead, you mean?" Hector asked, loading a single shell into the shotgun and racking it with a loud clack.

  "Either way, it’ll be lights out," Adam replied. "Anyone have any gas left in the tank? We still don't know what's behind that door."

  "Not much. But we know what's back the way we came." Samantha shuffled across the room, threw her arms around Natalie's neck and kissed her, standing on her tiptoes to reach the taller woman. They held the kiss for a moment before breaking apart. "Just in case we don’t make it," Samantha said. "I love you."

  Natalie rested her chin on the smaller woman’s head, holding her tightly. Adam and Hector both found somewhere else to look.

  "I... love you too," Natalie said softly.

  Adam gave them their moment, and then he grabbed the door handle. "Shall we?"