Chapter 6: Call and Response

The narrow corridor was a sudden, welcome silence after the sensory assault of the dance floor. It was short and led directly outside, opening into a space that felt entirely separate from the rave. The air was cold and clean, a shocking contrast to the thick, sweat-drenched atmosphere of the main room. They were in a secluded courtyard, a perfect square of cracked flagstones walled in by the high, windowless concrete of the warehouse. A single, skeletal tree stood in the center, its dead branches clawing at the perpetually overcast sky.

Rabbit finally released Nyx’s arm, the warmth of their grip vanishing. They leaned against the cold concrete wall, their posture losing some of its effortless grace, revealing a subtle, deep-seated weariness. The white band on their wrist seemed to hum with a quiet energy in the gloom.

“You have to be more careful,” Rabbit said, their voice low. They weren’t looking at Nyx, but at the dead tree, as if it held a secret. “This place… it has an immune system. Anything that moves with the wrong rhythm, it tries to expel. Your black band marks you as a foreign body. You can’t just charge through the center.”

Nyx’s senses were still firing on all cylinders. She could hear the individual grains of dust shift on the flagstones, smell the damp decay of the tree’s roots, see the faint heat signature rising from Rabbit’s skin. Her mind, however, was cold and analytical. “And your white band?” she asked, her voice flat. “What does that mark you as?”

A flicker of something—annoyance, sorrow, it was too fast to read—crossed Rabbit’s face before the serene mask slipped back into place. “It marks me as part of the system. A nerve cell. I can move freely, but I’m still just a wire. I don’t generate the electricity.” They finally turned to look at her, their bright eyes appraising. “I brought you here to see if you could learn the rhythm. I didn’t expect you to try and punch a hole in the dance floor.”

Before Nyx could form a reply, a subtle shift in the air pressure caught her attention. Her head snapped toward the single, shadowed entrance to the courtyard. They were no longer alone.

They emerged from the darkness not as a group, but as a procession, their footsteps utterly silent on the stone. There were five of them, and their arrival smothered the air, pressing the silence down into something heavy and suffocating. They were all wearing masks.

They were not the cheap plastic masks of a costume party. These were artifacts, each one unique and unnerving. One wore a smooth, white porcelain mask, its features frozen in a look of beatific indifference. Another’s face was hidden by a construct of tarnished brass and clockwork gears that whirred softly. A third wore a simple, terrifying mask of dark, polished wood, with nothing but two perfectly round holes for eyes.

They moved with a practiced, ceremonial deliberation, forming a loose semi-circle that trapped Nyx and Rabbit against the wall. The last to enter was different. He was taller than the others, a monolith in a long, impeccably tailored black coat. His mask was a featureless shard of obsidian, a mirror-black surface that reflected a distorted, empty version of the courtyard. He didn't move or speak. He simply stood, his presence an anchor of absolute authority. This, Nyx knew with instinctual certainty, was the one who generated the electricity. This was Tower.

Sunglasses’ warning klaxoned in her mind. The most dangerous games are the ones where you don't control the board. She had just walked onto a board she didn’t even know existed.

The figure in the wooden mask stepped forward into the center of the courtyard. He produced a small, collapsible brazier from beneath his cloak, setting it on the ground and lighting the coals within. They began to glow with a malevolent, orange light. Then, he produced a knife. It was a wicked, curved thing, like a sharpened comma. He placed it on the flagstones between himself and the brazier.

“The game is called,” the man in the porcelain mask announced, his voice muffled and distant, “Call and Response.”

He gave the knife a sharp spin. It whirled across the stone, a silver blur in the firelight, the sound of it scraping against the flagstones grating on Nyx’s hyper-sensitive ears. The courtyard held its collective, silent breath. The knife slowed, wobbled, and came to a stop.

Its point was aimed directly at Rabbit.

Nyx saw Rabbit’s shoulders tense, a barely perceptible tightening. The serene mask didn’t crack, but its edges seemed brittle.

The figure in the brass mask spoke, his voice a metallic rasp, grinding like old gears. “The Call: A true story about a key.”

Rabbit was silent for a long moment. They pushed themselves off the wall and walked calmly to the center of the circle, kneeling on the cold stone before the brazier, their posture one of familiar, weary acceptance. Their eyes were fixed on the glowing coals.

“There was a man,” Rabbit began, their voice clear and steady, “who was given a key to a beautiful garden. He was told it was his to tend, his to protect. The key was ornate, a masterpiece of silver filigree, and he grew to love it more than the garden itself. He spent his days polishing it, admiring it, keeping it safe. One day, a visitor arrived, parched and weary, and asked for entry to the garden to drink from its well. But the man refused. He could not risk the key being stolen or copied. The visitor left. That night, the man awoke to find the garden had withered. The well was dry, the flowers were dust. The key was still beautiful, still perfect in his hand. But now it opened nothing.”

The story hung in the cold air, a perfect, sad little parable. It felt true. It sounded true.

Nyx watched Tower. The obsidian mask gave away nothing, but he made a minute gesture with his hand, a barely perceptible downward chop. It was a judgment. A verdict.

Unsatisfactory.

The man in the wooden mask reached into the glowing brazier with a pair of long, iron tongs. He pulled out a single lump of charcoal, burning so brightly it was almost white at its core. He walked toward Rabbit, who remained kneeling, their head bowed, their left hand held open, palm up. They did not flinch. They did not beg. They waited.

The world seemed to slow down for Nyx. She saw the heat shimmering around the coal. She smelled the acrid, metallic scent of the tongs, the superheated air. She heard the faint, hungry crackle of the embers.

The wooden-masked figure pressed the burning coal into Rabbit’s open palm.

A sharp hiss, loud in the crushing silence. The sickeningly sweet smell of searing flesh filled the air. Rabbit’s entire body went rigid. A choked gasp escaped their lips, the only sound they made. Their fingers curled instinctively, a spasm of unimaginable agony, but they did not cry out. They did not pull away. They accepted the punishment, their face a mask of pale, sweat-slicked torment, their eyes screwed shut.

After a few eternal seconds, the executioner removed the coal and dropped it back into the brazier with a soft tink. He retreated, his role fulfilled.

Rabbit remained kneeling, cradling their burnt hand to their chest. The smell was horrific. Nyx felt a cold dread, unlike anything she had ever known, snake its way up her spine. This wasn't a game. This was a ritual. A trial by fire where lies were judged and punished with an immediate, physical brutality that left no room for appeal. Her own carefully constructed past, a fortress of edited truths and strategic omissions, suddenly felt like a house of cards in a hurricane.

The figure in the porcelain mask stepped forward again, his movements smooth and unhurried. He picked up the curved knife from the flagstones. The whole terrifying cycle was about to begin again. Nyx’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic counter-rhythm to the distant, muffled bass of the party she’d left behind. That world seemed a million miles away now.

He spun the knife.

It whirled, a silver whisper of fate on the cold stone. It spun, and spun, and slowed. Nyx’s eyes were locked onto it, her sharpened senses tracking its every wobble, its every rotation. It couldn’t be. It wouldn’t be.

The knife came to a stop.

Its sharpened tip pointed, with unwavering, malevolent precision, directly at her.