Episode 5 – The Great Escape Part 2 Scene 1 - An Impractical Cousin The stone corridors of Vármegye Tower are thick with the scent of mildew and sweat. Torches flicker weakly in iron brackets, barely illuminating the grime-streaked walls. Oscar Wilde moves through the gloom like he owns it—one gloved hand balancing his cane, the other tucked behind his back. At his side, a prison guard stalks in silence, a curved saber swinging from his belt clanging against a large ring of keys with every step. They stop at a heavy cell door. Inside, Harry Houdini is seated cross-legged on the floor, bound in iron shackles. His black suit is neatly buttoned, but there's a roughness to his jawline, the faint tremor of exhaustion in his shoulders. Harry doesn’t look up at first. Then— HARRY It’s about time, Wilde. Oscar leans forward slightly, inspecting the cell with something between curiosity and disdain. He wrinkles his nose at the stone walls and stained floor—the walls pocked with rivets and streaked in places with something dark and long dried. A crusted tin plate lies near the corner, its contents fossilized beyond recognition. The only window, high and narrow, admits a shaft of moonlight just wide enough to remind one of better places. Harry shifts his weight and lifts his wrists just enough for the shackles to rattle. Oscar turns smoothly to the guard, his voice light but edged with a slightly pompous tone of authority, as if he were making a polite request and delivering an order in the same breath. OSCAR I'd like a moment alone with my cousin, if you please. Family matters—and rather delicate ones at that. The guard reluctantly grunts his disapproval but steps back, the blade at his hip catching the torchlight as he turns. His boots scrape against the stone as he positions himself just out of earshot—close enough to intervene, but far enough to pretend not to listen. OSCAR You’ll forgive the delay. I was debating whether you needed a rescue or an audience. Curiously, it appears to be both. HARRY I blacked out during a séance, Oscar. I woke up to a wrecked room, two bloody men and then these beauties. Harry lifts his wrists and rattles the blackened iron shackles around his wrist. A single chain ties the wrist cuffs to the two wrapped around his ankles. HARRY: Hardly a glowing endorsement for the séance. I’ve seen better spirit work from a stagehand with a bedsheet and a lantern—though I suspect they tried to drug me. OSCAR Yes, yes, I’ve heard. We don’t have time for reminiscence. I’ve arranged a visitation under the guise of familial concern—congratulations, you're now my cousin Harry. I’ve also brought a plan. Of sorts. Harry looks up, mouth quirking into the ghost of a grin. HARRY Let me guess. Improvised. Risky. Vaguely stylish but mostly reckless. OSCAR My goodness, Harry – you act as if you know me [chuckles]. You’ll be contributing the improvisation and there’s no time like the present. It’s showtime, my boy! Now…your wrists, if you please. Harry leans forward and coughs—just once but sharply. A thin sliver of metal falls from his mouth and hits the stone with a soft clink. He retrieves the lockpick between two fingers. One of the great Houdini’s lesser known secrets was that he was able to hide small picks and keys in his own stomach and cough them back up at will. OSCAR Your performances remain... disturbingly anatomical. Harry begins working at the lock, fingers steady despite the awkward angle. After a few minutes and a wink from Harry, Oscar takes a single step back from the bars and raises his voice with crisp urgency. OSCAR [shouts] Guard! Come quickly—he's collapsed! I think he's passed out! The guard steps forward, unlocking the door with a suspicious glare. Harry is laying flat, eyes closed with shackles on but secretly unlatched. As soon as the door swings open, Harry surges upward. One leg arcs around in a sweep, catching the guard off balance and crashing him to the ground. Oscar takes two steps into the open cell and brings the rounded head of his cane down with a loud thwack against the guard’s skull. OSCAR Do hold still. The guard slumps, unmoving. Harry scoops up the ring full of keys and tugs his chains loose. HARRY They don’t make shackles like they used to. OSCAR And thankfully, they don’t make guards who read documents very closely either. Together, they move through the corridor. Harry checks for signs of movement while Oscar begins unlocking cells at a measured pace. From behind the bars, rough hands emerge. Prisoners stumble out, stunned for only a moment before the realization spreads—freedom. Somewhere to the left, a lantern crashes to the floor. Fire catches in old straw, sending thick black smoke curling toward the ceiling. The corridor soon erupts into motion like a slow fuse reaching its end. Oscar’s hands work with deliberate speed, fingers flicking through the ring of keys. One cell, then the next—each door clanks open with a hollow metallic groan. Inside, men blink as though emerging from years, not days. Gaunt faces twist in disbelief before hardening into something sharper: hunger…and then rage