After Jimmy Froth closed the hall's door, a heavy silence spilled over the place.No one moved for a moment, as if the air itself hesitated before allowing them to breathe.The sounds of broken breaths, cautious steps began to seep into the hall, pale faces that had not yet grasped that the coming month was the last thread separating them from the massacre.
But Adam remained standing, staring into the void before him.He didn't appear confused like the others, but inside, he was boiling.His hands clenched behind his back, his eyes fixed on the stone wall as if reading something invisible between its cracks.
"An ability? From Jimmy?… from the game?"The very thought was enough to stir disgust within him.He knew well: nothing came from those people without a price.Every power given by those black hands must carry a hidden curse, an unseen chain, or perhaps a gate toward a destiny never chosen.
While the others began talking about training, about how they would use their new abilities, about possible strategies… Adam stayed silent.He heard their words like a distant buzzing, but he had no intention of walking the same path.
In his mind, he drew a clear line:— "I won't use it. This ability is not mine, not born of my blood or my will. It is a knife placed in my hand so they can laugh when I cut myself with it."
Adam was not afraid of power, but of its source.What is planted in the soul from outside can turn into a stab at the decisive moment.So his plan would not rely on what was given, but on what he could forge with his own hands, his mind, his body.
He sat in one corner of the hall after the others had left, closed his eyes, and began recalling all that he knew:— How his muscles moved at their very limits.— How he breathed at the moment of collapse.— How he balanced his body between pain and awareness.
He was like a soldier who had lost trust in his weapon, with nothing left but his body to turn into one.
"Training will not only be physical…" he said inside himself."But mental. I must face fear, face the idea of death a thousand times, so that when it comes, my heart will not tremble."
One month…The others would chase the illusion given to them.But he would forge himself into a tool that submits to no hand.
And so, among all the survivors, Adam was the only one who left the hall carrying within him a strict decision: the cursed ability would remain locked inside, never to be used in the tournament.What he would show there would be purely his, owing nothing, bound by no chain.
Day One: Isolation and Decision
While the others were busy trying out their new abilities like children playing with shiny toys, Adam withdrew far from them.He chose an abandoned room at the edge of the building, with no windows except a narrow slit where gray light slipped in.He sat there for long hours without moving, listening only to his heartbeat and the sound of his breathing.It was like trying to erase all outer noise and return to zero.
At night, he forced himself to face the idea of death:He imagined himself falling, being crushed, being torn apart.He repeated the scene in his mind until the pain became familiar, until the thought of the end no longer made his body shiver.
This first day was the foundation: no physical training yet, but training to tame fear.
Day Two: Breaking the Body
At dawn, Adam began a brutal session with his body.No tools, no magic, no outside support. Only the ground, the walls, and the weight of his own body.
He ran until his lungs collapsed, then forced himself to rise again.Push-ups, jumps, endurance drills, balance exercises, everything at the highest possible intensity.He was not seeking only to strengthen his muscles, but to test the limits of collapse.He wanted to know the point where his body would stop… and then surpass it.
The others were boasting in the yard about their abilities:One summoning flames, another disappearing for moments, a third twisting the air around him.
Adam was drenched in sweat, sitting on the ground, blood dripping from his palm after it tore open against the stone.And yet, he smiled a cold smile."I don't need their toys."
Day Three: The Silent War
At the first light of the sun, Adam rose though he had barely closed his eyes through the night.His sleep was like a brief absence, without rest or dreams, just a body stretched out waiting for the next order to move again.
That morning, he did not head to the yard with the others.He left them chasing magical displays, showing off their gifts like children flaunting a new toy, while he took another path:The long corridor leading to the dark room he had chosen from the start.
On the cold ground, he placed a small knife he had stolen from one of the storerooms.It wasn't an ideal weapon, but it was enough.He sat before it, staring as if facing a living creature.
The knife was not just a tool, but a symbol.A short piece of metal, yet in its sharpness lay life and death.Something so simple could change the fate of an entire battle, or cut the last thread tying a human to the world.
Adam stared at it for so long that the reflection of light on its edge seemed to pierce his eyes.It wasn't ordinary meditation, but a kind of mental trial:"Am I capable of killing? Not just the physical act, but the cold decision, stripped of hesitation?"
He began imagining scenarios:— A tall enemy striking from above, how would he evade the thrust?— A fast foe attacking from many angles, how would he change rhythm in a heartbeat?— A dark hall like this, what if three came at him at once?
