The lights of Prison 42 did not turn off; they simply changed color.
At 22:00 hours, the harsh, flickering blue strip-lights that illuminated the "Pit" died with a hum of powering-down generators. In their place, the emergency runners kicked in—a deep, blood-red glow that bathed the iron catwalks and cell blocks in the color of a fresh wound.
"Lockdown!" the automated voice boomed from the ceiling speakers. "All Assets to assigned containment units immediately. Loitering will be met with lethal force."
Amani stood near the entrance of Cell Block D, his hands pressed against the cold metal railing of the walkway. Below him, the chaotic ocean of five thousand prisoners was receding, draining into the honeycomb of cells that lined the cavern walls.
"We have to split up," Chacha whispered, his voice heavy with worry. He was clutching a stolen thermal blanket around his massive shoulders like a cape. "They assigned me to Block B. That's the heavy labor wing."
"I'm in Block C," Sia said, her voice trembling slightly. She looked small in the grey jumpsuit, her eyes darting toward the shadows where the guards stood watching. "With the women and the infirm."
"And you?" Bahati asked, adjusting his cracked glasses. "Where did they put you, Amani?"
Amani looked at his wrist. The laser-etched barcode was still raw, the skin around the numbers 774 swollen and angry. Below the number, the digital display on his Null-Cuffs flashed a location code.
SECTOR: SOLITARY.
UNIT: CELL 99.
"Solitary," Amani lied. He didn't want to worry them. He didn't tell them that the code was blinking red, or that the guards nearby were looking at him with a mix of pity and sadistic anticipation. "I'll be alone. It's better that way. I can meditate. I can figure out how to crack these cuffs."
"Be careful, Chief," Chacha said, gripping Amani's shoulder. The big man's hand was shaking. The drugs they had injected him with during intake were still fighting his metabolism. "This place... it eats people."
"We are not people, Chacha," Amani said, forcing a smile he didn't feel. "We are the Pack. And the Pack survives."
He watched them walk away—Chacha supporting Bahati, Sia looking back one last time before disappearing into the crowd.
Amani stood alone on the catwalk. The cold of the mountain seeped through the soles of his boots. He felt naked without his gravity field. For years, he had walked with the subconscious assurance that the earth would bend to his will. Now, he was just flesh and bone, suspended over a dark abyss.
"Inmate 774," a voice rasped behind him.
Amani turned. Two Iron Guards stood there. They weren't the standard grunts; these wore helmets painted with a white skull insignia. The Death Watch.
"You are coming with us," the lead guard said. He didn't raise his rifle. He unclipped a heavy stun-baton from his belt. "The Warden has prepared a special suite for you."
The Walk to Hell
They didn't take him to the regular cells. They took him down.
They marched Amani to a freight elevator at the far end of the catwalk. The doors groaned open, revealing a shaft that smelled of sulfur and old, stagnant water. As the elevator descended, the temperature dropped rapidly. The red emergency lights faded, replaced by complete darkness, broken only by the tactical flashlights on the guards' helmets.
Amani counted the seconds. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
They were going deep. Past the mines. Past the foundation of the mountain.
"Where are we going?" Amani asked, his voice echoing in the shaft.
"To the Void," the guard replied.
The elevator stopped with a bone-jarring thud. The doors opened.
This wasn't a cell block. It was a dungeon carved directly into the black bedrock of the earth. The walls were wet with condensation. The floor was uneven stone. There were no other prisoners here—at least, none that were screaming. The silence was absolute, heavy enough to crush a man's chest.
At the end of a long, dripping corridor stood a single door made of reinforced blast-steel. It had no view-port. It had no food slot. It looked like the door to a bank vault, or a tomb.
The number 99 was spray-painted on the metal in white.
"Inside," the guard ordered, unlocking the heavy magnetic seals.
"Who is in there?" Amani asked, hesitating. He could smell something coming from the crack in the door. A smell that triggered every prey instinct left in his DNA. It smelled like copper and rot.
"Your roommate," the guard laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound. "Boris likes new friends. He gets so... lonely."
The guard shoved Amani.
Amani stumbled into the darkness. The heavy steel door slammed shut behind him. The magnetic locks engaged with a series of loud, mechanical thuds.
He was sealed in.
The Hollow Man
Amani stood perfectly still.
The cell was pitch black. There was no light source. He was blind.
"Hello?" Amani whispered.
His voice didn't echo. The room was small, likely padded or soundproofed.
He listened. At first, there was nothing. Then, he heard it.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
It was the sound of fingernails on stone. Rhythmic. Obsessive.
"I know you are in here," Amani said, trying to project strength. He adopted a defensive stance, his back to the door. "My name is Amani. I have no quarrel with you."
A low, wet giggle drifted out of the darkness. It came from the floor, somewhere in the corner to his left.
"Amani..." the voice hissed. It sounded like gargling gravel. "Amani... Peace. That is what the name means in the tongue of the Savannah, yes? Peace."
Amani stiffened. "How do you know my language?"
"I know... many things," the voice rasped. "I know the taste of fear. I know the song of the Void. And I know... you smell like the sun."
The scritching stopped.
"I haven't tasted the sun in so long," the voice whispered.
Amani felt a shift in the air pressure. Something was moving. Fast.
He ducked.
WHOOSH.
Something heavy and sharp slashed through the air where his head had been. Amani scrambled to the side, rolling across the damp stone floor.
"Show yourself!" Amani roared.
As if obeying his command, a dim light flickered on. It was a single, weak bulb in the center of the ceiling, caged in iron mesh.
Amani looked up, and his blood froze.
