Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. -Martin Luther King Jr.
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A collective gasp, ragged and raw, ripped through the suffocating silence. Relief warred with dread in their gazes, eyes darting across the mangled interior, searching for comprehension of what snatched them from the abyss. The rhythmic whirring of the failing cable had become a mocking pulse, an ominous reminder of their precarious perch.
Silence, however, proved a fleeting luxury. A metallic groan, this time born of grinding gears and tortured struts, echoed through the shaft. The flickering lights danced wildly, casting long, grotesque shadows that writhed on the crumpled figures. Then, with a shudder that threatened to dislodge their very teeth, the elevator began to move again. Not a plummeting plunge, but a sickening lurch, a downward crawl, as if testing the edge of its own destruction.
Suddenly, a crimson glow blossomed in the darkness beyond the elevator car. Alarms shrieked, a metallic wail slicing through the air. Through a gap in the warped metal, they glimpsed fire, jagged tongues licking at the shaft walls, dancing around unseen obstacles. The acrid tang of burnt metal intensified, choking their breaths, searing their lungs.
Pandemonium erupted, as a frantic clatter of limbs scrambling for any semblance of purchase. A new sound had silenced them, as a low, guttural growl that vibrated through the metal skin of the car. Something stirred in the flames, a hulking shadow coiling into existence. Claws like obsidian knives scraped against the shaft, leaving long gashes that sent showers of sparks cascading down. Panic clawed at their throats, a primal fear of the unknown, of the hungry darkness that gnawed at the edges of their fragile cage.
The descent continued, each lurch a roll of the dice, each groan a death knell. The elevator, like a wounded beast, sputtered and lurched, its descent no longer controlled but a desperate, panicked scramble for survival. And in the flickering green glow of the emergency lights, huddled in the belly of this iron tomb, our group of unlikely heroes faced a choice: succumb to the flames or shadows. Claw their way out of the belly of the beast, or continue their drifting into the unknown abyss, at the very bottom of the Absalom Station.
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