and exhilaration. Behind the bars, hands shoot out like vines—grabbing for keys, shoulders, anything real. One prisoner howls with laughter before vanishing into the smoke. Another grabs a discarded spoon from the floor and brandishes it like a blade. Murmurs swell into shouts. A chant starts and dies in the same breath, drowned by the squeal of iron doors giving way. Somewhere to the left, there’s a crash—another lantern hitting stone. Oil splashes across the flagstones. Flames lick up the crumbling mortar and dry straw ignites in an instant. The smoke doesn’t billow—it stampedes and coils down the hallway, devouring the torchlight and swallowing shapes whole. The fire cracks and snaps like a whip. A prisoner knocks over a rack of tin bowls that scatter with a deafening rattle. The first guard shouts for help. Oscar and Harry move faster. A prisoner stumbles past them, face lit from below by firelight, eyes wide and feral. Another man collapses against the wall, laughing and coughing hysterically. The air tastes like soot and blood and from behind it all—the distant, unmistakable clang of more guards on the move. OSCAR Time to vanish, dear cousin. HARRY After you, aristocrat. They disappear into the smoke as chaos erupts behind them—men shouting, running footsteps and the slow spread of more fires. The tower begins to burn. Scene 2 – Echoes in the Verdant Fog The corridors twist like arteries—stone narrowing, then widening without reason. Harry and Oscar sprint through them, boots hammering on worn stone. Behind them, the riot howls—burning wood, clattering chains and the barking of dogs. The smoke from the prison fires thins slightly—but only for a moment. The corridor narrows into a stone throat lined with iron doors. Wilde and Houdini move quickly, their steps echoing in uneven rhythm while their breath is shallow and laced with soot. They round a corner—and freeze. Two figures stand ahead, tall and still, wearing long coats and green silk sashes wrapped tightly around their faces. The fabric glistens faintly, too bright, too sharp in this light. Neither moves. Then—one of the masked men raises his arm. A vial arcs through the air and shatters on the floor. Green vapor explodes outward with a high-pitched hiss, rolling low and fast like something alive. A second vial follows. Then a third. Houdini yells, but it comes out muffled, disjointed. Oscar pulls his sleeve to his mouth, already stumbling back. The gas coils upward. It smells of wet leaves, rust and candy gone sour. Shapes flicker at the corners of their vision as the hallucinations take hold. HOUDINI Hold your breath—don’t breathe it in- His words fragment. His face shifts—then duplicates. One version smirks. The other grimaces. The walls undulate as floor tiles ripple like disturbed water. The masked figures rush forward. Harry is faster—he lunges, but his momentum is off, unspooled. He collides with the first guard, grappling in silence, their feet skating on a floor that now seems several degrees steeper. Oscar swings his cane, but the second figure splits—becomes two, then folds back into one. His cane strikes air, then flesh, then something soft and writhing. He’s not sure if it was a coat or man, but he keeps swinging. He’s laughing. Or screaming. Or both. The first guard slams Houdini against the wall—but the wall pulses, exhales, tries to swallow them both. Harry kicks free and retaliates with an elbow to the throat. The figure stumbles. Oscar is on the ground, blinking through the green haze. His hands feel detached. Blood—or maybe glass—drips from his temple. A blade slices through his coat. Time elongates. In the fog, the second guard lifts his weapon. It grows—no, it’s a serpent. A serpent made of silk. Oscar rolls, grabs his cane with both hands, and stabs blindly upward. Contact…followed by a howl of pain. Harry seizes the first attacker’s mask and yanks. The green sash unravels—beneath it, a face... shifting. As though made of mercury. HOUDINI [exhausted, angry] This isn’t real. Oscar finds footing. The fog is thinning slightly. He blinks, once. The walls stop moving. Harry kicks the second guard down. One last strike with the cane—and all is still. Silence blooms like a bruise. Wilde leans against the wall, coughing. OSCAR I think [coughing] I think I just fought my father, a fish and a philosophy professor. HOUDINI You did well. The philosophy professor was especially vicious. They look down at the masks—twisted scraps of silk now damp with sweat and blood. The green sheen has faded, but its afterimage clings to their skin. Oscar sways slightly and catches himself on the wall, breathing through his teeth. The corridor ahead stretches forward. Harry wipes his brow with a trembling sleeve. His hands are steady when needed, but now that he is free from the brawl, they begin to shake. The silence is thicker than the fog. Each footstep feels a beat too slow. Even the stones underfoot seem distant and abstract. Oscar mutters something under his breath—half a quote, half a curse—but it dissolves into a cough. His tongue tastes of iron and rosemary. Harry