Consciousness flickered back like a faulty light bulb. His head throbbed, teetering on the steep precipice of a migraine. Eyes struggled to focus in the dim light of the holding cell. Beyond the bars was the highway patrol base of operations. Desks were cluttered with paperwork and trinkets. The air was thick with the scent of old coffee and smoke. A wall clock ticked away relentlessly over a blank face, its hands barely visible through a layer of dust. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting a sickly glow that seemed to pulse in time with Vincent's headache. The officers were conspicuously absent.

He was stripped of everything but his clothes. Defenseless. Vulnerable. The weight of his situation settled on him like the gray powder coating every surface in the cold, desolate cell. Distant thuds sent a jolt through him. He froze, listening for the sound again. The noise returned. Louder and drawing nearer. Vincent anticipated the worst, searching the cell for anything that might serve as a weapon, and failed. He pressed himself against the cold wall and peered cautiously through the bars into the station. Steps echoed down a hallway. Heavy steps that flushed him with adrenaline as they tolled closer.

A shadow preceded it, long and solid. Trudging from side to side as if every step was a labored effort. Then it emerged from the hall—A stone man lumbered into the chilly station office. He turned rigidly, facing Vincent and continued on until he stood in front of the bars and Vincent could study the fine details carved into stone. Every wrinkle of his face, curl of his hair, and coarse strands of his beard was the same as he remembered.

“You don't belong here, boy.” The statue's gravelly voice resonated through Vincent’s body. Iron bars whined under the statue’s grip. Inhuman strength stretched them open, parting rust spackled rods like flimsy curtains, then he stepped back. Vincent was certain he had finally lost his mind. Temptation to slip through the bars further grounded that hypothesis as fact. Wayne never hurt him, but this… thing might not be Wayne at all. It looked like him. Sounded like him, like his last dying breaths that ordered Vincent to get out alive. But that was the difference between them now. Vincent was alive. And Wayne was a year dead.

“You don’t belong here. Boy.”

Vincent blinked but the statue remained. He decisively slipped through the bars, knowing that whatever this ghost’s intentions were, it could have carried them out in his moment of hesitation. On the other side of the bars, Vincent’s dumbfounded expression twitched as his trembling hand reached out. The stone was cold for a second. The deathly chill seemed to evaporate under his palms, leaving behind a flood of regret, sorrow, and relief to wash over him.

“I'm sorry.” The overwhelming rush forced Vincent’s arms to fling around the statue to do what he never got to in life. “I let you down. I killed you.” Stone ground against stone as arms closed around Vincent, but it was flesh and bone that touched his back. “I came back for you. I buried you—” Vincent pulled back. Faint tears collected in his eyes, shocked and struggling to process the transformation and the colorful man now standing before him. “I don't know what's real anymore...”

“I wanted you to get away.” Lively silver eyes looked back at Vincent from under the brim of a well-worn leather hat. A lifetime of stories and heroics were trapped in that tanned hide. Vincent wished he could listen to them, even the ones he’d roll his eyes at hearing for the hundredth time. Wayne shook his head. “I didn't care what happened to me.”

“I let you down so many times after that—I don’t know what to do anymore—”

“You go get that girl and you get out of here and don't ever look back.” Vincent nodded, hanging his head as he wiped away a lone stream rolling down his cheek. Wayne squeezed his shoulder. “Whatever you've done, whatever you will do., you can choose to do better. Make me proud.”

Vincent squeezed his eyes shut. Shame bunched up his face like it did years ago at the bar of the Baron’s Bull. He was a little boy again, angry at the world and being shown compassion, he didn’t deserve by a man who wasn’t his father. He found the courage to look up again. The stone infection seeped back into Wayne’s pink skin.

“What's happening to you?”

“I'm fightin' fate. Done all I can.” Wayne stepped back, as though not wanting to spread it to Vincent. “You'll have one less meetin' with the judge. Son.”

The transformation was completed. Vincent faced the eerie statue, but the moment was cut short by a bullet. The shot chipped Wayne’s shoulder. He turned to the officer stumbling out of the hallway, gun poised to fire again. Wayne shoved Vincent aside and took the next blow. Vincent dove under a desk, and it seemed Lady Luck hadn’t abandoned him either as he spotted his belongings organized in wire-mesh crates under another desk across the room.

Wayne took a rigid step forward. The officer kept firing, eroding his stone exterior. Vincent lunged for the next desk and retrieved his gun as Wayne’s arm crumbled away. Vincent seized his chance, firing at the officer. He scored a hit, but the officer's misfired shot struck Wayne's core. The statue exploded into dust. Vincent gawked in disbelief at the spray of powder. Lost again…

The officer collapsed in the hallway. Labored breaths exhaled, “you have… no respect for… the natural order.”

Vincent emerged from his cover. He marched for the officer, scowl and pistol trained on the felled man bleeding out. “Where is the Caballera?”

A chuckle bubbled up from the officer's throat. “Your luck is running out.”

Vincent wound up a swift punt to the officer’s head. The battered helmet bounced off the wall and rolled down the hallway. A lens popped out his sunglasses. The officer’s head sprang back, laughing wildly. Vincent froze seeing his own features, ravaged by radiation, staring back at him. A milky eyeball struck by a scar squinted maliciously. Gums rotted to the sockets loosened their hold on stained teeth as he convulsed with maniacal laughter.

Vincent hesitated. Electrical surges in his brain hammered at the back of his eyes. He squinted at the spurts of blood and bile threatening to infect him. Habit must have curled his finger around the trigger. The blast wrung his head like a bell. Numbing silence would follow in its wake, but quiet would do little to ease the imaginary bullet ricocheting inside his brain. Sierra needed him.

The sun hung low on the western horizon, casting long shadows across a barren desert. Vincent's motorcycle roared beneath him. The weight of his kevlar and various accouterments felt right, but he was still missing something important he couldn’t ignore—Sierra. His mind raced, plotting and strategizing but without a clear destination or even a hint of where the Caballera was or where she took the girl, it only served to ease his nerves. Miles flew by. His peripherals consumed white lines. He had no idea where he was going, only hoped it would pop up like everywhere else did on Hell’s highway.

Then a figure grew on the horizon, coming into focus and disappearing as quickly as Vincent passed it. The specter appeared again as his bike turned another mile. Over and over, the ghost reappeared. It was Wayne, one arm stretched out, pointing down the highway the same direction Vincent was headed. When Wayne failed to reappear, a new sight filled his vacancy.

Shimmering heat waves on the road ahead obscured its form. Vincent slowed down as the highway finally came to an end at the alien structures. Once-vibrant colors had faded to sickly pastels, peeling away to reveal rusted metal and splintering wood bones beneath. Broken light bulbs dotted the perimeter’s chain-link fence. Glass shards sprinkled in the sand glittered in the dying daylight. A solitary attraction stood amidst the decay: a maze, its entrance shrouded in tattered curtains that swayed in a nonexistent breeze. Whispering and warped music emanated from the only attraction, sending chills down Vincent's spine, yet drew him closer.

Gravel crunched under his tires as he came to a stop a safe distance away. A carnival barker – if one could call him that – stood atop the maze’s platform. He was a squat, peculiar creature, nearly a twin to the gas station attendant. However, this creature wore a striped suit. A terribly ugly garment that glared like the sun at high noon with the dark red velvet curtains slung behind. The oversized blazer and pants hung on his frame, wrinkling in unflattering ways as he motioned a matching cane to non-existent onlookers.

“Hello!” the carnie called out, eagerly noticing his one and only guest. Vincent gauged the creature, then the area for any nearby threats. The carnival grounds were eerily still except for the occasional creak of rusty metal or tents flapping in the wind. “Yes, you! Hello!” the carnie’s voice cracked with almost manic enthusiasm.

