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Ihram did not fear the third door.

Even from the outside he could hear it. A steady sound that promised him what he sought. Though it was dark, his yellow heart glowed reassuringly from within.

Something thudded from afar, over and over.

The thing in the box was what he sought, when he finally found it. His hands traced the outline of something that protruded out, five fingers, a wrist, an arm. How smart of the goddess to keep a heart fresh in its container!

It was oddly soothing to work this way. Even in the dark, his hands guided the scissors through the soft material. The wet snips and occasional crunches were the music of his surgery. The object opens wider as he pulls it apart, cracking it like a coconut, and trimming away the unnecessary parts. It felt second nature. Had he done it before? He could not remember.

His fingers brushed delicately around the beating heart.

The body let out a scream, the arm grabbing hold of his. Even as it fell back into death the word still rang in his ears. A single word. A name--

“Mahir!”

He was holding a frog, or what remained of it after it had stopped twitching. With delicate movements he had imagined thin sticks into surgeon’s instruments and pulled its bloody organs out one by one through a slit in its belly. Lungs. Intestines. Liver. Stomach.

The sticks pincered around a small red still-beating heart.

Ikram continued to turn her half lidded gaze onto him. Even now, as scarelings, she was sharp and rigid. In what seemed like a single motion she had brought her foot down on Mahir’s new toys with a wet splat. She was towering over him now, snatching the frog and the sticks from his hands and sitting down beside him.

“Give me that,” she demanded. “You’re doing it wrong.”

She took the sticks in hand and stabbed them through the heart. It was still. The dead frog was tossed back at Mahir’s feet.

“You shouldn’t play with your food."

The heart came free with a single surgical cut.

He did not give back the heart, although he did consider it for a moment. But he was drowning, and many desperate and foolish things came to mind on the brink of death.

Only one of them could survive this.

But he knew, somehow, that she had already died once for him. They had all died. And he had survived because he had run away.

They would never forgive him.

But the goddess would. She was reassuring and kind, and she did not care what he had done. He was safe in the Ruins. Ihram - Mahir- was here for her, not for Ikram, not for anyone else. He would bring her the heart. He would-

The scissors plunged into Ikram's glassy eye.

The howling seemed to go on slightly too long. The water receded, tossing him gently to the foor to spit out whatever remained of the deep black liquid. Light filtered through the wall - it had become a door again. He was free to leave. He had succeeded.

He could not help but glance back, for just a moment, toward the box. Ikram waited in the darkness, clutching her empty chest in one hand, and the bloody scissors in the other.

They would never forgive him.

Ihram awoke with a start.

Something was wrong with this place. The buzzing in his ears seemed wrong, unfamiliar in some way. It was too bright and he held both arms in front of him to block the light. It was too cold and he scrambled off the metal table.

The door to the room opened easily. Ihram was not worried. He had a dagger. The goddess gave it to him. It should be enough, because she said so.

Something crashed shut behind him, but one glance confirmed it was not the door. He took a few steps, and so did someone else.

He looked again.

Something, or someone, was waiting at the end of the hall. They seemed indistinct, just a shadow shape. The only thing he could clearly see was the pair of scissors they slowly snipped in their hand as they watched him.

Logic dictated this was one time he should run first and ask questions later.

At the end of the hall he came up against a door with a few lit squares beside it. Each had a strange symbol carved into it, reminiscent of the plaques in the shrine. He touched them, and they did absolutely nothing but beep at him in shrill tones.

His vision wavered.

"Then kill me!" she screamed. There was a pool of something ruby red beneath her. pouring from her mouth and the hole in her chest that her fingers could not quite cover up entirely.

He blinked.

"You take and you take and you take!" the thing screeched behind him. "And now I have nothing!"

DISTANCE: 35

A stained red piece of paper lay near the door. He could feel his yellow heart beating heavily in his chest. He studied it quizzically, oddly calm despite the circumstances.

A C E G.

Whatever that meant...

DISTANCE: 25

The door swam.

"You always show mercy," she chided. "What kind of a horseman are you?"

"It's mine, it's mine," she hissed, closer and closer. "Give it to me!"

DISTANCE: 15

He paused for a moment as the bridge swayed. Something grabbed him as he waited, something with long sharp fingers. A point was traced down his back, as if searching-

He bolted.