Linux ran through the flames that were almost completely died out. Without the massive amounts of fire and smoke, he could see everything left behind in wake of the nightmare. Crumbled rocks and dirt completely covered the ground beneath them. Bones and meat of dead animals were the only reprieve from the mindless brown, but he would've preferred the endless brown over the charred black and white.

Each one of them had their weapons out and ready to fight at a second’s notice. Their fingers on the triggers of their weapons, not giving a moment to let hesitation cloud their judgements. Eyes sharp, hearts racing, and minds freed, they ran toward Felxin.

Along with them, Kauss carried the bag with the capsules and his grandmamma’s vase, and Helona carried the freeze organ in the brown electric trap. As they ran, Kauss refilled his weapon with a new red energy capsule and checked on his grandmamma’s vase one last time.

They’d been running for around forty minutes now, and Linux knew Felxin was just around the corner. Considering how populated Olten was with guards around each and every corner, there should be a small percentage of guards left over. Considering that his house was right near the edge of the town, it should be simple to get in, fix the Gaxtex, then leave. However, his home would be guarded without a shadow of a doubt. Getting past the guards will be the tricky part, and he couldn’t alert them either, less he wanted the entire town on their asses.

“Stop!” Linux yelled.

Everyone froze and looked at Linux, then in front of them. If they had kept running, they would’ve barreled into Felxin at full speed. He walked ahead of everyone and took a deep breath. He stuck his head in and peered around. Inside the dome, he couldn’t see anyone out. No person or guard walked around the place. Only the insects that populated the dome kept the illusion of life strong. It was early morning, so he assumed everyone was asleep, but that excuse wouldn’t cut it. Guards were used to working at night, so none being out, especially during times like this, set an alarm off in his head. There was nobody around, however, so he walked in, the first floor trio following behind him.

Linux could see his home from where he stood. No guards surrounded the place like their life depended on keeping people out, which only further confirmed his suspicions. He walked ahead, his hand gripping on his staff tight. The noise of a fly buzzing near his ear was the only thing keeping his mind from going offtrack. He focused on the noise of the fly before he broke into a wild array of negative and damning thoughts.

They reached his home, and he stood on top of a single patch of dirt in an area otherwise full of ankle high grass. It was a spot that his father would use as a campfire spot before he passed on. When he died, Linux got rid of it cause he was tired of stubbing his toes against the stones. Strangely, he felt like wanting to recreate the campfire, but there was no time for that.

He stuck his back against the wall of his home; the others following his lead. He nudged his way to the front door before peaking into the door window. No one stared back at him from the other side, and he couldn’t even see anyone inside either. No one was inside his home.

He grabbed the doorknob and twisted it, opening the door. It slid open with a creak and knocked against the wall. No one made a move or sound. It was all too quiet for his liking.

Linux turned to Kauss and mouthed the words, “Give me a capsule.” Kauss understood and dug in the bag as quietly as possible. He grabbed the first capsule he felt and tossed it to Linux. He caught it and took another deep breath. Once his heart slowed back to normal, he tossed the capsule in the door. He expected something to go off and lightning to strike randomly in all directions, but nothing happened.

He peeked inside and saw the capsule next to the back wall of the living room. No one was inside, and no trap had gone off. Somehow, everything was as they should be, even during these moments. He bent down and grabbed a few stones on the ground. Before he stepped inside, he tossed a stone on the floor in front of him. Nothing went off, so he moved forward.

“Stay behind me and don’t move until I do.” Linux said.

They entered the house, and Linux dropped another stone. When nothing happened, he continued forward and let the door shut behind him. Before taking a step, he would toss a stone in front of him, then move ahead, repeating the process with each step. It was tiresome, but effective, as the sixth stone he dropped activated a brown trap. It was lying at the hallway entrance and took the color of the floor. Once that was out of the way, he continued down the hallway, dropping more stones. Interestingly enough, each stone activated a trap. The entire hallway floor was covered in brown traps.

“Don’t touch the walls.” Linux warned. “They could be smothered in this stuff too.”

Listening to the warning, they walked with their arms hugging their sides. They reached his room, and he checked his hand. It was the last stone left thanks to him using them like they were endless. He had a plan for this, thankfully.

“Who’s in the back?”

“Me.” Killian called out.

“Can you head back and grab the stones I dropped? Don’t move to any area without a stone.”

Killian nodded and went back into the living room to gather the stones. As he did, Linux dropped his last stone on the floor. Nothing happened, and he waited patiently for Killian to bring the others back. After five seconds, he came back with all the stones. He took them and began repeating the same process. In his room, there were no brown traps, most likely because they would’ve expected him to be caught.

However, that didn’t make sense in the slightest. He was an inventor and knew how to craft and assemble all these Gaxtexes easily. He knew how to use and counter each energy more effectively than a trained guard can. They should’ve expected him to pass it. Underestimating him wasn’t an option they could take, considering they decided to turn the floor into a living hellscape. So what was the purpose?

