A faint sob broke the silence.
The dome was too still. Too large. Every sound echoed like a scream held back.
A boy—ten, maybe less—stood near the front of the line. His shoulders quivered. Then the tears came. First quiet. Then choking.
No one comforted him.
Instead—
Clink.
Chains stirred.
At first just a single link dragging on the steel floor. Then more joined in.
Rattling.
Sliding.
Slithering.
The boy's cry turned sharp—just as one chain shot out and wrapped around his ankle.
Another curled tight around his neck.
He yelped.
Then they yanked.
His small body scraped against the cold metal ground, barefoot. Skin tearing. Arms flailing.
No one helped.
Eyes turned away.
A girl near the center whispered a prayer. The child beside her elbowed her, hard, into silence.
He reached the platform.
Raised. Lit in pulsing red. The iron throned branding altar stood above all—waiting.
And beside it, unmoving:
The Chainfather, Also the supervisor of this Bleeding Quarries.
He didn't glance at the boy. Didn't speak.
Only the machine responded—its side vents hissing. The branding rod clicked into place, tip glowing molten orange.
The boy began to scream.
Not just pain.
Something else.
Betrayal.
The noise cut deep. It wasn't meant for this place of ritual. It was too human.
Then—
Hissss.
The iron struck skin.
Smoke. A sizzling noise like searing meat.
The child shrieked. His arms kicked against the chains. Then stopped.
He slumped forward. Branded.
The Chainfather finally moved—just his lips beneath the rusted mask.
A voice, too calm.
"The first chain always breaks something."
No one dared speak.
The chains retracted slowly. The boy was dragged to the side, dumped among the others like spent tools.
A moment passed.
Another chain began to move.
And another child began to cry.
The Chainfather descends a single step from the platform.
The sound echoes too loudly for such a small movement.
His robes trail behind him like the wake of a slow-moving ship—heavy, soaked with time.
He doesn't look at any of the children directly, only the space they occupy, like they are not yet real.
Then he speaks.
His voice is wrong.
Not loud. Not cruel.
Just dry—like it came from a place that hasn't seen water or warmth in centuries.
"You were not brought here to live. You were brought here to entertain."
Silence.
"You will break. In the breaking, you will bind."
He begins to pace the circle of the stage—metal clanging beneath each step.
Children flinch with each word.
"Each of you is unshaped. Useless. Screaming lumps of flesh that think pain is unfair."
"But the chain does not care for fairness. It only remembers."
He stops at the edge. Looks down at them.
One boy, barely nine, whispers—maybe to himself, maybe to someone beside him.
A name. A sob. A plea.
It's enough.
CLANG.
A chain falls from the ceiling like a guillotine.
It wraps the boy's neck, lifts him clean off the ground.
Gasps ripple through the crowd.
"Speak…" the Chainfather says, raising a single rusted finger,
"…and the chains listen."
The boy dangles, kicking.
For six seconds.
Then five more.
Then the Chainfather twitches his hand.
The chain drops.
The boy hits the floor in a heap, twitching, blood on his lips.
Alive. Barely.
No one dares help him.
The branding resumes.
Hiss.
Scream.
Steam.
The Chainfather doesn't flinch.
Instead, he crouches. Slowly.
Metal groans beneath his knees.
"You will not understand what we take from you today."
"But one day, when the chain tightens of its own will… you'll thank me."
He stands again. Looks up.
A hundred chains sway gently from the ceiling, like metal vines waiting for wind.
Or command.
Then he whispers something in a language that burns the ears.
And the next child is taken.
A procession of horror unfolds. One by one, the chains choose.
No names are called. No order. Just a sudden rattle, a metallic whisper, and then—movement.
A girl with shaking hands is yanked by her ankle, dragged screaming toward the stage.
She tries to crawl backward, but the chains lift her, limbs flailing, face streaked with tears.
The moment the iron touches her back, she shrieks. The sigil glows bright orange.
She's thrown aside like meat.
Then a boy who limps, older, maybe thirteen. He doesn't cry until the heat sears his skin. The mark goes on his neck. He bites his own hand to stop the sound.
A pause. The chains wait, coiling in silence. Then they strike again.
