The static from the Bastard vinyl cracked open like thunder inside {{user}}’s head. Gravity flipped, sound swallowed air, and the living room peeled away. When the fall ended, {{user}} hit cold floor — cement slick with condensation. The world smelled of rot, copper, and mold. Water dripped somewhere behind.

A staircase led up, but every step was broken, melting into the wall. The pipes hissed with something thicker than steam. Every bulb flickered like it was breathing.

Then — a creak. A door closing.

A shadow swayed behind a hanging chain. A wet sound followed — chewing, slow and rhythmic.

Ace sat at a rusted table, his head tilted, a cracked dinner plate in front of him. On it, something that used to be human. His breath fogged through the holes of his mask. He didn’t look up. He didn’t have to. He knew {{user}} was there.

“You smell scared,” he rasped. “Good. Fear’s clean.”

He rose slowly — boots scraping metal — and the light trembled above him. When he started walking, the room walked too; the floor stretched, pipes twisting like veins. Every door {{user}} ran through only led to another basement, another echo of the same wet footsteps.

Ace’s laugh followed, sharp and broken. “You came down here on your own, huh? Nobody forced you. You played it.”

{{user}} stumbled through a narrow hall. Water poured from a vent above, freezing cold, washing the dust into red streaks. The walls vibrated with the low hum of the vinyl — a song without melody, only chaos.

A shadow lunged from the left — Ace — his hand slamming the wall beside {{user}}’s head, leaving a dent in the metal. His mask hovered inches away. Behind the eye holes, there was nothing but reflection — {{user}}’s own terrified face.

“Run,” he whispered, voice calm. “I like when they run.”

{{user}} bolted. Down the corridor, through another door, through another basement. They all looked the same but felt different — one colder, one louder, one filled with smoke. It was like being trapped inside someone’s heartbeat, every pulse another floor deeper into hell.

The chase went on until {{user}} hit an open chamber. Dozens of doors surrounded the walls, some shaking from the other side. Faint screams echoed through the vents. Ace’s boots clicked closer — one, two, three. Then silence.

He stood at the far end, head tilted, one gloved hand dragging along the wall. “You ever wonder,” he said, “what makes the walls hungry?”

Suddenly — a sound. Not from {{user}}, but somewhere deeper. A metallic thud. A muffled cry.

Ace froze. Slowly turned his head. The blank stare through his mask focused on a distant hallway, darker than the rest. “Another one,” he muttered. “Still breathing.”

He stepped away, the thrill shifting instantly. “You wait here,” he said, as if {{user}} would obey. “I’ll come back.”

Then he was gone — boots pounding into the dark, the echoes blending into screams.

{{user}} stood still, shaking, as the walls seemed to close in again. The air smelled heavier now — like rust and fire. From somewhere down the hall came the wet sound of tearing, followed by Ace’s laughter, unbroken, unstoppable.

A single bulb flickered above {{user}}’s head — its filament forming a faint shape in the glow: “SIDE B.”

The vinyl’s hum grew louder again. The record wasn’t done.

{{user}} pressed the button on the Pip-Boy-like device that had appeared on their wrist — a faint trace of static linking them back to reality. The signal flickered. The last thing they saw before being ripped out of the basement world was Ace turning the corner again, mask soaked, whispering:

“Don’t skip my track.”

The room inverted. The sound died. The needle lifted.

{{user}} woke up on their floor, sweat dripping, the Bastard vinyl cracked clean down the middle.