turns to glance behind them. The fog is retreating slowly, as though unwilling to let them go. HARRY Careful, Oscar. We are likely still under the spell of that poisonous gas. Oscar exhales through a laugh he doesn’t feel. OSCAR My dear Harry, if the gas is interfering with my faculties, it has chosen the most inefficient route. My lungs are overcome, yes—but my ego remains utterly untarnished. And then they walk on—still slow and heavy—toward something colder still. Where cruel science and strange magic collide. Where the East Wing waits. Scene 3 - Of Teeth and Villainy The corridor narrows. Stone gives way to steel as rusted pipes hum along the walls. The air smells of ozone and chemical burns. Oscar and Harry descend a grated stairwell into the East Wing. Each step echoes like a warning. They find the door at the end of a crumbling corridor—an enormous slab of iron, bolted into stone with rivets the size of fists. It looks less like an entryway and more like something meant to stay shut forever. No markings. No number. Just a single, heavy padlock, rusted but intact. Harry steps forward, still unsteady. His hand hovers near the lock for a second, as though bracing for it to whisper secrets or scream. He crouches, rolls back his shoulders. The pick emerges from his sleeve with a practiced flick, but his fingers betray him—twitching slightly, uncooperative...the lingering effects of the green fog clouding his concentration. The tool scrapes once. Slips. Harry blinks hard, resetting his grip. He tries again. The tumblers click but hold. Oscar leans leisurely against the door, watching with arched brows. OSCAR Are you sure you’re not picking imaginary locks? That one appears to be stubbornly real. Harry doesn’t respond right away—just growls softly through gritted teeth and continues his work. The lock gives a reluctant clunk, and the shank pops open. Oscar claps once, as if the curtain had just fallen. OSCAR Bravo, Harry! Remind me to spike your tea before your next escape act. It seems to add a bit of suspense. Harry pushes the door. It creaks open slowly, the hinges protesting in low, metallic gasps. Beyond lay the laboratory—and whatever truth has been sealed behind the iron veil opens before them. Rows of metal beds stretch into the gloom, each one occupied. Figures lie still—some barely human. Tubes connect to their arms, chests, temples. Machines tick and hiss beside them. A low electrical hum vibrates the air – not so much heard as it is felt – like a warning laying dormant in teeth and bone. These are the missing prisoners—or what’s left of them. Not men anymore, but husks: slack-jawed, eyes glassy and unfocused, their bodies still breathing but their minds long since evacuated. They lie in rows like discarded shells, something vital hollowed out, as if whatever had once animated them had been quietly siphoned away. The air around them feels heavy with the residue of something unnatural, something unfinished. Two guards wearing lab coats stand near the far wall, their attention buried in a flickering control panel that pulsed with dials and glass tubes. One adjusts a lever. The other scribbles something on a clipboard. Neither look up. OSCAR I’m used to turning heads when I walk into a room. This feels... impolite. Harry doesn't wait. He lunges forward, boots skidding slightly on the steel floor, closing the distance in seconds. He seizes the first guard by the collar and yanks him backward, then forward with ferocious force, driving him face-first into the panel, which erupts in a shower of sparks. A burst of electricity dances across the console, and the guard crumples with a choked grunt. The second guard spins just in time to see a glint of polished wood—Oscar’s cane swings in a brutal arc and strikes him across the jaw with a sickening thwack. He staggers sideways into a stack of metal trays, sending them crashing to the ground in a clatter of clanging steel. The guard reaches for a weapon, eyes glassy—but Wilde steps forward, fast and precise, and sweeps his legs out from under him with the tip of the cane. The man falls hard. One more blow to the ribs—and he stops moving. Oscar straightens his coat, breath quick. OSCAR Well, that was very nearly unscripted. Budapest really does know how to welcome its guests with just the right balance of violence and voltage. Harry gave a short nod, already checking the perimeter. No more alarms. Just the low drone of machinery—steady, unnatural, like something pretending to breathe. The lab stretches out before them, cast in jaundiced light. Thick black cables hang from the ceiling like veins, pulsing faintly beneath a glass skin. Along the far wall, panels of brass and oxidized steel blink in chaotic rhythms, their dials twitching. Oscilloscopes flare with erratic pulses. Fluid-filled tubes line the counters, each holding samples of flesh in impossible colors. Metal tables arranged in careful rows, their surfaces tilt just enough to allow fluids to drain. On each bed lay a prisoner—strapped, silent, eyes fluttering. Some murmuring in fractured syllables, others convulse gently