Every movement, every breath, he redrew in his mind.He lacked an advanced training ground or a guiding teacher, but he had something deadlier: a mind merciless to itself.
After hours of sitting, he suddenly rose.He began running across the narrow room, then stopping abruptly until his lungs nearly exploded.He repeated the cycle again and again: running, halting, falling, then rising as if he hadn't fallen.He wanted to teach his body how to shift pace quickly, how to trick his opponents with his body before tricking them with his mind.
Then he tried something else: breathing.Sometimes he breathed so slowly he nearly suffocated.Other times, he dragged in air as if drowning.He wanted to master control of his inner rhythm, to make his breath part of his plan, not a burden.
During a pause, he sat with his back to the wall, sweat dripping from his chin.He placed the knife on his knee and closed his eyes.He began hearing imagined sounds: footsteps, screams, the clash of steel.He imagined himself in an arena crowded with foes, alone against dozens.He did not tremble, but raised the knife in his mind, moving it lightly, as if his fingers already knew where to stab.
It was a silent war, with no blood or real wounds, but harsher than any true battle.Because it was a war against hesitation. Against fear. Against the moment of doubt that equals death.
When evening fell, he returned to his first posture.He placed the knife before him again, gazing into the reflection of his eyes in the blade.This time, he did not see doubt, but a harshness he hadn't expected.Something inside him had changed.
Outside, the others clashed with their new tricks:Flames filling the sky, lightning flashing in the night, small explosions shaking the yard.
But he sat in the dark, wearing a faint smile, whispering to himself:"I need only my mind and my body. What others hold can be taken in an instant, but what I build here—no one can steal."
And that night, Adam slept for the first time feeling closer to a beast than to a human.
Day Four: Facing the Mirror
The night had withdrawn slowly, leaving behind a pale gray morning.The sun had not yet risen, and the air was heavy with dampness like the smell of graves.Adam woke before any sound opened the building's doors, as if his body now knew on its own that the time for inner war had come.
He did not go to the yard, nor seek the others.He entered his dark room and locked the door tightly.
In the center of the room, he placed a broken mirror he had found days earlier.It wasn't whole, just fragments of glass clinging to a rusted frame, enough to reflect a distorted image.
He sat before it in silence.He did not speak.He did not move his hands.He only looked.
But what he saw was not his face.The broken mirror did not reflect his features as he knew them, but overlapping shapes:An eye tightened with anger, a stiffened mouth, a black shadow circling his head.It was as if he gazed at multiple versions of himself, each carrying something different: one drowned in sorrow, another brimming with hatred, a third utterly empty, lifeless.
"Which one of these is me?"The question echoed inside him like a slow stab.
He decided to test himself.He did not eat, did not drink, did not move.He sat for long hours staring at the mirror until hallucinations began:His face smiling on its own, his eyes closing and opening, as if the glass had become a window into another world where a ghost resembling him looked back.
Hunger gnawed his stomach, thirst dried his throat, but that was the point.He wanted to place himself on the edge, stripping away all ties to comfort, to see what remained inside when everything else was erased.
As hours passed, he began hearing whispers within:— "Why tire yourself? The ability you were given will save you."— "You are no different, you'll end like them."— "Accept what they gave you, and be part of their game."
But he didn't answer.He only clenched his teeth and tightened his fist.
At last, he stood before the mirror, facing his shattered image.He slowly raised his hand and touched the glass.It was cold, harsh, and left a small cut on his finger.Blood trickled onto the mirror's surface, and its reflection made the image stranger still: a bloodstained face smiling at him.
"I am not your gift…" he muttered hoarsely."Nor your curse…""I am… my choice."
Then he struck the mirror with his fist.The glass shattered, scattering across the room.Some shards dug into his hand, but he did not care.
He sat on the floor, his hand bleeding, his eyes fixed on the broken remains of the mirror.He felt he had finally faced himself, stripped of every mask.
That fourth day was like an inner death.Adam had killed within himself every weakness, every hesitation, every illusion that someone would save him.
And what rose from the rubble was not "the surviving child" like the others, but something else:A being that fed on silence, pain, and resolve.
And at night, as he lay on the hard ground, he did not sleep.He only closed his eyes and whispered calmly:"In the coming tournament… I will not be one of the players. I will be the nightmare they never expect."