“What?” Vincent hollered across the barren grounds, his hand instinctively moving closer to his holster.

The carnie's eyes darted nervously from side to side before he spoke again, his words tumbling out in a rush. “Were you looking for the lady and her gentlemen friends?” He then gestured dramatically to his tent, performing a deep bow that seemed to bend his body at impossible angles. “Right this way!”

Vincent's curiosity was piqued, but his instincts screamed danger. He cautiously rolled closer, keeping a hand on his holster as he cut the engine. “Did they have a girl with them?”

“Little dusty-haired girl? Sure did!” The carnie's head bobbed up and down so vigorously it seemed in danger of detaching from his neck.

Vincent squinted suspiciously. His helmet wouldn't betray that, however. ‘What's your stake in this?”

The carnie's demeanor shifted, a manic grin spreading across his face. “No stake at all, sir! You see, it's your lucky day because you visited Frankie's Funland!” He spoke with enthusiastic vigor barely contained by his warped striped suit. His limbs twitched with suppressed energy. “By entering my maze, you have your chance to win a fabulous prize!”

“I don't care about a prize.” Vincent started his bike. The engine spiked with his voice. “Open the curtain.”

“Right away, sir!” The squat man reached for the braided gold rope, his movements fidgety and erratic. He yanked it down, and the stage drapes receded. The highway continued on the other side of the cutout. Its skies were a misty, unnatural purple.

Vincent plucked out his .45, aiming for the now horrified carnie. “You're trying to kill me.” He dismounted, never breaking leverage on the stranger cowering under folded arms.

The carnie's face contorted in fear, his features seeming to melt and reform with each passing second. “In the maze!” He squawked, finding the pistol closer than seconds before. “I'm not lying, I swear. They went in the maze. I swear! I swear! I swear!”

“I don’t believe you.” Vincent cocked the hammer.

He cried ferociously, repeatedly proclaiming, “they’re in the maze!” Vincent was taken aback how quickly the thing crumbled. Vincent attempted to get a word in but the broken record kept going. “Please don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!”

“Shut up!” Vincent’s booming voice put a stop to the carnie’s antics. He then recollected his composure. His lingering headache coincidentally softened when the whining stopped.

“Yes, yes! Please don’t kill me—” the carnie gasped, raising a trembling hand and taking a daring glance at Vincent who had lowered his aim a couple degrees. “I’ll tell you something else too if you spare me.”

“Go on.”

The distraught carnie swallowed, taking a look around for something unseen, then whispered, “there’s things in there.”

“What things?”

“I don’t know,” he shook his head profusely. “Only you will and you’ll think they’re real. It’s all a part of the ruse—” He gasped and slapped his hands over his mouth.

“What ruse?”

“Oh no… I said too much again. I can’t say anymore because then he’ll come after me for ruining it! Just don’t believe the illusions—”

“I’m sorry, you’re more afraid of the person who’s not holding a gun to your head? You should be more afraid of what I will do to you.” Vincent advanced, drawing out preemptive yelps from the carnie. His leathery and moist face turned to Vincent, horribly frowning and glistening a red to match his suit. “As you were explaining—A ruse?”

“Why you were brought here!” his voice squeaked.

Vincent’s brows furrowed. He hesitated, parsing the number of questions he had and picking the most pressing one. “The girl—is she a part of this?”

“No, no, no!” He whipped his head back and forth. “A-an unaccounted for variable. You would’ve been right here anyway—it’s where he told you to go! To find his daughter.” The man caught his breath, winding down seeing no new holes in him yet. “It was a trick to get you here, b-but if you get through the maze, you win. It’s the only way you can get out.”

“Who? Why?”

“You already know Him,” the carnie said rather ominously. “You got away once, but you won’t get away a second time—or-or, so is the idea behind the trick! This is even ground, you see? No-man’s land! Just get through the maze—” The carnie clapped his hands together and came groveling towards Vincent’s boots. “Please, please—don’t let him know! You can’t let the Boss know! You can still escape and leave me out of it.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I won’t tell—”

The carnie jumped up and pressed a finger to his lips, hissing until Vincent shushed. The oddball leaned unwantedly close then whispered, “you-know-who…”

Vincent rolled his eyes. “Get out of the way and your secret is safe with me.”

The carnie waddled as fast as his little legs would take him to cover behind faded clown faces. He peeped out, watching Vincent backtrack to his motorcycle, swiftly mounting and revving the engine. He braced for whatever lay on the other side of the cutout and sped through before fear changed his mind.

Cool mist was unusual this time of year. For once he was a little chilled and considered breaking out his leathers. But home was on the horizon, glowing white against purple skies. The cracks in the asphalt and chipped white lines promised him only minutes to go. He glanced at the last sign declaring the highway his stretch of the long 15. The purple haze relented as he drew nearer, yet homecoming wasn’t what he thought it would. A strange feeling festered in his stomach. He dampened his speed as he closed in on ancient street grids. Something was very wrong here.

Gray—it was too gray, he decided. New Vegas was more… colorful, even in the ruins. Despite his reservations, he pressed on. The motorcycle's engine cut through the unnatural silence. Closing in on the city’s epicenter, the feeling of profound wrongness intensified. There was usually music playing. The gentle hum of radio static or whining trumpets of a swinging orchestra—sometimes a voice came on but he struggled to give form to the name that was fading on the tip of his tongue. Even the buildings felt wrong. Their angles were hostile and sharp, uniform in architecture and color. Fleeting shadows in the fog caught his eyes but vanished as soon as he looked. Streets that once bustled with life now lay barren, choked with mountains of waste and refuse. Unidentifiable corpses littered the sidewalks. Their features were blurred and indistinct, as if reality itself refused to acknowledge their existence.

Vincent came to an abrupt stop. He watched anxiously as forgettable architecture open up to push something out a black square cut in the side wall. It fell from the third floor and onto the pile that clogged a nameless alley. The wall lowered back into place, resuming its seamless façade. Vincent stared at the pile, strangely compelled to investigate what the building had dumped. Some small voice in his head warned against his curiosity but quickly faded into oblivion. He had to know what he witnessed and so he gave his bike a little gas and turned the corner. Drawing closer to the alley suffocated him in a putrid smell he was convinced was a lumpy trash heap, but… The engine idled at the sidewalk. Iron tang stuck to his nostrils. His breaths shallowed to avoid taking in too much of the sickening fruity undertones fermenting in the rot. Vincent twisted the throttle as his stomach churned.

Several blocks down and the foul sweet still lingered. He looked behind him, expecting for some reason the streets would magically change to what they were supposed to be, but… He wasn’t sure what that was. No one else was present to confirm if they did change or if the streets should be something else. He was utterly alone. And with no choice, but to continue on.

The west gate to the Strip loomed over him. His gut sank and skin crawled staring up at its additional height of concrete and barbed wire layered like soil strata. Sand-weathered metal grated his ears. Its toll wandered through the corridor of towers gathered around a neon god in its center. Same as behind him, these towers were devoid of character, completely hostile in uniformity amidst a blanket of rusty fog.

Securitrons stood at their posts, and strangely were the only detail he encountered that felt right yet the machines themselves seemed wrong. If they registered his presence at all, they gave no sign. Blank screens emitted a low hum as they lit his path. Intersections lay equal distances from each other and seemed to go on forever. There were no street signs to guide him, so he followed the glowing white tower looming in the fog, far above its mechanical audience. Finally, he came to something familiar. He was on a corner of the main boulevard where spindly husks curled over patches of withered brown grass in the center divider of the road. The Lucky 38 stood across the street. Vincent reluctantly continued forward, wondering why he ever called such an ominous tower home.