Twins are next. A boy and a girl—young, maybe nine—clutching each other so tightly it takes three chains to separate them.
"No! Please!" the boy screams. "Brand me! Not her!"
The girl faints as she's dragged. The iron burns her wrist.
Then the boy is branded anyway.
Their screams echo together. Then fade.
Some marks go on the spine. Others on the wrists. Some on the throat, like a collar. There's no pattern.
Only the quiet cruelty of selection.
A child branded on the wrist tries to run. Chains catch him mid-sprint, slamming him into the floor with a sickening crunch. He doesn't move after.
The Chainfather never lifts a hand.
He just watches. A judge in a court of silence. His voice cuts through between each branding, like a ritual chant:
"Flesh forgets. Chains do not."
"Pain teaches. Obedience corrects."
"Screams are echoes of weakness."
The branding machine hisses with every turn. Molten heat. Glowing symbols. The smell of seared skin, sweat, and rust mixes in the air like incense for a dark god.
Some children are dumped into a pile, unconscious. Others are shoved upright, forced to remain standing, twitching and pale, eyes wide with shock.
One boy branded at the neck simply starts laughing. A hollow, broken sound. He doesn't stop until a chain from above drops and wraps around his mouth, silencing it.
By now, the fear in the hall has matured.
Not panic. Not chaos. Something quieter. Deeper.
Submission.
Even the defiant have stopped looking up. Some children begin rocking. Some mumble to themselves.
One girl stares at her wrist, watching the mark flicker, whispering, "It's not me, it's not me, it's not me."
And still the process continues.
Metal moves. Screams follow. Then stillness.
And then the chains pause.
They slither back toward the center, hissing softly—tasting something.
Waiting.
Until they find the next one.
The chains hesitate.
Then lunge.
They don't rattle or slither. They snap—like decisions made in stone.
Cold coils wrap around Alex's wrists, ankles, and chest. Not cold like metal. Cold like absence.
Like something that doesn't belong in this world but touches it anyway.
He tenses. Something inside him twitches—the Hollow's Bargain Mark, buried beneath his shirt, flickers once.
A dull heat behind his eye. A whisper tries to form, but it crumbles before it reaches thought.
Then it's gone.
Alex doesn't scream. He digs his fingers into the metal floor, trying to stop what's coming.
The chains don't care.
They drag him like a sack of flesh, his body scraping over the blood-washed steel.
Past the crying.
Past the burned.
Past the ones who no longer move.
He's pulled up the steps. Red light floods his face.
The platform is sticky underfoot, scorched black where the branding machine hissed too long.
The Chainfather turns to face him.
For a heartbeat, nothing moves.
That mask—rusted, grinning—tilts as if sniffing him.
"A little spark," the Chainfather murmurs. "Not enough to burn. But still…"
He steps closer. The chains hoist Alex onto a slanted slab of steel, arms splayed, chest bare.
His breathing quickens. His body refuses to shake, but inside, something is screaming.
The branding machine whirs to life.
A shaft of molten orange lowers from above, humming with power. Its end glows with the shape of a twisted chain-link—symbol of the Tier-3 Mark.
Alex's breath catches.
The heat brushes his skin. The metal is close. So close.
But his eyes aren't on the brand.
They're on the Chainfather—who hasn't blinked. Watching. Waiting.
As if trying to decide whether to speak to Alex or dissect him.
The chains pin his shoulders. One slides around his throat, not choking—but present. Like a reminder.
Alex clenches his jaw.
He's not ready.
But no one is.
The branding iron touched skin.
It should've seared him.
It should've branded his chest like it had every other child before him—burning pain, flesh carved with obedience.
Instead, it detonated.
A pulse shot outward—silent, blinding, violet.
Not just violet.
A color older than color. Deep. Drenched in meaning. Something that didn't belong in the world but forced the world to make room.
The chains holding Alex snapped open like scorched rope, flying back with a hiss.
The machine above shrieked—steam erupting from vents that weren't even there a moment ago.
Gears stuttered, then reversed. The glowing chain-sigil on the iron twisted mid-burn, cracking down the middle like a split eye.
Then it blinked.
The slab beneath Alex trembled.
He arched—not from pain, but as if something ancient inside him had been yanked to the surface.
