Boxed in by the four condominium buildings of The Eden Towers, each thirteen stories high, Adam looked up at the scaled off walls. As dusk closed in fast, one by one, several of the windows lit up at the same time Christmas lights started blinking in a few of the decorated balconies. A dog's bark echoed from somewhere behind him, and a sudden breeze brought the smell of stagnant water to his nose. Cloying dampness hung in the air.

"I have the answer, Zhang," he said to himself. "I found out what's at the center of the labyrinth."

Adam laid down on the pale blue swimming pool trampoline and glared at the clothesline hanging outside the nearest balcony. Why bother washing their clothes if they won't need them anymore? Like a single frame of a horror movie cut in a drama film reel, the image of the deformed naked creature in Vera's bathtub flashed in his mind's eye.

"Dear God." His grip on the cheap mescal bottle he'd bought on the way over tightened as he fought off the violent urge to vomit. "How did we end up here?" He swallowed the bitter bile that rose in the back of his throat when he saw the little larva floating in the unlabeled flask-shaped container in his hand.

He was no longer in thrall to the horror of what had happened earlier in the East Tower mezzanine, but the concerned expressions of the kids who had been doing parkour and the security guard who'd scolded them were burnt in his brain. In fact, this moment was one of the few scant memories left to him from earlier.

As soon as he'd finished running down the endless stairs, Adam found a small group of curious people whispering among themselves around the elevator, trying to get a glimpse inside the uneven black triangular gap that had opened between the silvery doors after the crash.

Although he knew all too well what was in there, he still pushed them out of the way to confirm his fears. Under the pile of steel cable that had smashed through the elevator's roof, Vera's twisted body was barely visible in the claustrophobic mess of buckled metal. Her lacerated hand, dripping blood that looked as dark as petrol, was poking out between the bent edges of the cart's broken machinery.

Almost as if she was reaching out to me.

He couldn't tell what had snuffed her life exactly? Was it possible the impact of the fall had twisted the floor into a knife-like surface and impaled her? Perhaps the weight of the cable crushed her bones? Whatever it was, it killed her fast.

Except for those agonizing seconds of free-falling, I hope her suffering was small.

As more people arrived at the macabre scene, the murmurs multiplied. Questions such as, "Why would she use the elevator during an emergency?" or "How is it possible the safety mechanisms didn't work?" were on everyone's lips.

Not long after that, the watchman urged everyone to leave, informing them a fire had broken out on the upper floors.

The police and the firefighters were almost there, or so the man said before he asked Adam if he had been upstairs once he noticed him, dirty and covered in blood. Did I still have the pickaxe in my hands at that point? Wait. A pike? What am I saying? It didn't matter. Before anyone had a second chance to look at him, he'd vanished.

"I ran like the coward I am," he muttered, looking at the glittering light of the nearest window reflected on the dirty pool water.

Did I take a bus? A taxi? When did I buy this bottle of booze? How long have I been here with both of my legs dangling on either side of this trampoline?

Unable to recall the past hours, everything that took place after he left Parque Central was a blur.

Something important happened. A chill swept through his body. Think. Think!

It was a hot December evening, but goosebumps rose on his skin. The compass he'd found on the carper of the thirtieth floor felt heavy in his pocket, but its weight was nothing compared to that of the notebook in his right hand, the same one his friend had given him before she died.

"Vera..."

Little by little, it slipped through his fingers. The thought of it splashing against the water and bubbling to the bottom of the pool unsettled him.

"I am crazy," he muttered, opening the bottle. Instead of sipping from it, he pressed the bore against his temple as if it were a loaded gun.

"People who go insane can't tell their upper floors are flooded; they are sure it's the rest of the world that's underwater."

He sat upright.

"Magda? You... you are outside the gym!"

"I decided it would do me good to get fresh air."

"Why?"

"A friend said I should go out more."

"Who was the idiot who told you that?"

"You did," Magdala replied. "Adam, is that booze?"

"I ruined everything," he cried.

"Are you trying to replace that stagnant pool water with your tears? That could take a while."

"I'm not in the mood to deal with your fortune-cookie crap."

She drew nearer to him.

"It wouldn't bother you so much if I wasn't right."

"A friend of mine died today!"

Magda's stony face cracked a little. "I am sorry." The unusual warmth in her cold voice made him feel worse. She was both apologizing and offering her condolences, and she meant it. "Anything I can do?"