Securitrons hummed on the casino floor. The doors creaked shut behind him as he parked his bike on the trampled spot of red carpet. He set his helmet on the seat and gathered his firearms and backpack from their various compartments. The elevator dinged, welcoming him into the glass box. It was a long journey. He only wanted to wash it away with a warm shower and collapse into bed, but he still had something to do. His finger hovered over the button to his floor before moving up. Right, the penthouse. He had some words with Mr. House.

The elevator's hum seemed to burrow into Vincent's skull, each floor passing with agonizing slowness. His reflection in the polished doors looked wrong somehow— too pale, too tired, like a ghost of himself. The Lucky 38 had always felt like a tomb, but now the sensation was overwhelming. Each mechanical click of the ascending car echoed like a hammer driving nails into a coffin. His head throbbed in rhythm with the floor indicators, each light bringing him closer to answers he wasn't sure he wanted to face. The doors opened and he followed the same short route to the penthouse’s epicenter.

“What is our latest progress?” Mr. House asked before Vincent descended the last step.

“What the fuck happened while I was gone?” Mr. House turned around. He clasped his hands casually behind his back while one polished black shoe was poised confidently forward. The barrage of screens highlighted his silhouette in a soft glow. “There’s a building churning out bodies. And this fog? I was gone for three days.”

“Short-term environmental impacts are regrettable but necessary. With the advancements we are making, humanity will soon harness renewable energy sources and even colonize other planets. The damage we do now is a small price to pay for the boundless future that awaits us.”

“There are fucking bodies rotting in the streets!”

“To build a new world from the ashes of the old, sacrifices must be made.”

Vincent took a step forward, his expression twisted critically where House’s remained unchanged. “Sacrifices? Are you saying you killed them?” 

“I merely employed them.” Mr. House blinked. “I am not responsible if they make a fatal mistake on the job.”

“Are you psychotic?” Vincent fought the sudden rush of vertigo threatening to tip him. An exaggerated shrug hung his arms by their strings. “Did you finally fuckin’ lose it?”

 “Don’t be ignorant. Suffering is an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of progress. Those who suffer now are paving the way for a future of unprecedented technological and societal advancement by contributing to its production.”

“You are killing people!”

“Bah!” Mr. House curled his lip. A hand emerged from behind his back to wave off such fanciful notions. “In this wasteland, many perish by their own hands without employment and structure. My system provides them with purpose and sustenance. As the economy grows, conditions will improve, and the fruits of our labor will be shared more broadly.”

“Was there any choice involved in this at all?”

“You want to see the fate of democracy all you need to do is to look out the window.”

A low hum festered in Vincent’s ears. The penthouse spun around him as though he’d been chugging straight tequila, and after this he might need to. Before he managed to string together coherent words, Mr. House trampled on.

“Sacrifices are the cornerstone of any great endeavor. History is written by those who dare to dream beyond the present limitations. My vision will elevate humanity to heights unimaginable before the war. The sacrifices made today will be vindicated by the triumphs of tomorrow.” Mr. House’s distinct brow rose, wrinkling his forehead as he asked in an unusually sincere tone, “why are you asking these questions just now? You’ve had years to voice your concerns.”

Vincent withdrew his pistol. It felt strange to raise it, like he was outside his own body, watching him raise the gun on Mr. House, and fire. Smoke obscured Mr. House briefly before he hit the floor. Ringing subsided in Vincent’s ears. His mind was blank but not at peace as he stared at the imposter beneath him. He was convincing, even when the face that was always solemn and contemplating was now warped and twisted in pain, dotted with fevered sweat while a hand clutched the wound in his chest. Blood seeped between his fingers. Dark eyes flicked up to the pistol trained on him, then the man wielding it. Shallow breaths attempted to utter their last words, but Vincent silenced him.

The trigger was weightless. For a brief moment he felt a weight lift from his shoulders at the possibility of having this moment again—with the real Mr. House. Relief was short-lived however. There was a more pressing issue to take care of. One he had almost forgotten.

“Sierra!”

Realistically, she could be anywhere. Far, far from him, suffering only god-knows-what—Vincent spun around. Ears honed in on the hushed discord sensed seconds earlier. The penthouse was silent save for the humming terminals. “Sierra!” His marches echoed back to him as he rounded the corridor. He abruptly stopped to listen again.

Muffled. Tapping?

Coming to where it seemed to originate from brought him face to face with a wall. He pressed his ear to the cold wall. Muffled screams clarified. It had to be her. Vincent rushed back to the penthouse’s center, tracing the wall that had to have concealed the girl, turning a corner, and… A door. There was a door in the penthouse, nestled by the window and obscured by screens. Out of reach and usually guarded by a securitron—he had never seen the other side of it and had the intuition not to ask about it. Naturally he wondered about it. Wondered if the mysterious Mr. House was behind a reinforced curtain painted white to blend in with the rest of his opulent tomb, if he was even flesh and blood at all.

His heart thumped up his throat taking a couple steps up the platform. There were no securitrons here. The imposter was dead, blood and brain splattered on white marble. The metal knob was cool in his palm. It turned too easily. Hinges clicked as he slowly pulled it open. Abysmal darkness gaped back.

“Vincent!” Only her small voice penetrated the darkness. He flung open the door. Scarce screen light barely crossed the threshold. He called for Sierra again. The cavern mocked him, reverberating her scared and shallow breath from all directions.

He jumped at the ghostly face on the floor. Sierra squinted at the intense light glowing behind him. She drug herself forward on sore elbows. Vincent dove in, swiftly plucking her up and evacuating the consuming void. Sierra threw her arms around his neck. Her whole body shook with violent sobs.

“I’m sorry.” Her tears dampen his collar. He repeated himself over and over, gently rocking the girl whose fingers dug desperately into him. “That won’t ever happen again. I promise.”

When her tears quelled and trembles subsided, Vincent carried her to the penthouse's living room. He gently lowered her onto the pristine white sofa, wincing at her sharp intake of breath. “Do you know where the Caballera is?”

Sierra's response was barely audible. “No. I-I don't remember how I got here. I think she drugged me just so I’d be quiet.” A fresh tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m in so much pain.”

Vincent's jaw clenched at her words. “I’ll be right back.” He retrieved his belongings in the foyer, rummaging through his bag for the last stimpak and med-x on the way back to the sofa. Sierra grimaced seeing the needle. Vincent's knees hurt the moment they met the floor. He laid out supplies on the coffee table pulled next to him. Sierra reluctantly turned her back to him, leaning against the plush sofa cushions to prepare for what would come and also not wanting to see exactly when that was.

“You’re healing,” Vincent said without breaking his attention on cleaning her wound. Reddened flesh had receded closer to gouge in her lower back. The stimpaks were working their magic, but… She still wasn’t walking.

Sierra winced at the cold jabs. Dusty suede muffled her hiss. She went quiet after that and awaited the relief that would slowly dull her raw nerves. The pristine white sofa beneath her felt alien compared to the cold, hard surface she'd been lying on for... how long? Time had become a blur like her memories. Lingering tears dampened white to gray. How long? How long had it been since she felt something so soft? Phantom sensations of rough hands and cold metal interrupted short-lived seconds of peace. Heavy eyes wandered to the man sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa. She studied the inked hand and fingers that rubbed away tension in his neck, and the unusually pale line around his wrist.

“I didn’t think you would come after me,” Sierra whispered as she fought to keep her eyes open. She pulled the string on her wrist loose.

Vincent looked at the bottle cap laying over one shoulder. “I wanted that stupid toy badge.” For a brief second a smile pressed dimples on Sierra’s cheeks. Then something brighter caught his eye. He turned around for a better gander while a peculiar look bunched his brows. “Where did you get that?”

Sierra looked down and grasped the body-warm necklace chain. Fingers probed for its clasp. “I don’t know…” A heart shaped mass lay atop the delicate gold lace coiled in her palm. Vincent picked it up, turning it about before prying open the locket. It contained a small faded picture he had to squint at to discern its two subjects

“Looks like you and, maybe, your mother?”

