After days of searching, one of the search dogs began tugging persistently at its leash, pulling an officer in a specific direction. Trusting the dog's instincts, the officer followed. It led him deep into the woods, stopping at the base of a tree covered in thick, unnatural webs—like something out of a spider's trap.
Peering closer, the officer spotted what looked like a human figure entangled in the web. Cautiously, he used the end of his baton to clear some of it away. That's when he saw the face.
It was a child.
Startled, he stepped back, his voice cracking as he gasped, "Jesus," before quickly setting off the alarm. Within minutes, other officers arrived. Carefully, they retrieved the boy and rushed him to the hospital. To everyone's shock, he was still breathing—barely. His pulse was weak, like someone in deep hibernation, but he was alive.
Claire was on the verge of losing her mind when she got the call that her son had been found in the woods. With her husband already in a coma, the thought of her child slipping into a similar state nearly broke her. She rushed to the hospital, barely breathing, trying to follow the stretcher as it wheeled past, but the medical staff gently held her back, urging her to wait.
The minutes dragged like hours until finally, the doors swung open and a doctor approached her with a calm expression. Her heart pounded as he explained that her son was going to be okay—just severely nutrient deficient. How he managed to survive for so long in those conditions was a mystery, but the doctor couldn't help but say, "Whatever kept him alive out there… it must have been a guardian angel." Before she could process it all, two detectives entered the hospital, clearly having been informed of the discovery.
Claire quickly turned back to the doctors, asking if she could see her son. A nurse nodded and gently led her down the hallway. As she disappeared into the room, the detectives remained with the doctors, ready to dig into the questions only her son could possibly answer.
The detectives exited the hospital in silence, their minds racing with the mystery that had just unfolded. Sliding into their car, they drove straight to the site where the boy had been found, guided by the officer who had first stumbled upon the body.
The woods were quiet—eerily so—as they navigated the dense trees. At first glance, the area seemed ordinary, just another patch of forest. But the detectives were anything but ordinary in their approach. They began their search, eyes scanning every inch of bark, every cluster of leaves.
Detective Malik, ever curious and drawn to the smallest details, pulled out his dagger and began scraping away at the thick cobwebs clinging to the side of a tree.
What he revealed froze him in place: the triskelion symbol, faint but unmistakable, carved deep into the bark.
"Hey," Malik called out, his voice sharp with urgency.
Detective Carter walked over, his brows furrowed, and crouched beside him. Without a word, he reached out and placed his hand on the symbol.
The moment his skin made contact with the tree, something shifted.
His vision blurred, then went completely black. A rush of sensations overtook him—sounds, scents, images that didn't belong to him. He was somewhere else. Somewhere ancient. In front of him was a little girl cloaked in a tattered garb, her back turned as she walked deeper into the woods. There was something haunting about her presence—something heavy, almost sacred, in the air around her. He felt the urge to follow, to understand—but just as he moved—
"Hey!" Malik's voice cut through the haze like a blade.
Carter gasped and staggered back, his hand dropping from the tree. He blinked, disoriented, the familiar forest around him slowly coming back into focus.
Malik studied him, concern etched on his face. "You alright?"
---------------------------------------------
The familiar sounds of the arena flooded Melisa's ears. Though she was only a spectator for now, the next round would be hers. She didn't quite know how to feel. She had trained relentlessly, pushed herself to the limit—but deep down, she still wasn't convinced she was ready.
Yet she also understood something crucial: if she was ever going to save her mother, she needed to grow—fast. And that growth would only come through real battles, the kind where life and death danced on a knife's edge.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to stay calm, steadying the nervous energy bubbling inside her. Then, slowly, she shifted her focus to the pit.
As usual, the commentator's voice roared through the speakers, stirring excitement across the crowd as he introduced the next challenger—Zeck.
Melisa's body tensed.
Zeck.
She turned slowly, locking eyes with the man stepping into the pit. His face was cold, unreadable. The commentator's voice rang out again, louder now, as if feeding the bloodlust of the crowd. Zeck, it was announced, was the younger brother of Killmonger. He had issued a life-and-death challenge to avenge his brother's loss—despite the fact that Killmonger died in a fair fight.
Melisa's stomach turned.
So, the old ways hadn't really died.
She glanced up at the scarred man—the one who ran the arena. He stood at his usual post near the commentator's platform, his half-burned face unreadable, arms folded behind his back like a war general watching pawns march into slaughter. There was no emotion in his eyes. No flicker of concern that a young man barely past her last growth spurt was being thrown against a killer whose record was as bloodstained as it was undocumented.
The commentator added that Zeck's kill rate was unverifiable—his history cloaked in violence and gaps. No one knew how many he had slaughtered before stepping into sanctioned fights. But one thing was clear: he was no amateur.
Melisa's pulse quickened. She had believed the arena carried some sense of honor, a place where warriors fought with rules—even if the stakes were life and death. But this? This was vengeance in disguise.