The Corporate Descent

Prologue

Blackwood Industries stands as a monument to ambition—forty-seven stories of obsidian glass and steel, a vertical empire of cubicles, boardrooms, and secrets. But the building remembers what came before. Deep beneath the foundation, sealed away for centuries, something stirred in the dark. And when the executives ordered renovations to the sub-basement, when they broke the old seals in pursuit of profit, they unknowingly opened a door that should have remained locked. Now the entity feeds. It moves through the fluorescent-lit corridors like hunger given form, extracting life force from those who remain trapped inside. The building itself has become a prison—exits barricaded by forces that defy explanation, elevators that lead nowhere, hallways that twist back upon themselves. Emergency systems fail. Clocks run backward. Time itself seems to bend within these walls. Survivors huddle in offices and server rooms, slowly being picked off. Some have already been touched by the presence, their minds fractured, their mouths speaking in voices not their own. Somewhere in the executive wing, the CEO still lives—changed, complicit, perhaps willing. And deep below, in the ritual chamber on Floor -3, lies the only way to end this: a counter-ritual, the scattered sealing artifacts, and a blood price drawn from those most responsible for Blackwood's corruption. The clock is running. The entity grows stronger. And in the darkness, something ancient and patient smiles.