Sierra leaned against him for a look. She studied the image in silence and awe before lifting it from Vincent’s thumb and index finger. Quick blinks failed to retain her emotion. “I don’t remember,” she whispered.

“But you feel something when you look at her?”

Sierra glanced at him and sniffled. “Yes.”

“Sounds like you loved her. And she loved you.”

“I don’t even remember.” She swallowed the lump in her throat and pressed the heels of her palms into weary eyes. “...Yet I’m crying over yet another thing.”

Vincent pulled himself up onto the sofa. “You’ve been through a lot in just three days.”

“So have you.” Rosy eyes and cheeks faced Vincent. “But you’re not crying.”

“I’m older than you and have more experience with stressful situations. You get a bit desensitized to being in danger, but…” A cautious hand reached for her, lightly resting fingertips on her forearm. “That doesn’t mean I don’t feel fear, or loss, or don’t cry sometimes.”

Sierra balked at his confession. “What do you cry about?”

“People I’ve lost. The people I miss, and their memories that fade like your picture as I get older.” Vincent clenched his jaw. His eyes flickered to the blue star stamped on the bottle cap reunited with his wrist. “Sometimes those feelings are the only memory you have of them.” He gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “You’re tired. Get some rest while I organize and plan.”

Sierra nodded but made no move to lie down. Her fingers traced the golden heart, memorizing its shape as if it might vanish like her memories. The locket's chain pooled in her lap, catching dim light from the dreary haze outside. The girl's eyes were already growing heavy, but the cocktail of medicine and exhaustion dragged her to sleep.

Vincent's adrenaline finally began to fade, leaving him acutely aware of every ache and pain. The weight of the past three days pressed down on him like a physical burden. The pristine white walls of the penthouse he had seen thousands of times before were jarringly unfamiliar. Like seeing a face but unable to recall from where or who it was. Looking out onto the city he loved conjured the same feeling. The city was twisted, a hauntingly faint echo of home warped by a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. The imposter’s words echoed in his mind. Had he really never questioned things before? Or had he chosen not to see?

The fog outside seemed to creep into his thoughts. A burning sensation in the pit of his stomach bubbled up his esophagus. It was a bitter truth he had shoved into the back of his mind for years under Mr. House’s rule. Being the esteemed COO of New Vegas, the protege of the mysterious and powerful Mr. House had its perks… Everything has a price—A cost, and it wasn’t always money or favors or time. Vincent hung his head, partly in shame and mostly because he realized the dead city consumed in acid mist, devoid of life, light, and character was the future if he didn’t survive the maze. His jaw tensed as he turned the black twine around his wrist. If he didn’t die here, then maybe he would die in this penthouse, the one in the real world, for something actually worth dying for.

After checking his inventory, loading firearms, spare magazines and slipping them in their designated kevlar pockets, adjusting the makeshift sling to secure the girl to his back, it was time to go. Sierra rubbed the sleep from her eyes after a gentle waking. Little hairs raised on her arms when he whispered, “time to go.”

It was a bitter mix of fear and excitement. The chance to finally be free, but she knew it couldn’t be so easy as to ride off into the sunset. Vincent hoisted her up with a stifled grunt. He learned to ignore the pinch in the middle of his back and adjusted the ratchet straps crossing his vest. Sierra handed him the license plates and highways sign accouterments that came next. She would wear his backpack for him as it had gotten light enough on the journey. One assault rifle was slung on his shoulder for easy access like the revolver and pistol strapped to his thighs. The hefty sniper rifle he doubted he’d need was already diagonally across his back before Sierra latched onto him.

“I want you to hold onto this,” Vincent said, handing her the metal rod that usually bounced off one hip. “It packs a powerful punch and can kill a man on full power. You press that button and the prongs do the work, you just gotta jab. The dial controls the voltage. I think you can handle it, do you?”

Sierra nodded with a stiff upper lip. She extended it away from their persons and tested the button on a low setting. An electric arc played between the two prongs at its end.

The elevator dinged seconds after Vincent pressed the call button. Silver doors emboldened by the black, red, and green sigil of the Lucky 38 slid open with a faint whisper. The glass box gave Sierra shivers peeking at the long way down. Vincent hit the button for the ground floor. The yellow circle flickered twice before going solid. The doors closed and thus began the descent. Vincent straightened his back, adjusting the girl’s legs suspended by padded straps at his side. His muscles throbbed, begging for rest. He longed for the plush bed waiting in the real Lucky 38. For now, he fixated on the glowing numbers above the doors, each one blinking down, one by one, a slow march to the ground.

A low groan rattled through the elevator, setting his teeth on edge. Sierra clutched his shoulders tighter, her breath warm and quick against his neck. The usual hum of the machinery turned jagged. Harsh clicks slowed the box’s descent. Vincent’s gaze shot to the ceiling as the clicks grew loud enough to vibrate through his bones. He took a step back with a hand reaching behind him for the wood slats running the width of the elevator.

Metal whipped the elevator roof.

Boots lifted off the floor as though pulled by some invisible mischievous force. His stomach flung itself up into his throat. Nails dug into the slick wood rail. His other hand fought the void of gravity as he twisted about-face to the railing. Vincent pulled too, bringing the two of them closer to the railing. Sierra’s sharp scream shrieked with the cacophony of tortured metal. The whole box rattled, threatening to shatter as the floors blurred faster and faster around them. Red numbers reflected on the glass wall erratically changed with every half-second. Vincent tightened his grip. His muscles strained, exerting all the force they could muster. He pushed up against the rails while feet pushed down, firmly rooting to the floor. Toes squished against the steel floor trim for the slightest ounce of stability.

The force threatened to squish him like a bug. The endless spiral of floors went on forever below and above, obscured by a consuming void. Sierra lost her voice by now. Her face was pressed into his back. Her eyes squeezed shut as tightly as the trembling hands clutching his chest. Screeching steel sent sparks overhead. Embers dove into the abyss. The box’s plunge was slowing. Vibrations rattled them, vying to pry his grip loose but Vincent refused. The elevator abruptly stopped and shoved Vincent’s face against the glass wall, then tipped him backwards out of his awkward squat.

His white-knuckled grip unlatched from the rails. Sore joints and legs joined the ensemble of bodily aches. Shaking muscles brought him to his feet. Sierra trembled too. But they were alive. And on the 10th floor. The doors opened with the same pleasant chime as always, but what lay beyond made his blood run cold.

Red. The corridor before them blazed red. Not the warm red of sunset or the deep crimson of wine, but something violent and wrong. The walls seemed to pulse with it, like the inside of some vast, living thing. The carpet beneath his feet writhed with patterns that shouldn't exist, abstract shapes that hurt his eyes to look at directly and seemed to change when he looked away. Vincent's boots sank into the pile, each step meeting resistance as if the floor itself was trying to hold them back.

“We’re taking the stairs,” he muttered, the words falling dead in the too thick air. Sierra's grip tightened as they ventured forward. She readied the cattle prod as though expecting something. He did too, and hoped he was wrong. The hallway stretched before them, bending at impossible angles that defied the Lucky 38's circular architecture.

Each turn brought them deeper into the maze. The corridors seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting ever so slightly with each step. Doors lined the walls at irregular intervals, their brass numbers normal, but sometimes warped and illegible. Vincent tried to maintain his bearings, but direction had lost all meaning. He knew the Lucky 38 like the back of his band, but they could have been walking for minutes or hours.

The red grew more intense with each passing moment, as if they were sinking deeper into some cardinal hell. It bled into everything—the brass fixtures, the ceiling tiles, the abstract wall art that became more violent. Even the air itself seemed tinted with it. Sierra's breath came quicker against his neck.

