“I only want to see my family again, nothing more, nothing less.”
There was an older man—perhaps in his early or mid-forties—snarling at a boy my age, cursing him for failing to loot enough monsters from the colosseum.
At first, I judged him as nothing but irresponsible, another man venting frustration onto someone else. His nightly shouts clawed at my ears, gnawing on my nerves, especially since I—as well as Frank—had nothing to barter with; no food, no water, nothing to trade with.
But yesterday everything changed. I saw that same boy staggering under the weight of the man’s half-massacred body. The older man’s lower half was gone, torn away, and what remained was only blood and innards spilling from a broken torso.
His eyes were vacant, emptied of that constant anger I had grown accustomed to, those bushy brows no longer furrowed with rage; what stayed with me wasn’t the corpse but the boy who carried it, his eyes swollen with grief—the soundless weight of someone who had lost more than he could hold.
The nightly shouts had ended, replaced by stifled cries, and then even that faded. Today, that boy is gone too. I watched him die—torn apart by a creature that seemed spat from the depths of hell.
The creature had no legs, no arms—just a serpent’s gibberish form, a grotesque coil of slime and fangs sprouting at unnatural angles.
It moved as if the earth itself were water, slipping beneath the ground, erupting where it pleased.
I remember the silence that fell over the colosseum when it first emerged, the way every breath froze, and then the screams, sharp and final, before the cheers of the other—bigger people in the audience—laughed us out. They sat above, watching us like a crowd at a sport.
Today was unbearable. Perhaps not as crushing as that first day, when I was thrown against the lion-thing with claws like scythes, but harder than two nights ago, when the bat-creatures descended from the crystals above.
I still hear their shrieks, their echoes shattering the kaleidoscope ceilings, shards raining like knives that pierced through bodies as if they were nothing.
But today—today was worse. Not because of the serpent’s size, nor the bloodshed it caused, but because I cannot unsee the boy’s face as he was split in two beside me; his scream still echoes inside my chest.
As always, I ran. That is what I do best. My hands shake even now, hours later, as I stare at the jagged ceiling of the cave we’ve been herded into for rest.
A break, they call it. Today and tomorrow off, because the fights come in intervals. Every two, maybe three days.
It’s impossible to count correctly. Time here isn’t the same as home. There are no Mondays or Tuesdays, no simple rhythm to cling to; instead, they name days after strange things: the Day of False Gods, Seraphic Shroud, Verdant Haven—alien words for alien time.
A day feels shorter, a week feels longer, and nothing aligns with what I once knew. But what did I expect of a world where a blue sun rules the sky?
Except for here—inside this place they’ve dragged us to—there is no sun at all. Only darkness, broken by the dim shimmer of wet stone, and the colorful crystals dancing with their light over us whenever we get dragged to the colosseum.
Cursing under my breath, I rub my eyes, and the memory of the older man and the boy stabs me again. They remind me of us. My father and I, and that thought alone is enough to hollow me out.
“You good, Dam?” Frank’s voice comes from the side. We both lie flat, our eyes fixed on the black ceiling, the rock shimmering faintly in imitation of stars. Unlike the crystals, they feel like the last thing I could call home.
Frank’s alive still, thanks only to the blood he’s consumed back when we were in Heidelberg, or whenever else he’s drunk from these creatures. Green blood; it remade him, gave him strength and regeneration, let him bend his own veins and flesh like threads of cloth.
It saved him and me from being alone.