The stench hit first. Sour, acidic, dirty-sock rot that clawed its way up Ajax Valerius's nostrils and choked his throat before he even opened his eyes. He coughed, rolled onto his side, and felt the gritty bite of concrete against his cheek. Cold. Damp. Rough.
He blinked into the half-dark. A ceiling fan rotated above, its blades groaning lazily like they hadn't been oiled in a decade. The air was suffocating, warm, and coated in the heavy perfume of sweat and piss. One thin bed sat shoved into the far corner, its springs jutting out like exposed ribs.
Ajax sat up too fast, his vision swirling and the room tilting sideways. He grabbed the edge of the bed to steady himself. His breath puffed out ragged, quick. Where was he?
Bits and flashes drifted through his pounding skull. His name—Ajax Valerius. His age—20. His birthday—January 18. Born of Greek blood.
But the rest? Snippets. A final year at Harvard. His degree—financial analysis. A full scholarship. Smart kid, big future. A life earned through late nights of coffee, textbooks, and guts. He had fallen asleep… right? Something about HBO. The new Peacemaker season. Laughter. The glow of his laptop in the dorm.
And then…
The thought slipped. The memory smudged itself into silence, leaving him glaring at the dark corners of the cell.
With a groan, he pushed to his feet. His body responded easily, too easily. Taller than before. Stronger too. He glanced down at his arms—roped with lean muscle. Not the slight frame of a scholar who lived hunched over spreadsheets. He froze. Six foot three. He shouldn't have known that offhand, but he did.
Pieces of himself that weren't really his.
The scrape of boots cut across the stillness. Shouting followed. Metal sliding open somewhere beyond his four walls. He turned to the tiny barred window inset in the steel door. It gave him a view of the hallway outside. Cells on both sides. Prisoners—men and women, some covered head to toe in tattoos, others bald, scarred, beaten-looking—were being marched out one by one by guards in black armor.
Prisoners so familiar Ajax nearly choked. A pale woman with tattoos crawling up her neck like worms. A bulky man whose fists crackled with faint sparks, suppressed but eager to ignite.
His stomach dropped. He'd read about this place. Hell he'd seen it in Suicide Squad , a place well known in the darker corners of DC fan forums.
Belle Reve..
The prison that ate monsters and spat out broken men.
"I'm dreaming," Ajax muttered under his breath. He pressed his palm hard against the wall, convinced he'd feel it melt or shred away with the force of realization. But the wall remained, stubbornly solid. And his palm… tougher, steadier than it should have been.
Then, like a snapping wire, something tugged across his chest. Some instinct—laced into his bones—whispered power. It wasn't his own. It was hunger. Instinct.
A need....
He staggered back. The ache in his chest surged when he looked at the crackling man walking past with the guards. A strange truth landed gently in his head, as natural and cruel as waking from a perfect dream.
He could copy them. Copy their powers. But not fully. A fragment. A shard. Yet a shard sharpened to deadly perfection.
Ajax stumbled back onto the bed, gripping his skull, breathing hard. Fear burned through him. Yet beneath it, curling like a serpent, was something else.
Excitement...
The guard outside his door stopped. Banged his baton on the steel, making Ajax jump.
"Food. Get moving, fresh meat," the guard barked, unlocking the door with a heavy clank of metal.
Ajax stood, head buzzing, body resonating with that strange new instinct. He stepped out into a hallway littered with walking nightmares. Supervillains. Metas. Monsters.
And the realization crashed down into him like a tidal wave:
He wasn't dreaming.
He was in their world now.
And if he wanted to live, he'd have to play it better than all of them.
To master survival, he'd have to steal it.
Ajax stepped into line, the invisible current of his strange ability humming in his chest like a heartbeat.
Somewhere down the line, someone's eyes snapped to him. Cold. Predatory. The hair on Ajax's arms rose.
He'd been noticed already.