They rounded another corner, and Vincent's step faltered. The hallway ahead stretched impossibly long, the far end disappearing into a black haze. But what made his skin crawl was the way the walls seemed to ripple like a heat mirage. Another turn brought them back to where they'd started—or somewhere that looked identical. Vincent's jaw clenched. He recognized the elevator doors, now sealed shut like they'd never existed. The air grew thicker, colder and harder to breathe. Each inhale tasted of copper and something else, something rotten hiding beneath the metallic tang.

They circled back to the atrium ring, where a small lounge opened to the tower's hollow center. The red here was different—deeper, older, like dried blood. Sierra's fingers dug into his shoulders as they both spotted the figure in the chair facing the tower’s center, smoke curling around his head like ghostly tendrils.

Vincent froze. The smoke curled and twisted, but never disappeared completely as it wandered over the ledge. Vincent’s hand crept toward his rifle as the figure's voice cut through the heavy air.

“Don’t just stand there looking stupid.” The hand holding the cigarette gestured to an empty, identical chair, “take a seat.”

Vincent’s fear dissipated, replaced by a rage that never quite went away no matter how many times he maimed this man.

“Y’know, I had it all lined up, kid. I was this close. And sure, sure, I did you a little dirty, but hey—that’s business, right? Nothin’ personal, just a little cutthroat on the way to the top.” A chuckle interrupted his monologue. “You? You go and hand Vegas over to that stiff House like it’s some big favor. But lemme tell ya, House ain’t got this city’s best interests at heart. You stackin’ the deck for him? Ain’t nothin’ but a bad beat for the rest of us.”

The chair creaked as Benny rose, turning to face them. His signature black and white checkered suite was clean of the blood Vincent stained it with, but his face didn’t have the pleasure of healing. Crude stitches held mangled flesh together. Bits of his lips were gone or stretched to cover some other missing piece of his face. He stepped around the chair, bloodshot eyes locked on Vincent as the ax Benny wielded drug its blade over red velvet, splitting it cleanly until its stuffing spilled out. The blade caught a glimmer of light, sealing the threat Vincent was promised the same.

“You’re a real twisted piece o’ work, you know that? You and House—two peas in a poisoned pod.”

“I’m beginning to think you’re a masochist.”

Rotting teeth grinned. Lumpy flesh twitched. “Don’t worry, baby, ol’ Benny’s back to take you down a peg or two.”

Vincent squeezed the trigger, the rifle's report deafening in the enclosed space. Bullets tore into Benny's flesh, but he kept coming, ax raised high. Sierra's scream rang in Vincent's ears as he spun and ran.

Boots pounded against crimson carpet as they fled while Sierra's arms locked around his neck. Returning to the maze of corridors was the last thing he wanted. Red walls seemed to close in around them. Vincent's heart hammered against his ribs as he spotted a door. He grabbed the handle, praying—

It turned.

He tumbled inside, kicking the door shut behind them. Sierra's rapid breathing matched his own as they huddled in the dark, waiting for the sound of pursuing footsteps that might never come. Vincent watched the sliver of light peeking underneath the door. His trigger finger was twitchy, expecting it to be interrupted at any second. Cautiously he reached forward, quietly turning the deadbolt and sliding the security chain over. The floor creaked under his weight as he took a step back. A quick motion turned on his pip-boy’s light.

Carpeted floor had turned to wood planks. A dim light seeped into the room. Moonlight from a window… He turned around to the room he never thought he’d see again. Curtains bloomed at the open window he snuck out of a decade ago. Below was the main street through Yucca Valley, shattered and cracked, pitted with cavernous holes travelers had to maneuver wandering into town. It was empty however. Crickets chirped to the full moon looming overhead. A chilly breeze froze his sweat laden skin.

“What is this place?” Sierra whispered.

“My room,” Vincent said, turning back to his personal time capsule. Everything was as he left it. Even the broken music box in the corner. He stooped to a squat to pick up its pieces. Lips pressed together studying them and how they never would quite fit together the same again. “When I was your age…”

Sierra gasped. Vincent’s head shot up, coming face to face with the mirror over the dusty and scraped dresser. A pair of feet dangled above his head. He clenched his jaw and slowly turned around. Gray skin was pulled taut over jutting bones. White bits poked through where the flesh had worn away. Vincent’s eyes hesitated to wander upwards. The long night gown fluttered in the breeze, moth eaten and holy, even where she had patched it up numerous times before. His heart raced tracing the silver outlines of thin skin shrunken around slender bones. Gray strands threaded through long tawny hair that still held a hint of its former beauty was now as brittle as dried grass. Hollowed eye sockets were impossibly dark. Her jaw hung slack in an eternal mournful scream, stretched by the rope that had twisted her head at an impossible angle.

Vincent swallowed the knot in his throat. His voice came as a frail whisper, “mom?”

The desiccated corpse gently swayed. Decades of disturbed dust flickered in the moonlight like ash. Sierra's grip tightened on his shoulders as calcified joints began to pop and crack. A withered arm slowly raised itself to the rope. Tendons creaked like old leather. Vincent quickly shuffled back. Wide-eyes fixed on his mother as she fell from the rafters. The impact rattled the floorboards.

Brittle fragments skittered across wooden planks. Vertebrae clicked into place one by one as she picked herself up but her neck remained fixed at a bent angle. Empty sockets somehow found him in the darkness. Dried sinew flexed beneath papery skin as her jaw worked, testing muscles that had long since begun to rot. She raised a skeletal hand toward him, yellowed fingernails extending like claws as she lurched forward.

“You…” her voice rasped. Rot assaulted their noses as she drew nearer. Vincent's breaths came shallow and quick. “Are not…” Brittle hair brushed his cheeks like spider legs. His eyes burned but he couldn't blink. Putrid air wheezed through decaying lungs, forcing out words that split the night like a banshee's wail: “My son!”

Vincent squeezed his eyes shut. His shaking arms flared out, flinging back the weightless sack of bones. He spun around, swinging open the door and flying out of the room. He ran. He ran as far as he could get in the endless corridors. When it burned to breathe was when his body forced him to stop, and he collapsed to his knees. Sierra rustled behind him and suddenly his water canteen was in his face. He leaned against the wall, taking in long gulps that left him panting.

“We gotta get the fuck out of here,” he said, repeating to himself until he was back to his feet. 

“Oh, we’re just getting started, baby.”

Vincent turned around to find Benny at the end of the hallway, a grotesque grin twisting the remains of his ravaged face. He gripped the ax handle eagerly, his eyes lit with malicious delight. Vincent clutched his rifle as he took a cautious step back.

“C’mon, don’t you wanna finish what we started?” Benny taunted. “This time, there ain’t no runnin’.”

Vincent let loose as Benny charged. Each shot tore through Benny’s mutilated torso, shredding skin and muscle, yet he barely staggered, his relentless stride undeterred, eyes fixed on Vincent with unhinged fury. Vincent kept firing, his heart pounding as he backtracked, desperately searching for an escape.

“Vincent!” Sierra’s voice rose in panic as she was squished between a wall and the man carrying her. Vincent glanced over his shoulder.

The hallway behind them closed to a dead end.

Benny swung the ax. Vincent barely raised his rifle in time. The barrel caught the ax’s handle just below the blade, absorbing the brunt of the blow. The impact jolted through him, nearly tearing the rifle from his grip. Benny’s unnatural strength bore down on him. The manic grin never left his face, inches away, eyes gleaming with cruel satisfaction.

“What’s the matter, Vinny?” Benny sneered. “Thought you were the big hero!”

Vincent strained against him, every muscle quaking as he fought to hold his ground. But Benny was relentless, pressing down harder, inch by inch, forcing Vincent toward the ground. Just when Vincent felt himself slipping, Sierra twisted on his back, raising the cattle prod. She jabbed it into Benny’s side. Crackling surges flooded him with a high current of two-hundred forty volts.

