Beep!
The button to the lobby was pressed by J, followed by a whir made by the elevator as it lowered back down to ground level. On either side of me, Celeste and Sav held my frozen body by the shoulder.
Everything was quiet.
J was speechless, as always. Celeste and Sav were also speechless, but with strained voices and eyes from recently shrouded cries.
The revelation of Kyra's death was not taken well by either.
"The blonde man did that…?" Celeste asked.
"Yeah…"
"Sav and I came across him on the fifth floor. Apparitions of both you and Kyra led us to him."
My eyes widened with realization.
Darius fooled them too...?
"We didn't know the real you's were still in that crowd of tenants," Sav added on. "The apparitions acted exactly like the two of you."
Celeste's voice began to shudder. "When we found him on the fifth floor, your apparitions suddenly vanished. We noticed that J was entranced by an apparition of himself at the back of the hall. Seems as though that Darius kept him occupied with an even match of himself so he wouldn't interfere with you guys."
"And you two? What did he do to you guys?" I asked.
"Trapped us in a room with tenants blocking the exit. At the time we thought they was real, not apparitions." Sav sighed. "Then, they all suddenly disappeared. Every single one of 'em apparitions vanished, save for a few that happened to be real. Those were the ones who dropped through the ceiling and tried killin' you."
"Then J saved me…"
Sav nodded. "With Darius' death, J's apparition clone vanished too. How did that guy die anyways?"
"I killed him."
My quiet words brought surprise to them.
"You killed him?" Celeste asked.
"Yeah. He used an apparition of you to kill Kyra."
Celeste's eyes widened. He paused for a moment before speaking. "Me…?"
"Yeah…" My heart wrenched with what I was about to admit. "I watched Kyra die. I watched her die and I was unable to do anything to prevent it… After that, everything just happened in an instant. I blinked and suddenly his face was split apart by my knife."
"Damn…" Sav gave me a light pat on the back. "At least you were able to avenge her."
I fought my hardest to hold back tears in that moment. Every and any reminder of her death always took me by surprise. I still couldn't believe that we were descending to the lobby lacking a person we'd climbed up with.
I'm sorry, Kyra.
We'd finally arrived to the lobby.
Ding!
The doors opened, and with J leading the way out, I was carried along by Celeste and Sav. I quickly remembered we'd left Cynthia and Emanuel in the lobby. I wasn't ready to reveal to them we'd returned with one less person.
But in reality, I wasn't ready for what was truly awaiting us around that corner.
Cynthia, to our surprise, was unraveled from her frozen Fractal-hardened state. But she was on the floor, clearly sobbing. Next to her, scattered in a messy pile around the area, were what seemed to be segmented limbs and blood—the remains of an individual. Her head shot up as she heard our footsteps approaching, and with already puffy eyes and a look of trauma, she opened her mouth and spoke horrifying words.
"THEY RIPPED EMANUEL APART!"