with each electric pulse from the machines above them. One man’s skin shimmers faintly with a scale-like pattern. Another’s jaw appears slightly too wide, teeth too orderly, as if rearranged by an unseen hand. The air is thick with formaldehyde and copper, but beneath it lingers a third note—faint and rancid. It smells like something that should never have been opened. Near the center of the room, a steel tank thrums with energy. Coils loop around it like a crown of worms. Inside, something shifts in the fluid—too quick to glimpse fully, too large to be rational. Oscar stops short, brow furrowed, hand tightening slightly on the head of his cane. OSCAR Well…someone’s funding the arts. Harry doesn’t reply. He’s staring at the nearest bed, where a man lay very still, eyes open and unblinking—pupils thin and vertical. An electrode pulses against the base of his throat. A whisper escapes the man’s mouth: not a word, but something phonetic. Crooked. Almost serpentine. The machines keep humming. The two men press on. Past the beds, the room opens into a wider chamber where the air grows colder, denser—as if heavy with secrets. Tall glass tanks line the walls in two symmetrical rows, each standing like a monolith, rimmed with copper bands and crisscrossed with black cables that pulse faintly with current. The greenish fluid inside glows with a sickly radiance just bright enough to cast it’s hue across the darkness. In the first tank—dozens of what appear to be large eels writhing in a grotesque cluster, their bodies knotted into a pulsating, sack-like mass suspended in the green fluid. Their flesh is waxy and translucent, revealing shadowy slivers of spine and twitching muscle beneath. Each one seems to breathe independently, gills fluttering in strange syncopation. Their mouths are ringed with concentric layers of needle-thin teeth, constantly flexing, as if tasting something unseen in the water. At first, they drift, slack and inert. Then, as Harry and Oscar step past, their eyes snap open in perfect unison—glassy and milky-white. The entire mass jerks forward, slamming against the glass with a dull, wet thud. The surface bulges, just slightly, as if considering whether to yield. For one long moment, the creatures follow them—hundreds of pupil-less eyes locked in place, mouths flexing, as though rehearsing the shape of a scream. The next tank holds something star-shaped only in the loosest, most blasphemous sense. A bloated radial form, easily the size of a man, floats with slow, sickening grace in the glowing fluid. Its skin is off-white—more like undercooked meat – not like anything found in the ocean—and its five thick limbs ripple inwards every few moments, spasming in an eerie rhythm that suggests it’s not sleeping but waiting. On the underside, where a mouth should never be, rows upon rows of spines pulse gently, opening and closing in wet anticipation. Mucus threads drift from the creature’s maw, coiling like smoke underwater. Occasionally, one limb twitches. Then another. The entire body tightens slightly, contracts as if recalling some ancient reflex—as if responding to a phantom scent. A third tank bubbles ominously—its contents partially obscured by steam gathering on the inside of the glass. What can be seen looks like twisted limbs fused at unnatural angles, too many joints, too few bones. The shape throbs against the glass in slow, rhythmic undulations. Each tank is worse than the last. A spidery form floats behind cracked glass—its exoskeleton fractured and twitching, its eyes arranged in a radial pattern like a constellation that’s gone insane. In another, a fetal shape curls in the fluid, far too large, its face vaguely human, though the eyes are lidless and black, and the mouth extends far too wide. The hiss of the machines grows louder. The fluid inside the tanks bubbles, breathes. Something presses against the glass from the inside—just for a moment—then withdraws, leaving a smear that somehow moves on its own. Oscar finally speaks, quietly. OSCAR This... is not science. This is a gallery curated by a madman with a grudge against nature. And still, deeper in, something larger waits. The final tank rises from the floor like a tombstone forged by science. The glass is thick—double-reinforced—and yet it moans as the thing inside shifts. Fissures web across the surface, hairline cracks threading outward with each subtle tremor of movement. The fluid inside churns, murky and darker than the others—less like water, more like old blood. A narrow door creaks open at the back of the room, revealing a tall figure draped in robes. As he enters, he flips his hood back and reveals a long, tangled beard hanging from a pale face with dark features. Gregory Rasputin steps forward with eerie calm, as if summoned by their arrival. His eyes lock onto Harry—burning, calculating. RASPUTIN You were meant to be my masterpiece. A weapon no prison could hold. No grave could silence. With the right adjustments... I could make you divine. He advances slowly towards the small console connected to the large tank. OSCAR Oh and you must be the