Benny let out a strangled yell through a tooth-breaking grin. Muscles seized him stiff like a statue. Vincent gave one last shove against the ax and Benny staggered back, falling on the carpet. Not wasting a second, Vincent lunged for the ax. Benny’s dazed and bloodshot eyes locked onto him, his mouth twitching, drool pooling at his cracked lips.

“Fucking stay dead this time,” Vincent growled. With a single brutal swing, he brought the blade down, slicing clean through Benny’s neck. Blood violently spurted before calming seconds later. He clutched Benny’s head by his hair, lifting up the head to meet his face. A steady stream drained from his neck. Benny’s face twisted to a grimace. Patchy brows and vicious eyes narrowed on Vincent. “I think I know what to do with you.”

Vincent plucked the ax out of the floor and marched through the hallways. He found the atrium faster than expected and promptly made his way to the balcony. Holding the head out over the railing, Vincent watched with satisfaction as Benny’s lips continued to flap, “Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you,” all the way down.

Sierra let out a heavy sigh of relief against his neck. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders. He set a reassuring hand atop hers. “You did great,” he said, his head turned just enough for her to see the faint smile on his face. “You holding up?”

“I think so.” Sierra sniffled as she let go of him. She nodded, trying her best to be as unbothered as Vincent always appeared to be. “Was that really your mother?”

“I don’t know what happened to my mother.” Vincent pressed his lips together. The corpse’s image assaulted his mind. “I never said goodbye. I got older, wiser. Seeing that, that was my biggest fear. That I’d left a hole in her heart too big for time to close and she’d do it herself.”

Sierra was quiet with that revelation. She sniffled again and a whisper cracked in Vincent’s ear, “what if my mom isn’t alive?”

Vincent strained his neck just to meet her eyes. “Whatever the circumstance, you won’t be alone.” He reached to her arm still hanging loosely on his shoulders and gave a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll get out of here.”

“But this floor. It’s different. It changed again.”

Vincent’s eyes narrowed as he looked down the corridor. Sure enough, the hallways had closed. Every doorway and side corridor had disappeared, leaving nothing but a single, brassy door directly across from where they stood at the balcony. It was as though it was waiting patiently for them to step through. It was the only option after all. He stepped forward cautiously, feeling an uneasy pull in his gut. The door’s surface was aged, brassy, and worn, like it had been there far longer than the Lucky 38 itself. A relic from another time or place. He could see himself and Sierra reflected back, their faces stretched and twisted like figures in a funhouse mirror.

Vincent’s hand hovered over the decorative vertical lines depressed in its doors. His hand glided to the ornate handles. He clenched his jaw, fearing what would be on the other side of the doors to Hoover Dam’s elevator. Uncertain hands slid them apart. The true elevator doors opened for him after. He studied the warped reflection in the back wall, finding the number panel was not what he expected. There was only one button. A single glowing button that bore the number 4.

Sierra eyed the doors warily, her arms curling around Vincent for comfort. “This place… it’s like it wants us to take that elevator.”

Vincent frowned because he felt it too. After their last encounter with an elevator, he was more than reluctant to step inside another one. But Sierra was right. They were being funneled forward, pushed toward a destination he couldn’t see but could certainly feel. The air inside felt colder, somehow sharper, like stepping into a draft on the edge of a cliff.

“Guess we’re taking another ride…” Vincent muttered.

The doors closed with a mechanical clang that reverberated through the small space, and Vincent pressed the button. The number glowed brightly. The elevator began its descent. He clung to the railing just in case, taking up a corner and squatting preemptively should they go falling again. Sierra stretched out her arms and clutched the handles as well to help the effort.

For a few tense moments, silence filled the space, broken only by the quiet hum of the machinery. Vincent braced himself, feeling the air grow heavier with each passing second. His gaze locked on the panel as they steadily dropped, wondering what awaited them here.

As the elevator doors slid open with a low, foreboding ding. Vincent traded the ax for his rifle. He stepped out cautiously, eyes scanning his surroundings as Sierra clutched his shoulder with one hand while the other had the prod on the ready. The familiar, metallic tang of smoke and blood filled the air. A red sky glowered down through dense, swirling smoke, casting everything in shades of rust and ash. Still bodies lay sprawled across the ground. Uniforms and armor slick with blood made it hard to find a single stretch of black asphalt free of death.

Silence blanketed the battlefield, thick and heavy. But then, breaking the quiet, a voice called out.

“Vincent…”

A shiver rattled him to his core. His breath caught in his throat. The voice was cracked and weak, but achingly familiar. Each syllable cut through him like knives. Heart pounding against his chest, Vincent stepped forward. His eyes scoured the smoke-shrouded ground. The world around him faded as he followed the faint voice through the fog. It came again, weaker this time, calling his name again.

And then Vincent found him.

Slouched against a crumbling barricade, Lawrence sat, his body riddled with bullet holes. His face was drained of color. Each breath labored as his eyes fought to stay open. Vincent felt his knees weaken, his mind struggling to accept what was in front of him. This was the face he had memorized, the face he had searched for in every crowd since the day they parted. But now, that face was weary and fading, bruised and battered, calling to him one last time.

“Vincent…”

Vincent dropped to his knees beside him, the ax falling beside him and the rifle left hanging by its strap. He reached out, his fingers trembling. He wanted to say something—anything—but his voice was gone, lost in the storm of emotions flooding through him. His throat tightened as he choked back the words he had kept buried for years, questions he had never dared to ask.

“Lawrence—” His eyes flooded with tears. He cupped Lawrence’s face in his palms. Their eyes met for the first time in years, and they were dreadfully dull. Lawrence’s limp hand reached for him. Vincent clasped it tightly, feeling the coldness creeping into his skin. The pain and confusion in Lawrence’s eyes cut deeper than any tangible wound inflicted upon Vincent’s body. “I missed you.”

“I don’t want to die alone,” Lawrence struggled to speak. Vincent’s heart shattered. He kissed Lawrence’s bruised knuckles.

Sierra was speechless, watching the dreadful scene unfold until the fog consuming them whispered in her ear.

“I’m here now… I’m so sorry, Lawrence. I’m here.”

Figures waded in the mist. She held her breath searching for the shadows in her peripherals. “Vincent, something’s here.”

But he barely heard her. His focus was locked on Lawrence’s face, the guilt and grief ripping through him. He held Lawrence’s head under his chin.

 Sierra tugged at him, her voice rising in panic. “Vincent—”

“I love you. I never stopped loving you.”

“Please don’t leave…”

The sound of footsteps echoed. Sierra’s eyes widened, fear darkening her gaze as she looked over her shoulder. Shadows moved in the mist, coming closer with every step and flicker of her eye in search of echoes’ origins. She could feel the danger pressing in, the deadly silence ready to break at any moment.

“Vincent, we need to go!”

“Vince,” Lawrence breathed. “Don’t leave me to die alone.”

“There is something else here!”

Vincent’s head shot up. His gaze barely broke through the fog, but his ears listened. “I’m not leaving you,” he fought through tears, tugging at the ranger.

Lawrence cried out in agony. His hands clutched seeping holes. “I can’t…”

“No, no, no.” Vincent’s teeth ground against one another as he whipped his head between unseen danger and the man he desperately needed.

“We can’t take him?” Sierra’s voice shook.

Vincent jumped at the marches circling like vultures around them.

“Vincent, please…” Lawrence begged.

His own heart throttled his head. He couldn’t bear to look at Lawrence or take another knife to his chest. “I’m sorry,” he squeezed his eyes shut as a flood came with the scent of Lawrence’s cologne. “I love you. Always.”