"It was my fault, Maggie."

He hadn't called her that in years.

"I doubt it."

"Why won't you ever believe me?"

"It's because I believe in you I doubt her death is on you."

Unable to carry on the conversation, Adam stared at the bottle in silence and looked at the increasingly dimmer world around him through it.

"Right," she nodded. "Since you refuse to hear my fortune-cookie advice, then how about a hard fact? There's nothing but misery if you swallow that mescal worm."

"Can't breathe," he pressed the notebook against his chest. "So, I drink."

"Don't do that."

"Then what am I to do?"

She put her hand on his shoulder. "Grieve." Magda produced a folded note out of her purse and handed it to him.

Without opening it, he asked, "What's this?"

"Someone named Santiago phoned this afternoon at my gym asking for you. He said your grandmother told him it was the only place where he could reach you."

It was as if his heart had beat again for the first time in hours.

"Santi called?"

I'm not alone.

"He wanted me to tell you the team would meet to see off a friend." She helped him up. "I assumed he meant someone was moving out of the country, but—"

"Thanks for bringing me this." He wiped his forehead with his filthy sleeve. "This is..." His shaky hands steadied a little. "They must have found out about..." His lips curved in a sad smile. "She managed in death what she couldn't in life."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Adam, what happened to you?"

It surprised him it had taken her this long to ask him that.

"I..."

Even if he told her about the corridor loop or the endless spiral staircase or the demon that chased them, there was no way she'd have believed him. He'd lived through it, and he still had a hard time accepting it himself. Most of it made little sense, anyway.

I went downstairs after she fell down the shaft, but I ended on the same floor the construction workers were renovating. Like pieces of a puzzle, his broken memories began to fit together. By that point, my ears were so used to the fire alarm wailing they picked up the fainter but chilling noise of static coming from the portable radio near the wheelbarrow by the entrance, he recalled. Then I heard something else—an inhuman cry of pain. The creature was behind me.

"You can tell me anything," Magda insisted.

"Got into a fight," Adam said.

I pulled the pickax off a brick and stupidly remembered that scene from The Sword in the Stone. Fucking Disney. It's amazing what goes through your mind when your 'stream of consciousness' is more akin to a torrent of madness. Without realizing it or wanting to, I ended up saying, no, shouting, something like, "Come on, bitch! Come on!" while holding the pick as a baseball player would have his bat before swinging for the damn fences.

"Who won?" Magda asked him.

A pause.

And a fierce smile.

Fear prevented him from remembering for a moment, but his will was growing stronger.

"You should see the other guy," he said.

Rage turned into a scream in my lips. The pointy iron end of the tool didn't pierce my target when I first swung at it. The wooden handle hit him in the neck, though. The pain in Adam's ears came back as he remembered what happened next. Perhaps it startled me how ugly that bastard was up close; maybe it was that sudden burst of fear you get when you stare straight into the eyes of a nightmare incarnated. Regardless of what it was, I froze, and the unnamed thing bellowed at me with such forceful anguish, I stumbled and fell.

"That's not what I asked. Did you win?"

He looked at the mescal bottle in his left hand.

"No, I didn't."

To avoid the millipedes pouring from its mouth, I rolled on the floor twice. While its overgrown cysts must have blinded the thing, his hearing was flawless. It crept towards me. The fiend was in no hurry, but it tensed its muscles, getting ready for the next attack. And... and...

Then, he placed the notebook under his armpit and read the note. A mist was lifting from his mind.

I swung at it again. The creature's next step became a tumble as the pickax pierced the side of its head. My scream entwined with its horrible wailing until we both stopped shrieking. I hit him again with the pick. And then a third time. Blood splattered over my face while the thing twitched on the ground.

Adam dropped the bottle, which smashed on the cement floor.

And the creature became silent and still forevermore.

"I didn't win it," he clenched the note as tightly as he could while stepping on the worm amid the broken glass. "Because the fight is not over yet."

"What are you saying?"

"Vera did not die in vain."

"What happened just now? You seem different."

"I remembered. They tried to steal me," Adam touched his temple. "But couldn't. I wouldn't let them. If they are this eager mess with my mind, to kill us and cover their tracks with an accident and a fire, it means we are onto something."

"Where are you going?" she asked him as he walked towards the exit.

"You'll find out soon enough."