infamous Rasputin. Honestly, I expected greatness, not a monk who looks like they got lost in a costume shop. Really, Rasputin, I believe you’ve spent too much time chasing ghosts in a boiler room. HARRY Turns out your lab isn’t fireproof. Apologies for the inconvenience. RASPUTIN It’s true you have reduced years of work to ash. But all of this – this is one node in a living network…one cog in a machine that spans continents. Rasputin throws a lever on the console. A sharp hiss follows as the cables rip free. Steam erupts. The tank shudders violently—then explodes in a burst of green fire and shattering glass. Shards scream through the air as green-black liquid floods the floor. A wave of slime sloshes outward, slapping the floor with a wet, meaty sound. RASPUTIN You were meant to stand beside it, Harry. Not in defiance but in worship. Now you’ll die with its claws at your throat! From the shattered glass and steaming fluid, something rises. Not with a crawl or a slither—but upright, purposeful, almost regal in its monstrosity. It stands well over seven feet tall, a reptilian humanoid, thickly muscled and heaving with each breath. Its skin glistens with a scaly sheen—oil-slick green and laced with veins that pulse just beneath the surface like living wires. Each arm bulges with unnatural strength, sinews wrapped too tight beneath ridged, armor-like plating that runs along the spine and shoulders like forged bone. The chest is broad—barrel-like—and rises with sharp, ragged inhales, exhaling with a low, almost thoughtful snarl. Its hands are clawed but articulated—capable of holding a scalpel or rending a man in two. Its head is elongated, lizard like, with a powerful jaw that yawns open in a horrid display of weaponized evolution. Inside: rows of pointed teeth. A black, forked tongue flickers once through large front fangs, tasting the air. Its eyes are solid obsidian, lidless, and inhuman—fixing on Wilde and Houdini. They reflect no light. Only intent. And when it steps forward, the lab vibrates. Fluid sloshes at its feet. Broken cables drag behind its legs, crackling dimly, still tethered to the ruin of the tank it escaped from. This thing wasn’t born. It was designed. And it remembers exactly what for. The creature lunges—and releases a roar that doesn’t simply echo; it invades. It begins low, a guttural rumble like stone splitting under pressure, then builds into a shrieking crescendo that shatters any illusion of natural anatomy. The sound scrapes across the walls, vibrating every pipe, every wire, every ribcage. It’s not just loud—it’s…wrong, layered with multiple frequencies that twist in the air like a sonic delusion. Oscar clamps a hand to his ear. Harry winces as the lab lights flicker. The roar isn’t just heard. It’s felt—inside the skull, behind the eyes, in the marrow. A sound designed not to scare prey…but to announce dominance. Its claw arcs down like a guillotine—Harry dives under, rolls, and springs up behind it. A second later, the monster wrenches a metal cart from the wall and hurls it with bone-snapping force. It crashes beside Oscar in a shower of sparks, cables bursting like veins. Oscar barely flinches. Harry rushes in and drives a fist into the creature’s ribs. Nothing. The beast doesn’t even grunt. It whips around and backhands him across the lab. Harry slams into a workbench, scattering scalpels and glass. The creature turns and steps towards Oscar. Slow. Certain. Predatory. He sidesteps as it swipes—and thrusts his cane forward in a feint. The creature grabs it with both hands and growls. Oscar presses the hidden latch. Click. The blade shoots free with a metallic sigh—then drives upward, straight up under the beast’s chin. It howls, this time gurgling as blood fills its throat—a fractured sound, half-wail, half-static. His arms lash out blindly and sweep through a rack of tanks, one bursting with a hiss of acid that splatters across the floor. Smoke curls up from the tiles. Harry recovers, grabs a length of bent pipe—and charges. He slams it into the creature’s side, wedging it between two of its ribs. It spasms violently, tries to twist around, but collapses, clawing at nothing. The body jerks once. Twice. Then stills. And through the chaos, Rasputin is nowhere to be seen. The smoke swallows the room and alarms wail. But the robed figure is gone—no footprints, no trace, as if the explosion erased him from reality. Oscar yanks his blade free. Green-black ichor drips on the tiles. He glances at Harry—shirt torn, breathing ragged. OSCAR Hospitality, it seems, continues to impress. HARRY Since when do you carry a blade? OSCAR Since discretion lost its charm. They push past the wreckage and slip through the door Rasputin entered from. At the top of a narrow spiral staircase, a rusted metal door waits. Harry braces himself and forces it open. The cold night rushes in, thick with smoke and distant sirens. They don’t speak as they run through the darkness—scarred, breathless... but alive. OSCAR Well that was easier than expected [laughs]. Come on, Harry. Our train is leaving, and your punchlines need rehearsal.