His legs shook underneath him as he floundered over bodies. Sierra whispered apologetically in his ear but all Vincent could hear was Lawrence, calling for him, begging to not die alone, cold, and afraid. He tumbled blindly through the fog, trying to swallow his own grief. His heart splintered with every step. He squeezed the ax handle in one hand and the rubbery grip of his rifle in the other as a red door manifested in the mist. He stumbled through, continuing down the hallway as stalkers followed behind. He turned a corner and his legs gave out under him. Sore knees landed on red carpet.

Violent sobs echoed through the hallway. Breaths came in ragged bursts as he stumbled through the blood-hued fog, every step weighted by Lawrence’s words, his ghost.

“Vincent,” she called his name for the third time. Her urgent tone finally caught his attention. “What happened? Who was that?”

“Lawrence,” Vincent exhaled as he smeared tears across the sharp stubble of his cheeks.

“Did he die?” Her voice was squeaky.

Vincent pressed his hand to his eyes. “I don’t know.” Vincent shook his head at the barrage of memories. The first time they met. Their first kiss. Their last dance in the cocktail bar. The indescribable pain slicing him into a million pieces when he woke the next morning to a letter that ended in goodbye. “Why did he abandon me?” Vincent shook his head profusely, clutching his disheveled waves and pulling but the pain did little to sober him.

Sierra squeezed his shoulders. “He could still be alive—”

“Or he could be a rotting head on a pike.”

Vincent’s skin crawled hearing that voice. It was unnaturally smooth, monotone, a mimicry of a human being. He scrambled to his feet, wincing at the burn searing every muscle in his legs. At the far end of the narrowing hallway, stood a figure draped in black and red. He held his own head in his hand; a fox’s mantle and solid black goggles obscured his features. He was given the name Vulpes Inculta. The clever fox and elite Legion spy. It was Vincent who liberated Vulpes Inculta’s head from his body some years ago, and delivered it with a hard kick at the top of cliff overlooked the last Legion camp still in the Mojave.

“Sawed off as he was held down,” the head spoke as the hands holding it lifted it to its body’s shoulders. The lethal would sealed itself. “Struggling in the bindings that quarters his limbs.” Sierra’s small hands cinched Vincent’s shoulders. Vincent’s heart hammered in his chest as Vulpes Inculta closed the distance between them. His gait was calm and languid.  “Writhing, screaming when the blade met his skin—”

Vincent raised his rifle, the weight of it grounding him as he opened fire. “Fuck you,” he screamed over the rapid blasts. Bullets tore through the fog, but each one seemed to miss its mark. Desperation clawed out of Vincent’s throat in violent expletives, each one for a memory of Lawrence he would hold onto until his dying breath. But his bullets were doing nothing to this ghost. He forced himself to run. The labyrinthine hallways stretched out in endless, twisting paths. He turned a corner. His breath was labored. Sierra’s eyes bulging wide with fear, until finally, they found a new door. Vincent shoved it open, practically falling into the room with Sierra clinging to him. He spun around, slamming it shut and wedging a nearby chair under the handle. His gaze darted around the dimly lit suite, trying to catch his breath.

But they weren’t alone.

In the corner, partially hidden by the bed dragged over to her, was the Caballera. She jumped up, straightening her back. Her sharp gaze flickering with recognition and a faint glimmer of unease. Her once-unshakable poise had faded, her face was tense and shoulders taut.

“How interesting. Guess we’re stuck together now, huh?”

“No. You’re stuck in here with me,” Vincent bluffed, raising his sights again before the adrenaline faded.

She sneered, cowering behind the bed. “We may be each other’s only way out.” Her eyes narrowed, flickering to Sierra. “And because you owe me—for bringing those psycho fucks here.”

Vincent snorted; his voice was laced with contempt as he marched cautiously towards her. “You are one those psycho fucks from where I’m standing.” The Caballera cursed under her breath. Vincent’s glare narrowed as he stopped a couple feet directly in front of her—she was unarmed. “Don’t try to pull that bullshit on me. You’re working with them.”

The Caballera’s face soured. She let loose another string of angry curses in a language he didn’t know. “Don’t you see what’s going on? We’re trapped here, both of us. I knew it was only a matter of time before they crossed me—and each other.”

Vincent and the Caballera stared at each other, both assessing the other’s resolve. Finally, the Caballera sighed, raising her hands in a display of uneasy truce. Vincent lowered his rifle, though he kept it ready, and his posture still stiff with suspicion.

“Do you even know how long you’ve been here?”

“Three days.”

She scoffed. “Are you sure? Because I don’t remember anymore. There’s no way to keep track here. This place… it twists things, traps you. It gives you just enough to keep you alive, just enough to make you think there’s hope.” She shook her head, a bitter smile curling on her lips. “It’s a game. A game for Him.”

“Who is this ‘Him’ everyone’s so spooked about?”

The Caballera chuckled, though there was little humor in it. “You know Him. I made a deal with Him once. Became the Caballera. Commanded hundreds of Vaqueros. Claimed new territory. Had everything I wanted!” She shook her head, bitterness creeping into her voice. “Thought I was invincible… until He called in His debts.”

Vincent’s gaze hardened. “So? You made your bed, and now you have to sleep in it. Am I supposed to pity you?”

“If you didn’t make a deal like I did, there’s another reason you’re here.” Her gaze drifted toward Sierra, a knowing glint in her eye. “And from what those ghosts tell me, you’ve got plenty of baggage of your own to drag you to hell.”

Vincent felt Sierra shift uneasily behind him, her small fingers gripping his vest tightly. “I killed them once. I’ll do it again.”

The Caballera let out a sardonic laugh. “You can try, but you will tire out long before they do. They just keep coming back, one way or another. And even if they can’t cut you open, He’s in your head. Every ghost, every regret—He knows how to use them. Break you down until there’s nothing left.”

“Get in line.”

Silence settled over the room. Vincent’s jaw clenched as he processed her words, the weight of everything he’d seen since entering this twisted place pressing down on him. He wandered over to the opposite side of the room, found the other chair to set Sierra in while he took the square table, just to keep an eye on the Caballera.

Sierra leaned to him, looking up with worrisome eyes as her voice hushed to a whisper, “Vincent… what she said… is any of it true? Are we really stuck here?”

“No,” he said without hesitation. Still, his hand rose to his chin, gliding across the coarse hairs that had grown freely and longer than he liked. He wanted to reassure her, tell her that they’d make it out together without a doubt, but he couldn’t find the right words to say while he parsed his own racing thoughts. The truth was, he’d never felt more uncertain. This place was relentless, twisting his memories, his grief, weaponizing his regrets in a way that felt as insidious as it was personal.

But none of it was different than what he had already endured long before crossing some imaginary boundary into this hellscape. He was nothing if not stubborn, obstinate, bull-headed, and determined to get his way. Yet this predicament frustrated him.

The Caballera’s words echoed in his mind no matter how much he shoved them aside. He refused to let fear or regret define him when he snuck out his room for the last time and started down the path to the rest of his life, or when he woke up on the kind doctor’s bed in Goodsprings, vowing revenge on the soul that put him there. As long as he could still stand, still fight, he’d carve a path through this hell, even if it meant facing down every ghost, every monster lurking in the shadows. Or, die trying.

“You said you’re stuck here, but you’re also saying there’s a way out.”

The whites of the Caballera’s eyes seemed to glow a bit in the dim room. She shivered, however, meeting his gaze. His frigid blue irises looked like the milky eyes of a corpse in the dim room.

“Is that a peace offering I hear?”

“Depends what you bring to the table.”

“I’ve heard rumors…”

“Rumors mean nothing here.”

Her thin black brows narrowed. “They say if you follow the only road, there’s a gate-keeper or something at the end.”

