Jonathan and Sadie continued left, trying not to step on any creaky floorboards. There were two regular sized, wooden doors: One straight ahead and one to their left. To their right was a banister, rudimentary made from scrap pieces of metal and wood, but there was no actual staircase, just a few pieces of chipboard placed so, that one could technically move downstairs if they wished to risk some broken bones.

Jonathan gestured to his left to tell Sadie, who was walking behind him, that were going to tackle the leftmost door first. He lifted his hand to count down from five and once he was done counting, they kicked the door in. There was a lone person inside and he was so surprised that he probably didn’t even have the time to react to Jonathan swinging his sword at him.

“Done”, Sadie said and peered outside to room just in case. They then continued to the room next to them. Jonathan paused before entering and listened. He couldn’t hear anything from inside.

He looked at Sadie and raised his fist, she nodded and knocked on the door. Nothing happened.

Jonathan used his shoulder to break through the door and he and Sadie found themselves in a large, rectangular room. Half of its roof was missing, seemingly burned down and cold night air was caressing their faces. And, most importantly, the room was empty.

“Good”, Sadie sighed, taking a deep breath of the fresh air and wiping her face with her free hand.

“Does the smell bother you?”, Jonathan asked.

“No. It just … lingers. Like smoke”, she said and glared at Jonathan angrily because he started chuckling.

“Funny to hear that from someone who smokes.”

“Leave me alone! Let’s continue.”

Jonathan left the room but Sadie stopped in the doorway.

“Have you never wondered why so many of us smoke?”

Jonathan turned around and looked at her in confusion. No. No, this wasn’t something he had ever thought about.

“For one, the smell of smoke is strong enough to block out anything else”, she said as they approached the room from which Sergeij’s gunshots echoed. “And prolonged smoking damages your ability to smell in general.”

The door suddenly burst open, Sergeij fighting in hand to hand combat with someone and knocking them down with a calculated swing with his fist to the neck. Charlotte was hurrying outside as well, her hands nervously fumbling around the grip of her leather bag, but her expression had remained confident.

“Is everyone alright?”, she asked eyeing everyone and making sure nobody was hiding any injury.

“What about the stairs?”, Sergeij asked, looking over the banister. He couldn’t see anything down there except for pitch black darkness.

“It looks unstable. Going down would probably be a bad idea”, Sadie said. “We should continue upwards.”