He stood in front of the cabinet that led into his lab. There really is no reason to have it like this, but for some reason, none of the inventors installed a door here. Then again, neither did he, but for him it was more tradition than any actual practical reason. He grabbed the side of the cabinet and pulled, revealing the entrance to his lab.

“You don’t have to worry here. Just don’t touch the walls like normal and we’re good.”

With that, he took the first step down into the lab. Right away, he knew something was off about everything. The lights were turned on before he even stepped inside. They would only activate if someone was either walking down the steps or in the lab. He grabbed his staff and held it in front of him, ready to smack someone on the side of their head. Everyone else followed suit, holding out their weapons and readying for a fight.

They walked down the stairs, taking an agonizing time to move from one step to the next. Linux reached the lab door, which was closed shut as if no one had even entered. These lights begged to differ. Someone was in there, waiting for them. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to end well. He could just feel it in his bones. Holding his hand to the door, he pushed it open, revealing what’s inside.

Depsy made it to Olten a few minutes ago. He hid behind a tree that was in a spot that he could still manage to see the entrance. He was initially going to enter and check the surrounded areas and spot out any advantage points they could take in order to get to the elevator. However, there was a large lineup of guards waiting outside. He didn’t want to be spotted just in case they were ordered to apprehend the guards that knew about the bombs.

There was one other reason he wanted to avoid them as much as possible, however. In the group of guards was Elest Ager, the man that he feared more than anyone at this moment. He used to look up to the man as the person he should aspire to be as. As a kid, he would dream of meeting Elest in person and he would immediately resign, making him the council head of the guards. It was a childish dream, but it was a dream that brought him to this very moment.

He had no idea what was going on anymore. His dreams and wishes died the moment he saw the bombs go off. There was no reality anymore. Everything’s covered by lies and falsehoods delivered by his idols, cold faced and calculating.

Suddenly, he saw someone run out of the fire. They were screaming about something, but if it was anything, it would be about the fact their hair was on fire. It was burning their scalp and blood trickled out of their forehead and dripped into their eyes. It looked agonizing, but Depsy couldn’t do anything about it. Instead, he could use this as an opportunity to see how the guards will react.

Elest saw the screaming guard as they ran at them. He stepped up and held out his hand. Depsy thought he was about to stop him, which in a way he was right, but so very wrong at the same time. He grabbed the guard’s head and jerked his shoulder. The guard’s head twisted and fell to the ground, dead in an instant. The guards under his command ran forward with a water jet and sprayed the guard down.

It was all so quick, so instantaneous, that it all happened in the blink of an eye. There was only one thought that turned itself over and over again in his head. What kind of tyrant would order such a thing?

In the center of the lab, sitting in a chair, Rugel Top sat straight, an air of regal pride drafting off of him. In his hands was a struggling kid with a bag over his head. His voice was muffled, and all that came out were struggling gasps and cries. Rugel poked the kid’s neck with the tip of the blade. If it wasn’t for his Gaxtex, blood would’ve begun dripping down his neck.

“Hello Linux. How’s your day been?”

Linux refused to make eye contact with the bastard. Instead, he kept his eyes on the child. Where did the child come from and who was he? How did he kidnap some random child and get away with it so easily? Better question, where is literally anyone that could’ve stopped the madman before it got to such a point.

“Fine, I guess.” Linux couldn’t anger the man. With a hostage, he couldn’t risk taking extreme measures.

“So you’re not seething with anger?” Rugel mocked. “I would’ve assumed that you’d come in and try to kill me as soon as you saw me.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m angry as shit at you, but you kinda gotta let the kid go so I can twist yer neck.”

Rugel gulped something down his throat. There was no way the man was nervous now after everything that’s happened. He ordered the bombing of more than half of the second floor. He’s too far gone to regret his actions.

“You sounded sort of like Olot right then.”

“So what, he’s my father. The son takes things from the father after all.”

“But the son wants to change everything the father taught him.”

Linux shook his head. “No, I’m not changing anything, and you should know that.”

“You don’t know anything.” Rugel growled, poking the sword deeper into the kid’s neck. “Everyone thinks they know everything, but no one can agree on one truth. It’s getting kind of tiring by this point. You think your father pleaded with us and we turned him away cold heartedly like a bunch of heartless freaks; Oculn thinks Olot was a maniacal beast tearing down the structure of the floor.” Rugel looked Linux straight in the eyes. “Well, you’re both full of shit.”

“Then old wise man, tell me the truth.”

“The truth doesn’t fit the truth you know, so you’d just refuse to accept it anyway.” Rugel sighed. “Well, let me tell you the truth of this world if you want to know so badly.” Rugel relaxed the sword, but kept it pointing at the child’s neck. “The truth is that everyone thinks they're right despite thinking so vastly different from one another. When two people clash on this floor, whether it be a petty argument or ideological beliefs, bodies start dropping. That is why the council exists, to bring those people together and brand them under the same fictional banner.”