Vincent laughed. “You know how stupid that sounds?”

“Oh, that’s too much for you?” The Caballera rolled her eyes and pantomimed to the beat of quick words mangled by her accent. “That doesn't make sense? Yet, the unkillable-shit-stains-of-murder-sprees-past and the never ending highway is preferable to finding out?”

“Did you bother thinking past that?” Vincent straightened his hunch and glowered at the woman across the room. “If there is some gatekeeper what makes you think they’re not working with whatever you think is after you?”

“That’s where the girl comes in!” Curses snuck in the pause suffocating the room. A quiet gasp came from Sierra. She looked up at Vincent, but his glare hadn't broken away the woman. “Soul for a soul. Your friends are after her too.”

“They get her, they get out?”

“Yes.”

Silence thickened between them, settling over the room like dust in a tomb. Vincent’s mind raced, piecing together the Caballera’s words. Soul for a soul. He looked down at Sierra leaning more on the table. A dainty hand curled around his forearm and a sick realization gripped his gut. She was the only ticket out. Allegedly.

A ripple in the wall caught his eye. He looked at the woman in the far corner, and the warped wall above her. Something moved between paint and wall, stretching it like skin that morphed into arms and hands and fingers as it reached around her. Her scream tore through the room. She leapt forward. But it caught her, yanking the entire woman back and vanishing in the wall.

For a long, agonizing moment Vincent stared at the wall where she’d vanished. The faint outline of her hand was still imprinted in the paint before it. Then it faded away, leaving nothing but a ghostly residue in its wake. Sierra’s grip tightened on Vincent’s arm as she watched, wide-eyed, her breath catching in her throat. He was already on his feet, still gawking at the wall as though something would spring from it. Instead, the rippling form returned. Shadows twisted, taking shape to make a vague impression of Vulpes Inculta’s features. His entire body pressed against the wall as though testing its resistance. He seemed to slide along the wall’s surface, his form bending and stretching like shadows cast by firelight as he slipped through towards their side of the room.

Vincent snatched the girl out of her seat and moved towards the center of the room. He had to set her on the carpet, although she trembled with great fright. He gripped the trophy ax, watching as the walls shifted. Waiting for the right second, he swung, striking a slice in the wall mere seconds before Vulpes crept in. The figure froze momentarily, then slid around the wound, the wall shifting and stretching as if recoiling from the strike. Vincent readied the ax again, anticipating Vulpes moves. His form evaded bashing strikes. Vincent swung again and again, each hit growing closer, blood and paint mingling as the wall itself bled.

Then, with a sickening squelch, his ax finally found its target. A dark, oily substance seeped from the gash, leaking in thick streams down the wall. Vulpes’s silhouette twisted, his ghostly face contorted in shock and fury as Vincent pulled back, ready to strike again. But Vulpes was quicker this time. His form disappeared. Vincent shuffled about, turning and turning, searching for the assassin that could reappear at any moment. The hairs raised on the back of his neck, and he spun around. Vincent swung the axe at the shadow reaching for him. Vulpes  recoiled with a sharp, inhuman wail as his severed arm flopped on the carpet. Vincent didn’t let up his fury. In one swift motion, he wrenched Vulpes from the wall. Paint tore like stretched skin, revealing raw muscle and sinew in the shape of a man beneath.

Vulpes hit the floor, his body writhing, burning, but still spitting vitriolic taunts. Vincent raised the ax high, his voice a low and vengeful growl, “I should have burned you alive.”

He swung down. The ax sliced through Vulpes’s torso. Dark ichor sprayed from the wound, staining the carpet in thick, inky pools. Again, and again, each hack accompanied by the satisfying crunch of bone and cracking cartilage in an inhuman flurry. Each chop flung a piece of the dead man further into oblivion. By the time Vincent stopped, only a pile of thick tar remained, hissing as it dissolved into the carpet.

Silence settled in the room once more, broken only by Vincent’s labored breaths. Killing the assassin the first time was a fluke. Another kiss from Lady Luck. The second time was what he really wanted to do. His hands trembled though. Knuckles were whitened by a sore grip. His chest heaved as he stared at the remnants of the specter. When he was able to peel his gaze off the pulpy mess, Sierra was looking at him, desperately wide eyed and waiting for his next move, his next words.

His breath finally steadied enough to say what she should know. “Lawrence made the bracelet for me.” Sierra glanced at the pressed bottle cap bracelet tied to his wrist. The blue star glistened in the light seeping in through the door’s slits. “I wasn’t going to give it up. I’m not going to give you up either.”

Sierra blinked at him. Misty eyes glistened as she watched him stoop to a squat to pick her up. She sniffled, hugging Vincent when he picked her up. His popping knees and groans muffled her, however. “Maybe you should rest,” she said.

“We can’t,” Vincent exhaled. “We have to keep moving. We have to get out of here.”

Vincent’s feet dragged against the carpet, each step heavier than the last. His muscles screamed, begging for rest, but the weight of Sierra on his back kept him moving forward. She hadn't said a word since they left the room, and neither had he. What was there to say? That he was terrified? That every shadow in this twisted place held another ghost waiting to tear him apart? That he didn't know if they'd ever escape?

 The endless maze seemed to press down on him. Distant whispers funneled through the hall yet nothing was there when either looked. Crimson corridors bled into one another, twisting and merging, warping before their eyes and mocking them with dead ends when the hallways weren’t stretched endlessly before them. The familiar trappings of the Lucky 38 had all but vanished. Where hotel room doors once stood, only blank stretches of wall remain. The wall art he called soulless and generic had grown grotesque. Striking splatters painted nightmarish and abstract scenes. The furniture he hadn’t paid much attention to took on hostile shapes, contorted in ways that forbid its intended use.

Overhead lights cast shadows that moved independent of any source, sometimes reaching toward them with grasping fingers before retreating into darkness. Sierra whimpered as her white-tipped fingers clutched his vest. The cattle prod dangled limply in her other hand. Vincent’s labored gait slowed. He reached out to a wall to steady him, gritting his teeth as the hallway grew colder. The air burned with every inhale as though he was trying to breathe water. His boots thudded against the thick carpet, each step as heavy as the dread fermenting in his mind.

The faces of the dead haunted him—Lawrence's pleading eyes, his mother's rotted face, Benny's mangled grin, Vulpes's writhing shadows. The passages themselves felt alive, watching, waiting, guiding them deeper into the maze. The hallway narrowed gradually, almost imperceptibly, until Vincent's shoulders nearly brushed both walls. Then, abruptly, the corridor ended.

Vincent's heart skipped a beat. There, in the dead end wall, stood a door. Not the polished brass and glossy painted wood of the Lucky 38, but something older and darker. The handle was tarnished by black soot. Its facade was weathered, marked with deep gouges in the center that formed dot-six. He blinked at it. The numbers… Ten. Four. Point-six. These numbers had meaning to him. Ten years ago he abandoned his home and mother. Four years ago was Hoover Dam and Lawrence’s disappearance. But point-six eluded him, unless it meant six months ago.

That can’t be. Six months ago… He hoped it was all in his head. Something viscous seeped from its marginal cracks. His throat tightened. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to find another way. But he knew there wasn’t a choice. This place was herding them like cattle to slaughter, and this door was the next step in its game.

Vincent's hand trembled over the handle. The walls groaned behind them. The beast was urging them to move or be crushed entirely, and dreadfully slow. What waited on the other side of that door sent him into a cold sweat already.

He swallowed hard but his mouth was dry as desert dust. There was no choice. Yet his hand just couldn’t cooperate. Groans turned to growls as the corridor collapsed. His fingers finally closed around the handle. The metal burned cold against his skin. With a deep breath that did nothing to steady his nerves and the breaths on his neck reminding him they had had to get out, Vincent turned the handle and pushed on.