Blood.
It stained the floor, thick and black under the harsh lights. Somewhere above, an old fan creaked as it turned, pushing hot, stale air in lazy circles. The stench of sweat, fear, and metal mixed into something sharp enough to sting the back of the throat.
In the center of the arena — if you could even call a rusted steel cage buried beneath the earth an arena — a boy stood over a corpse.
He couldn't have been older than seventeen.
Barefoot, shirtless, ribs showing. His left eye was swollen shut. Scars decorated his body like cruel tattoos — some fresh, some faded, none accidental. A man — or what was left of him — lay twitching at his feet, half his skull caved in.
The boy's knuckles were split and raw. He didn't care. He never did.
"Winner… Subject 17. Again." The voice over the speaker crackled with static, bored and cold.
Cheers erupted from behind the viewing glass. Men in suits raised drinks. A woman in a lab coat made notes with a stylus, eyes flicking to the camera feed. Another day. Another fight.
Another experiment logged.
In the cage, Shen Riven knelt and wiped the blood off his hands using the tattered sleeve of his opponent. He didn't look at the body. He never did.
He wasn't fighting for survival anymore.
He was fighting for silence.
For that moment — when the crowd's voices dimmed, the lights blurred, and pain became distant. The moment just after the kill… when the world made sense.
The cage door slammed open with a hiss.
"Back in the cell," barked one of the guards, rifle slung across his chest. "Let's go, Dog."
Riven didn't move right away.
The guard stepped closer, lifting the butt of his weapon.
Riven turned, slowly.
The way a snake might.
Cold eyes. Dull, yet far too awake. He stared the guard down without saying a word.
The guard hesitated — just a second — then grunted and stepped aside. Riven walked past, back into the underground corridors of the facility. Back to the walls that knew his blood, the bed that knew his back, the chains that knew his name.
Subject 17. Pit Fighter. Grade B. Emotional Response: Null.
That's what the file said. That's what they called him.
But he remembered another name — whispered once in the dark by a woman who no longer existed.
Riven.
He whispered it to himself sometimes. Just to hear it.
---
They threw him a ration pack that night. It landed with a plastic thump on the floor outside his cell.
He sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at the ceiling. He didn't eat. His body would last longer than the others. He knew how to slow it. How to conserve.
He'd learned from pain. From failure. From being made to kill kids younger than him.
The others who entered the pit screamed and cried.
He'd stopped crying years ago.
---
Later that night, it began.
It started as a tremble beneath the concrete. A vibration that made the metal door creak. Riven opened his eyes.
He'd felt earthquakes before.
This was different.
Lights flickered. Alarms didn't sound — yet. The security feed outside his cell buzzed, glitched.
And then… the world screamed.
Not with sound, but with pressure. A pressure that bent air, crushed silence, and made every living thing flinch. The walls groaned like they were alive.
The lights went out.
Then the sirens came — but not facility alarms. External. Emergency broadcasts.
"...—Sky rupture detected. All personnel evacuate immediately. This is not a drill."
Riven stood.
Outside, guards ran past in panic. One dropped his weapon. Another screamed something about "monsters falling from the sky."
Riven stepped forward. Gripped the cell bars.
The power cut completely.
His door slid open.
No lights. No orders. No chains.
He looked down at his hands — broken, scarred, and free.
For the first time in years… he smiled.
Not because he was escaping.
Not because he'd survived.
But because the world had finally broken before he did.
---