“Oh, have you lost your old gramps somewhere?”
It is her again. Lunging forward, hands wrapping around the cold lattice that separates us, my fingers claw at the bars, unable to push through.
She stands before me now, clear in the light; pitch-black hair drapes over her shoulders, skin pale as snow but marked with spreading stains of black. Tattoos of serpents wind across her flesh, twisting as though alive. Her smile is jagged, teeth sharp like a predator’s, and she mocks me with that smile of hers.
And she is tall—unnaturally so. No human woman could reach such a height. Three meters, perhaps. Her frame leans down toward me, but she remains steady, poised like a creature that knows its own superiority.
Beside her, another presence looms. A man in a black suit, his hair dark brown, thick with muddy streaks of the same color. He watches, expression unreadable, a shadow to her brightness, even though she is a shadow herself.
“Let it go, Dam. They showed me Paula, too. It was all a farce.”
Frank speaks, but the woman cuts through again, her tone low and rough, still female yet edged with something darker. “I want him to be the first.”
Her teeth glint white against blackened gums, lips peeling back in hunger.
“Again, no can do only if he wins. You know the rules.”
But I don’t hear anymore. The voices fade into meaningless echoes, and all I can do is kneel before the otherworldly figures looming over me.
My father. My family. I want to resist, but the truth is I cannot—and worse, I don’t even want to. Or perhaps it is the opposite: I try to resist, and yet my body betrays me.
My vision blurs, not from my evil eyes but tears. It blurs until the first drops stain the cold stone beneath me, snore tearing free from my nostrils a heartbeat later.
The sound and the weakness hit me like a punch in the gut.
I should have known better. I should have guessed he was never truly here.
But still I held on to the fragile hope that he might be, that somehow, impossibly, I could reach him. That he might get back. I miss him, the thought of being with him, of being with any of them—my family whole again. I clung to that hope, foolishly, and now it is shattered.
It is crushed utterly to dust.
My forehead drops against the lattice, the metal biting into my skin. The woman turns, wings unfurling from her back—bat-like, jagged shadows stretching across the walls.
She vanishes into the dark alongside two men, whose faces I never bothered to see truly. Only the suited one lingers in my memory, the one with brown hair and a baggier cut of cloth, not quite modern, more like a heavy coat resting loose across his frame; he remains for a heartbeat longer, watching.
“All of you rest tonight,” he says at last, voice calm and controlled. “We’ve cut the chips in your bloodstream. No need to fear sudden detonation—not from a fight you had today, or in some hours, or tomorrow. Rest. Soon enough, you’ll fight for your lives.”
And with that, he follows the others. Only the faint glow of his burning cigar remains, left to smolder on the floor until it extinguishes itself; a thin line of smoke rises into the stale air.
Sinking, my head curls into my knees, forehead pressed against the cold bars. My eyes fix on the fading orange glow of the cigar, the last ember of their presence.
Frank’s voice reaches me, but I don’t answer. Not for a whole minute, instead my fists press against the bare ground, clenching harder until my knuckles ache. From time to time, I let my skull knock against the lattice, dull thuds breaking the silence.
Finally, however, I turn. He isn’t looking at me anymore. His gaze rests on the ground, heavy and dark; his jaw tightens, teeth grinding until veins rise across his temples, his whole face reddening with fury. His eyes sharpen into something like an eagle’s, piercing yet silent. He stares against the wall of stone before him, light dancing in the shade above us.
Pushing myself up without a word, my legs carry me toward him, though he stands not before the bars but against the stone wall like the others, as if refusing to be near what I had faced. I lower myself beside him, lean back against the same cold stone, and only then do I speak.
The words sound absurd in a moment . Not so good. What a pathetic understatement, dropped into the ruin of our situation.
All I can do is let a wry smile tug at my lips, weak and bitter, while tears come again. This time, they fall silently.