Once more, steps could be heard in the parasitic hotel corridors. The Ariane Circle duo made headway to the meetup point, eager to finally start the searching with the M.E.G. operatives.

While Katya glanced at his feet, uninterested by the landscape surrounding them, Nyx, unlike her, was looking around with excitement, trying to understand the purpose of the human-looking structure they were still not fully familiar with.

"How does M.E.G. knows it's the PA52 is different place than the Hotel of Terror?" They eagerly asked their teammate.

Katya looked surprised by Nyx's question. Remembering Anthony wasn't here to answer their cultural question, she tried formulating an answer.

"Well— It's mainly about the aesthetics. The Terror Hotel looks far older, something like the 30s, I think." The operative embraced the corridor. "But here, it's much more recent. It's something about Level Evolution, I think. You're gonna have to ask Anthony for this to be fair, he's a Backborn, but he did study that stuff."

"I miss Anthony." The alien only responded, mimicking regret.

"Oh, come on Nyx it's been barely two hours! I get you two are very close but… It's only one mission. Not even a dangerous one. I guess we could have insisted for him to come but… You know him. He's still easily scared."

The duo took a turn, heading to where the two M.E.G. operatives were waiting.

"I don't like being away from Hermes. Reminds me of things." They quaked.

"Yeah I know. The hivemind thing." Katya responded with a caring tone. "I get you don't know the meggies, but you'll see, it's gonna be fine. I'll be here to help if needed."

As she spoke of the other half of the team, Katya discerned two yellow figures waiting at a T junction at the end of the corridor. She sped up, waving at them.

"There we go! We find the computer thing, you deactivate it or something and we save a bunch of levels. The usual y'know?"

The alien didn't answer, still unsure of how to feel about the mission. It's only been a few months since Nyx discovered the Ariane Circle— or rather, since they came to their level. Since then, they slowly adapted to dimensions that were not designed after anything their home planet had. Cut from the consciousness of the other Styxians, it took them some time to feel at home with another species.

The mission didn't make them feel at ease. Charlie, Katya and Anthony were good people to spend time with, but it would be a lie to say everyone at Team Hermes was this nice. Most of them, even after several months, were still looking at them with a mix of distrust and curiosity. The "chair incident" of their first interaction at Level 523-FR constantly reminded them to not provoke them. Yet, gossips about "the alien" were still rampant across the team, despite their good will.

And now they had to cooperate with people they had never seen before in a place they were still unfamiliar with. Katya was here to help, but who was to say the M.E.G. operatives wouldn't showcase the same disguised animosity as some Hermes members?

Sensing their concern once again, Katya repeated the same words as before, trying to appease them as they closed up to meet the rest of the team.

Perhaps things will go better than expected.

"Nobody told me the engineer would be an… entity. What even is that?"

Nyx sighed as Katya started in disbelief at Ale. Things did not, in fact, go better than expected.

"The… "entity" as you named them is our external collaborator, Nyx. They're like, the only person able to fix whatever mess you discovered and couldn't comprehend. You know, as usual." Katya retorted to Ale, ignoring Rey who tried to greet the Ariane Circle agents.

The alien, speechless, stayed in place as Katya continued to argue with the person who was supposed to coordinate the entire mission. While they weren't surprised by Ale's apparent speciesism, the repetition of the gossip they could hear in Team Hermes still affected them more than they wanted to admit.

"Are they a Remodeling Company Employee or something? They're blue-grey and all. Are you sure it's a good idea?"

Before Katya could even speak up again, Nyx finally took a step, getting closer to the M.E.G. operative. With a growing anger, they retorted: "I, for starters, am not from Backrooms. I am a Styxian."

"So the ocean on Level 7? Miss Hall, listen, I understand that's your coworker and all but have you seen it? It has sharp teeth and twisted eyes. I am NOT trusting that."

With only a meter separating them, Nyx could easily heavily harm him if they desired. Perhaps it would prove his viewpoint right, they thought. They looked at Katya to try to calm down, but they only found a feeling of pure disbelief within her, which didn't help them cool down.

"Okay, I don't really want to ruin your showdown or something, but we have some walking to do. You don't want to ruin the mission, Ale? Then do your job." Rey finally shouted to his acolyte, with a teenage assurance that surprised both of the Hermes operatives.

"Very well." The leader conceded. "Miss Hall, I'll let you assist Rey in finding the route. Nyx can go behind you okay? I'll close the march to… make sure we don't get sneaked on. Yeah, sneaked on, that sounds fair. Works for everyone?"

Katya simply nodded, getting to Rey's distance as the team started moving. As Nyx started to walk behind the two scouts, however, they couldn't help but feel like Ale wasn't behind them to watch for exterior threats.

For almost half an hour, the group walked in single file, with Rey leading the march as Katya occasionally gave directions with the Crimson Map. Nyx, walking behind the Hippocrates scout, was surprised to see her anxious, sometimes hesitating as Rey was progressively outwalking the rest of the team. Such behavior coming from someone who was quite resolute just an hour ago took them off guard. Was Ale so strange it kept bugging her long after the meetup?

"Is anything fine?" The alien asked, to which Katya responded by making a sign for the group to stop before hailing Rey:

"Hey, kid, we shouldn't walk so fast. Did you see the environment? Rushing in tight corridors like this is the best way to get ambushed by an entity. Frvyo jade is only helpful if you take the time to check its light variations, after all."

Rey rolled his eyes as Katya mentioned being careful. "Yeah sure, I'm curious to hear how you're planning to check every angle before going in. Wanna play peek-a-boo with the imaginary monsters?" The teen taunted, annoyed by her remark.