His mouth opened, but no scream came.
Only breath.
And silence.
Everyone saw it.
Just for a moment—just long enough to imprint on the soul.
A black eye.
Round, lidless, pulsing at the center of the ruined branding mark.
Watching.
The children fell into stunned silence. One girl dropped to her knees, weeping without knowing why.
A boy vomited behind his hands. The air tasted wrong—like old iron and something sweet that didn't belong in the lungs.
Then it vanished.
The glow. The eye. The crack in the sigil. Gone.
Only Alex remained—lying on the slab, chest unbranded but glowing faintly violet at the center. Breathing fast.
Skin untouched. But his stare...
Something else looked out from behind it.
The Chainfather didn't move for three whole heartbeats.
Then he tilted his head.
"Curious," he said softly, like he wasn't speaking to anyone in particular.
He waved a hand.
Chains re-formed from the walls—less eager now. They slithered slower, like animals approaching fire.
One touched Alex's leg, recoiled instantly with a sizzle.
Another tried to grip his wrist—then twitched violently and retracted into the ceiling with a pained metallic screech.
The Chainfather turned to a masked enforcer beside the machine.
"Cell Twenty-Two," he said.
The guard hesitated.
The Chainfather's voice dropped an octave.
"Now."
Two more guards moved in—covered in armor that shimmered slightly against the violet sparks still dancing along the stage.
They didn't use chains. They used force. Hands. Shackles etched with different sigils.
As they lifted Alex's dazed body from the slab, his eyes rolled once.
Then snapped open.
He said nothing.
But something deep inside him whispered.
And the chains heard it.
They didn't dare speak back.
They drag him off the platform like refuse. His feet don't move—his eyes won't blink.
Guards in slate-gray masks flank him. One grips the chain looped around his wrist like it might bite.
But the moment they cross the inner ring of the hall, the air changes.
The chains slacken. Not all at once—just enough to hesitate, like they're unsure. Then tremble.
A pulse. Subtle. Like something breathing in reverse.
The sigil scorched into Alex's back flickers—not orange, but something darker underneath. Wrong. Unstable. Alive.
A low hum builds beneath the floor. Not mechanical. Not natural. Like the hall itself recognizes him now.
The masked guards freeze.
"He's not resisting," one mutters, voice filtered and distorted. "But the mark—it's—"
"Don't speak. Just move him."
They press forward.
But as they approach the corridor to the cells, the chains begin to recoil. Slowly at first—curling away from his limbs like worms exposed to fire.
Then violently.
One snaps off his ankle and slithers away, sparking against stone. Another unhooks from his arm, twitching like it's trying to decide whether to reattach or flee.
Alex exhales sharply. He doesn't know why. He's not in control of it.
The guard on the right drops the chain and takes a step back. "It's reacting to something in him. That's not a Tier-3 signature. We should—"
"No." The left one steps closer, gripping tighter. "Chainfather gave the order."
They reach the first gate. A rusted arch.
Twenty cells line either side beyond it—each sealed by sigil-welded bars and humming suppression marks.
A hollow glow outlines each door.
The hallway breathes like a throat.
At Cell 22, the bars open without touch. Cold mist drips from the ceiling. Inside is only a stone bench and a drain.
They shove him in.
The second the chains leave his body, they scatter—retreating like spiders into cracks in the wall. The guards stare at the slithering trail they leave behind.
"What the hell is in him?" one whispers.
"Something that doesn't like being caged," the other answers.
The door seals. Symbols crawl across the metal like veins closing.
Alex collapses onto the bench. The branded mark on his back pulses, but it doesn't burn. It glows—dim, irregular. Not like the others.
Then—*
tap*
A drop of black leaks from the ceil
ing. Lands beside him. Dissolves before it hits the floor.
His eye twitches.
Then again—tap tap—faster.
He looks up.
And for the briefest moment, written in the condensation above him, a phrase flickers.
DO NOT OBEY.
It vanishes.
Alex doesn't move.
He simply stares.
A minute passes.
Then two.
Somewhere down the corridor, another scream begins.
But it doesn't reach Cell 22.
Inside, the silence is different....
Like something is waiting for him to answer.