The image of the ragged wanderer haunted Alex's every step. The man's frantic, terrified eyes were a constant reminder of the stakes. He was an amateur in a professional's league, a tourist in a warzone. His new goal was not just to be silent for his own sake, but for the sake of any other unseen souls who might be sharing the same stretch of concrete. He was a potential liability, and the thought shamed him into a new level of vigilance.
He moved through the industrial twilight, a slow, methodical ghost. He stayed in the deepest shadows, his back to the walls, his pipe-crutch a silent partner in his pained shuffle. He rationed his Almond Water and his courage, taking sips of one and drawing on the other only when absolutely necessary. The pain in his hip and shoulder had settled into a dull, permanent landscape of agony he was learning to navigate. It was his new normal.
He was traversing a long, featureless section of wall, a sheer cliff of grey concrete that stretched for what must have been half a mile, when he saw the anomaly.
It was a door.
The sight was so incongruous, so fundamentally wrong, that he stopped dead, blinking, certain it was another hallucination brought on by pain and stress. But it remained. Set flush into the brutalist concrete was a single, old-fashioned wooden door.
It was a dark, heavy oak, its surface weathered and cracked with age. It had a simple, round brass doorknob, tarnished green with verdigris. There were no hinges visible on his side. It looked like it had been stolen from a century-old house and plastered into this industrial hell as a cosmic joke. It didn't belong. It was a glitch made solid, a tear in the architectural logic of the level.
Alex's first instinct, born of his encounter with the Hound, was one of extreme suspicion. In a place governed by bizarre rules, anything out of the ordinary was a potential trap. The dark stain in Level 0 had been a gateway. What was this? An invitation? A lure?
He approached with the silent, cautious steps that were now second nature. He stood before the door, studying it. There were no signs around it, no warnings scrawled in charcoal or blood. The dust on the floor around its base was thick and undisturbed, suggesting it hadn't been used in a long time. Or that whatever used it left no footprints.
He reached out his good hand, his fingers hovering inches from the cold brass doorknob. His mind was a whirlwind of conflicting impulses. The door represented change, a potential path forward, a break from the monotonous, dangerous concrete maze. It could be a shortcut. It could be a way to a safer place. It could be the path Leo had taken.
Or it could be a monster's den. It could be a one-way trip to a place far worse than this one. It could be the equivalent of sticking his hand into a hole without knowing what was inside.
He thought of the ragged wanderer. What would he have done? He would have ignored it. He would have scurried past, giving it a wide berth, sticking to the known dangers of the level he understood. That was the smart play. The survivor's play.
But Alex wasn't just a survivor anymore. He was a pursuer. Leo hadn't been playing it safe. He had been chasing a ghost down a rabbit hole, following a path of "fringe science" and unstable transitions. A strange, out-of-place door seemed exactly like the kind of anomaly his brother would have investigated. To find Leo, Alex couldn't afford to only play it safe. He had to take calculated risks.
His fingers closed around the doorknob. It was cold, real, and solid. He held his breath, listening intently. There were no sounds from behind the door, only the familiar, muffled hum of Level 1. He turned the knob.
To his surprise, it turned easily, with a soft, well-oiled click. It was unlocked.
He pulled. The door swung inward with a low, mournful groan of old wood, the sound terrifyingly loud in the relative quiet. He froze, listening, his body tensed for the sound of skittering claws. But nothing came.
He peered into the opening. The view on the other side was a stark, immediate contrast to the dim, orange-grey twilight of Level 1. He was met with a wall of hot, humid air and a cacophony of new sounds.
The space beyond the door was a dense, three-dimensional maze of pipes. Rusted, iron pipes of all conceivable sizes crisscrossed in every direction, forming a tight, claustrophobic jungle of metal. Some were slick with condensation, others were coated in a thick, flaky layer of rust that looked like dried blood. The air was thick with the smell of hot metal and steam.
And there was steam everywhere. It hissed from leaky joints and vents, shrouding the room in a thick, white fog that limited visibility to no more than ten feet. The low, industrial hum of Level 1 was replaced by a chaotic symphony of hisses, groans, and the deep, percussive clanking of a massive, unseen boiler. The only light came from bare, caged bulbs caked in grime, casting a weak, sickly yellow glow that was eerily reminiscent of Level 0.
This was not Level 1. It was something else entirely. A new level? A sub-level? A maintenance tunnel between realities?
He hesitated at the threshold, one foot in the cool, open space of the concrete maze, the other in the hot, claustrophobic world of the pipe jungle. This was a clear point of no return. The door might not open again from the other side.
He thought of the Zippo against his chest. He thought of Leo's relentless, obsessive drive. He thought of his own new purpose. Stagnation was a slow death. The path forward, however dangerous, was the only path that mattered.
Taking a deep breath of the cool air of Level 1 one last time, Alex Ryder hobbled through the doorway, letting the heavy oak door swing shut behind him. The latch clicked into place with a sound of grim finality, plunging him into the hot, hissing, steamy labyrinth of what came next.