Kenzii stumbled out of the white studio, his lungs burning from the exertion of the fight. He had barely taken a breath of the hallway's sterile air when the entire area began to pulse with a violent, rhythmic red. Above the series of mysterious doors, a digital display flickered into existence.
"What the fuck is…" His brow furrowed in confusion, his eyes tracking the crimson numbers as they bled away second by second.
04:59… 04:58…
The countdown timer burned into his retinas like a brand—a digital heartbeat marking the final seconds of the Artist's kingdom. Adrenaline, cold and sharp, surged through his veins, momentarily overriding the bone-deep exhaustion that threatened to collapse his lungs.
He glanced down at himself and felt a surge of bitter self-loathing. He had forgotten his gear in the chaos of the studio; he was still stripped down to his boxer briefs, his skin a grotesque mosaic of dried paints, grime, and the dark, metallic scent of blood.
"Four minutes and fifty seconds," he rasped, the words catching in a throat raw from exhaustion. He bolted toward the main hallway, his mind a frantic mess as he calculated which door led to salvation and which led to a tomb.
The mansion—once a silent, oppressive gallery—had transformed into a cacophony of sirens and amber strobe lights. Kenzii tore through the maze-like corridor, his bare feet slapping rhythmically against the cold, polished marble. Every second felt like a physical weight pressing against his chest. As he rounded a corner, a series of heavy blast shutters began to descend from the ceiling, a final, mechanical reminder that this place was intended to be a sealed grave.
He didn't stop to look back at the screeching metal. He needed his clothes and his watch, but as the timer ticked down, a cold realization set in. He didn't care about the gear anymore. He didn't care about the weapons or the tech. The only thing that mattered was escaping this inferno.
He burst through a side door and found himself in a room filled with a sickening collection: hundred of transparent glass bottles sat on reinforced shelves, each filled with grey, beige, fine sand. Labels were meticulously placed beneath each one. If he hadn't known Elias, he might have thought it was a collection of beach sands from around the world. But he knew better. These were the ashes of the "masterpieces"—the incinerated remains of Elias's victims.
Kenziiz didn't linger. The air in the room felt heavy with the dead.
He sprinted back into the hallway, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
03:12… 03:11…
The air was growing thin, taking on a metallic, scorched taste. The mansion's ventilation system had reversed, sucking the oxygen out of the rooms to fuel the high-intensity incinerators hidden within the walls. Kenzii's demonic left hand began to throb with a violet, predatory intensity, sensing the impending destruction.
"Shit, I need to get out of here," Kenzii whispered, his voice disappearing into the roar of the sirens. He found a grand staircase and began to climb, driven by the instinctual hope that the exit lay above.
When he reached the top, he threw himself through a set of wood double doors and skidded to a halt. He had stumbled into the very room Elias had taunted him with: the Yellow Room. The sight was a living nightmare. Dozens of portraits of Elias's victims hung in the amber strobe light—paintings of people in their final moments, bound to the same roulette wheel Kenzii had escaped, stripped down just like him.
Even as time bled away, Kenzii couldn't help but scan the walls. His eyes were drawn to his own portrait not far from him, the colors still wet and vibrant.
"Tsk. You won't get to enjoy these anyway. They're going to blow up along with your corpse," he muttered to the empty room. He turned to leave, but his gaze caught on a portrait tucked away in a shadowed corner. His breath hitched. His heart stopped.
"Pa–"
The word was a broken whisper. His eyes widened, fixed on the face of the man in the painting. It was his father, Roman. His face was a mask of confusion and grief, a reflection of the questions Kenzii had carried for years. A cold, hollow ache opened in Kenzii's chest.
He didn't notice the first tear that escaped his eye. He walked to reach out, his trembling fingers brushing the canvas, tracing the dark green eyes that looked back at him—the eyes that were an exact mirror of his own. In that moment, Elias's words echoed in his head like a curse:
"Those eyes remind me of someone I've painted before."
He looked at the bottom of the frame. There, in Elias's elegant script, was the date: October 22, 2022.
Kenzii's hand began to burn with a white-hot rage. That date was the very day his father had vanished. For years, his entire family believed that Roman had simply walked away—abandoned them like a ghost. Kenzii had spent every night since then hating him for leaving him with the burden of the family's dark legacy. He had blamed his father for his own suffering.
"All this time… you were…" He couldn't finish the sentence. His voice was a jagged ruin. The grief he felt was a silent, internal explosion. He wanted to scream, to tear the room apart, to howl at the ceiling until his lungs gave out. But there was no time for the luxury of a breakdown. The grief remained trapped inside him, a heavy, cold stone in his stomach, bleeding into his soul without a single sound escaping his lips.
He wiped the stray tear with his left arm, and his eyes fell on the physical heart of Elias still gripped in his left hand. He tightened his grip until the muscle nearly collapsed under the pressure. If he didn't need it whole for the system, he would have pulverized it right then. He felt a sickening urge to run back to the studio and butcher Elias's corpse all over again.
Then, the red light flashed above the door, pulling him back to the reality of his own impending death.
02:12… 02:11…
Panic flared, but it was drowned out by the sheer, cold weight of his sorrow. Even as his heart felt like it was being shredded, Kenzii forced his legs to move. He turned to run, but stopped for one final, agonizing second to look at the portrait of his father. Another tear fell, silent and unbidden, before he tore himself away.
He sprinted down the hallway, reaching the end of the second floor. He kicked open the final door, hoping for an exit, but found himself in Elias's private bedroom. It was a place of luxury and madness, filled with personal effects and fine silk.
His jaw tightened. Still no exit. He checked the timer.
01:22… 01:21…
Then, he saw it—the early moonlight peeking through the curtains near Elias's study table. He lunged for it, tearing the fabric aside. It was a sliding window, overlooking the jagged cliffs and the vast, churning Atlantic Ocean. He slid it open, and the freezing sea breeze hit his skin like a slap, bringing the scent of salt and freedom.
As he prepared to climb out, he accidentally hit Elias's laptop, causing it to light up, which caught his eye. A file was open, and his own name was typed across the top of the screen in bold letters.
"This old fart," he hissed. He grabbed the laptop, not even thinking of the weight. His eyes landed on a sturdy leather bag resting on the window seat. He shoved the laptop inside, along with a cloak he found nearby and Elias's heart. He secured the bag tightly to his back, ensuring it wouldn't shift during the drop.
He looked at the timer one last time.
00:24… 00:23…
"Shit." He climbed onto the ledge and looked down. He wasn't afraid of blood or death, but the sheer height of the drop made his stomach flip. He took a deep, shuddering breath, a silent prayer to the father he had just found and lost again, and leaped into the void.
The fall felt like an eternity. Then, the bone-chilling cold of the Atlantic swallowed him whole.
He didn't fight the cold. He kicked his legs with everything he had, swimming away from the island as fast as his exhausted muscles would allow. He knew the blast radius would be massive. He hadn't made it more than fifty yards when the world behind him turned into a sun-bright sphere of orange and white.
The shockwave hit him like a physical blow to the back of the head. Something—a piece of debris or the sheer pressure of the air—slammed into his skull. His vision flickered.
Before the darkness took him, he saw the flames consuming the 'Silent Isle,' erasing the Artist, the victims, and the portrait of his father.
"Not yet," Kenzii whispered as his eyes drifted shut. 'I have another clock to race.'
Then, the world went black.