Nyx could feel the blood of their teammate instantly boil. Unlike Ale, she wasn't standing in disbelief at the operative's words but rather feeling provoked by them. Helpless, they watched their friend respond to the provocation:

"You have a Scaraback don't you? Make it check the corners before going there, genius." She spat, her anger gradually flowing.

The idea didn't convince Rey, however, who continued with the same tone:

"Oh yeah suuuure let's lose several minutes every time we take a turn by using it! Last time I checked, the mission was supposed to be urg—"

With a colliding sound, the operative was cut short by a figure running at him at full speed, making the two fall onto the floor. Katya, still at a reasonable distance, took her Organigun out and pointed it at the two fallen humanoids, mumbling an "I told you so" as she did.

The figure glanced at the pistol and immediately put his arms up, yelling to not shoot. As the tension fell, the rest of the team managed to recognize a human being rather than a murderous creature.

"Identify yourself." Katya defied, still pointing at the unknown person with her gun as Rey was trying to stand back up.

"Dan Abbolt, liminal photographer for the Daily Rooms. I apologize for the unfortunate ambush and can promise you I mean no harm." He immediately responded, briefly checking his camera for potential damage.

"Where did you learn about this level's existence? We didn't make anything public yet…" Ale cut, ignoring Nyx who was still standing between him and the rest of the team. "Did you enter through Level 5?"

"Oh no, I came from The Hub." The journalist immediately answered, eager to clear any misunderstanding. "Camp Amber reported seeing a weird hallway piercing through a tunnel, and here I am, gathering some info." He continued, pointing to the direction he came from.

Nyx, who before this mention stayed outside of the conflict, immediately understood what the fact implied. While Anthony was far from an expert on the Backrooms' structure, the alien managed to do enough research on the topic by themselves to understand how the anomalous physics of this dimension worked.

Coupled with their experiments on 523-FR, they learned that the Backrooms were a fragile place, merely a clunky assembly of pocket dimensions within the bigger realm of the Blue Channel. Breaking a level could very well break another, and so on. The Blue Consumption could lead to devastating chain reactions.

It was the worry the M.E.G. had. An unstable artificial level that could tear a hole in reality inside the Terror Hotel. However, what they had here was much, much worse.

"That is no good." Nyx finally spoke up. "If the corridor that broke in Hub disintegrates, it means Hub disintegrates too. And if Hub breaks, then everything connected can break too."

"See? We need to worry." Rey simply responded, glazing at Katya triumphantly.

"No need to taunt our teammate, man." Criticized Ale, before turning to Dan. "You, can you go back to The Hub and tell them to contact Housekeeping? There's no signal here, but once you can talk to them they can figure something out. We'll stop the level as soon as we can."

The journalist seemed to weigh the choice for an instant before nodding, running away to where he came from as the group hurried up to find the Remodeling Company control room.

It has been an hour since the team went back on their journey after their encounter. Yet, despite the deep explanation Nyx gave on the risks tied to the Hub, the general ambiance was at an all-time low. Katya and Rey kept arguing over every meaningless detail. Rey was reckless, and Katya inefficient— or at least that's what each said to the other.

While the M.E.G. operative insisted on the need to sacrifice care for efficiency, Katya only seemed to see him as a fool, an agent too young to understand the true dangers of the Backrooms. Nyx couldn't blame her, as she saw countless M.E.G. logs ending in disaster already. Yet, they felt like she would listen to the same advice if it was Charlie.

Collaboration was no better on their side. Ale, still behind her, glanced at them with a deep distrust he was barely hiding anymore, a feeling shared by the alien, who only identified him as a danger. Intimidating him would be easy and perhaps make things easier, but Anthony vouched for them, and they didn't want to break such a trust.

The thought of their friend who stayed at Hermes-5 made their heart languish. Katya was a good friend, but while she appreciated her analytical mind and her truthfulness, the alien already missed Anthony's nerdy conversations and awkward behavior. Still, he trusted them with this mission, and Nyx was eager to prove him right.

"Oh… That's not good." Nyx hears their Hermes companion whisper, disrupting their thoughts.

Looking forward, the alien shivers at the sight of a huge crack in the ground, spreading to the nearby walls. While Nyx was aware this was bound to happen, seeing it so fast, so close to them caught them off-guard for a moment.

Rey looked the most impacted by the discovery, with anguish replacing his usually confident smirk. "This is bad. We need to hurry before that whole thing fucking collapses." He added, looking around for more cracks, before attempting to run.

"Absolutely NOT, running will only make the whole thing break faster." Katya retorted, grasping his sweatshirt to stop him.

As the two started arguing again, Nyx relocated their attention to the actual crack, an idea slowly growing in their mind. Carefully approaching it, they whispered,

"I can attempt something to fix it. The cubes should—"

The alien was interrupted by a force from behind them, throwing them to the floor. Hitting the floor, they distinguished Ale, trying to immobilize them.

The shock made a cracking noise that both Rey and Katya perceived, making them turn back to see the M.E.G. leader and Nyx on the floor. With a brief feeling of surprise away, Nyx pushed on Ale, easily throwing him to the side.

"Ale this bad!" Nyx tried to formulate, as he also tried to stand up. His gesture was cut short, however, as the floor started to move unnaturally, before heavily vibrating. The alien desperately tried to stay up, balancing themselves to reach for Katya, but the ground was breaking, slowly lowering itself.

With a singular breaking sound, their end of the hallway detached and fell away below. As the rest of the team shouted their names in vain, Nyx and Ale fell into the deep blue abyss, which muffled their own screams.