“Once they're on the same team, we then need an opposition. We need an enemy to fight. The monsters were the number one choice, considering our history with each other. Then it turned to the first floorers as they disrupted our peaceful little life.” Rugel raised the sword and prepared to bring it down as hard as he could. “Now, our enemy is a traitor that killed a few guards, set the floor on fire, and returned to murder a young boy.”

Linux grabbed his staff and charged toward him. Time slowed to a grinding halt. It was so slow that it sent a wave of pure anger into his heart. He wouldn’t make it in time. He could reach Rugel in less than a second, but the kid’s head will already be rolling on the floor by then. He was too slow. Too fucking slow to even save one goddamn kid. He was too slow to save anybody!

Suddenly, Rugel’s head jolted back as blood flew out of his forehead. The chair tipped back, and they fell to the ground. The chair broke as the seat fell flat on the ground and splintered off. The kid flew to the side and fell against the floor, and banged his back on a table. Multiple pieces of Gaxtex and crafting materials fell to the ground, further adding to the kids’ torment as they knocked against him.

Rugel lay flat on the ground on top of broken wood and dreams. A bullet hole tore in the center of his forehead, blood seeping out and staining his cheeks and floor. Linux looked behind him and saw Helona pointing the gun at where Rugel once sat. She saw him staring and shrugged her shoulders.

“What?”

“Don’t what me?” Linux yelled. “You just killed the council head of the floor!”

“So? I don’t know him and you were going to kill him anyway.”

“That was a bluff. Do you never negotiate with people?”

Helona shook her head, and Linux sighed. Right now, he had better things to do. He ran to the kid and crouched on one knee. Speaking in a gentle voice, he whispered everything was going to be okay as he removed the mask. As soon as he saw who was under it, he gasped and held the boy closer. The boy was Zavin.

A small brown trap kept his mouth shut, and he gagged and mumbled, trying to speak. Tears flowed out of his eyes and wet his cheeks so badly that Linux could see his own reflection. He wiped the tears away and whispered that everything would be alright and he’d get him out of there. First, he needed to find the button to release the trap.

He turned toward the corpse of Rugel and saw Kauss and Helona removing the Gaxtex from his body. His eyes widened as he realized they wanted to kill him for good.

“Stop!” Linux yelled. Everyone looked at him oddly. “You can’t kill him.”

“Why not?” Kauss asked. “He tried to kill a kid and frame you for it and everything going wrong here. Do you expect he’ll stop once he wakes up?”

“Thats not what I’m worried about.”

“Are you still worried about your image? After all this! No one will be on your side and it doesn’t really matter if we’re leaving.”

They locked eyes with one another. Now that Linux looked closely, Kauss’ eyes were the same as that first floor woman that came a long time ago. She is his mom, so it wouldn’t surprise him that they carried some similarities with each other. However, those eyes were almost identical, even down to the dread that it made him feel. Kauss closed his eyes, sighed, and stood up.

“Fine, we’re going to wait upstairs for you to finish down here. Decide on if you kill him or not, I don’t care.” He turned to his friends. “Lets go.”

They walked upstairs, leaving him alone with Rugel’s corpse and a crying Zavin. They left the Gaxtex Sheild by his body, and Linux bent over and picked it up. He was about to insert it until he thought about it some more. This man was the reason so much of his life went poorly. From the moment he was born, he was destined to be screwed over by him and the people that support him.

Not only that, but he was the reason why the entire floor is on fire. Before any official council decision is made, Rugel has to sign off on it, then set it into action. Even if it wasn’t his idea, he was responsible because he let it happen. He’s the council head. There’s no way that he wouldn’t have known the destructive power of those bombs.

The fate of this man’s life rested on Linux’s shoulders. He barely saved anyone when they volunteered, not because of the lack of trying, but because of his lack of courage. Even now, his hands shook as he tempted the idea of letting Rugel die at his very hands. He already has blood staining him, but this will be the first time he’ll paint a new layer of red on his palms. Just like the rest, he’ll never be able to wash it off.

If he let Rugel live, and the people still took his side over Linux’s, then who knows what’ll happen to the floor. This man caused the biggest downfall of humanity. Who’s to say he wouldn’t do it again. If he died, then the floor could progress again. Someone actually willing to take risks can finally take charge and lead the floor in a better direction.

Heart beating, he smashed the Gaxtex against the floor, breaking the needle. It cracked, and the tip flew and banged against the wall, ricocheting and landing on the floor with a metallic thud. He’ll stay dead, not just for himself, but for the betterment of everyone who he hurt, and the first person to make amends to was waiting behind him.

Linux dug around in Rugel’s pockets and took out the button that activated the trap. He pressed it and the trap on Zavin’s mouth disappeared. All the cries and screams of desperations that he had built up all this time came spiraling out. He ran to Linux and wrapped his arms around him and dug his face into his stomach. Linux could feel the tears wet his shirt, but he didn't care. He was safe, and that’s all that mattered. He hugged him back, a feeling of deja vu coming over him.