The thing crouched in the corner was vaguely human, but only in the way a nightmare resembles a memory. He was massive—easily seven feet tall—but skeletal. His skin was translucent and grey, stretched so tight over his bones that Amani could see the pulsing of black veins beneath. His limbs were elongated, his fingers ending in jagged, overgrown nails that looked like obsidian claws.
But it was the face that stopped Amani's heart.
The man had no lips. They had been chewed away. His teeth had been filed into needle-sharp points. His eyes were milky white, blind, yet they tracked Amani with terrifying precision.
This was Inmate 99. Boris the Hollow.
"The Warden sends me a treat," Boris drooled, black saliva dripping onto his chest. He was naked, save for a pair of tattered rags around his waist. "A little lion. Full of life. Full of... magic."
Boris sniffed the air. "Gravity... mmm. Crunchy."
"Stay back," Amani warned, raising his fists. The Null-Cuffs hummed on his wrists, dead weight. "I don't want to hurt you."
Boris laughed. He uncoiled from his crouch, standing up to his full, terrifying height. He scraped the ceiling.
"Hurt me?" Boris wheezed. "Boy... I am already dead. I am the Void's leftovers."
He lunged.
The Cage Fight
Boris was fast. Unnaturally fast.
He crossed the small cell in a blur of grey limbs. Amani tried to side-step, but the space was too confined. Boris slammed into him with the force of a truck.
Amani hit the wall hard. The impact knocked the wind out of him. Before he could recover, Boris's hand—huge and cold as ice—wrapped around Amani's throat.
The grip was iron. Amani gagged, clawing at the hand. He kicked Boris in the stomach, but it was like kicking a bag of wet cement.
"Soft," Boris whispered, lifting Amani off the ground. He brought his face close. The smell of rotten meat was overpowering. "Your skin... it's so warm."
Boris opened his mouth, revealing the rows of needle-teeth. He lunged for Amani's neck.
Lions eat their keepers.
Amani didn't panic. He stopped kicking. He focused.
He couldn't use gravity to push Boris away. The Null-Cuffs prevented external projection. But the magic was still in his blood. It was still his.
Internalize it, Darius had once said during a training session. If you cannot move the world, make yourself the world.
Amani focused all his will on his own neck muscles. He imagined them becoming dense as lead, heavy as a neutron star.
CRUNCH.
Boris bit down. But instead of tearing through flesh and artery, his teeth skidded off Amani's skin. It wasn't impenetrable, but it was hard. The teeth broke the skin, drawing blood, but they didn't sever the jugular.
Boris recoiled, his blind eyes widening. "Hard meat!"
Amani seized the moment. He brought his knee up, driving it into Boris's groin.
The giant howled and dropped him.
Amani hit the floor and rolled. He grabbed the only weapon available—the heavy chain connecting his wrists.
"You want to eat?" Amani roared, his fear turning into cold, white-hot rage.
He jumped.
He didn't jump away. He jumped at the monster.
Amani wrapped the chain around Boris's neck. He landed on the giant's back, locking his legs around Boris's waist.
"Eat this!"
Amani pulled. The Null-Cuffs dug into Boris's throat.
Boris thrashed. He slammed himself backward into the stone wall, trying to crush Amani.
SLAM.
Pain exploded in Amani's spine. His vision blurred. But he didn't let go. He pulled harder.
SLAM.
"Get... off!" Boris gargled, clawing at the chain. His obsidian claws tore at Amani's arms, shredding the grey jumpsuit and the skin beneath.
"No," Amani gritted out, blood dripping from his nose. "I am the King... of the Pit!"
Amani found the rhythm. Every time Boris inhaled to scream, Amani tightened the chain. It was a war of attrition. Oxygen vs. Rage.
Boris dropped to one knee. Then both.
The giant flailed, his strength fading. The black veins under his skin pulsed violently, as if the blood was trying to escape.
Finally, with a wet, gurgling wheeze, Boris collapsed forward onto his face.
Amani rolled off him, gasping for air. He scrambled to the corner of the cell, putting distance between himself and the monster.
He waited.
Boris didn't move.
Amani checked his own body. He was bleeding from a dozen cuts. His ribs were definitely broken. His neck throbbed where the teeth had grazed him. But he was alive.
"Is that it?" Amani whispered to the camera in the corner of the ceiling. "Is that all you got, Warden?"
The Secret of the Blue Veins
"You..."
The voice was faint. Amani looked at the body. Boris wasn't dead. He was just broken.
The giant turned his head. The milky white eyes were looking at Amani, but the madness seemed to have receded, replaced by a terrible clarity.
"You... choked the Void," Boris whispered.
Amani crawled closer, wary. "What did you say?"
Boris coughed, black blood splattering on the stone. "The Warden... he feeds us the stones. The blue stones from the mine. He says it makes us strong. He says it makes us... Soldiers of the New Dawn."
Boris reached out a trembling hand. "But the stones... they are alive. They whisper."
Amani froze. "What do they whisper, Boris?"
"They whisper... that they are hungry," Boris said, tears leaking from his blind eyes. "The Giza... they are digging too deep. Beneath the ice... beneath the prison... there is a door."
Amani leaned in. This was intel. This was the secret Darius hadn't told him.
"What is behind the door?" Amani asked.
Boris smiled, revealing his shattered teeth.
"God," Boris whispered. "A sleeping God made of cold fire. The Warden wants to wake it up. He wants to put it in the engine."
Boris grabbed Amani's wrist. His grip was weak now.
"Don't let them take you to the Deep Levels, Lion Man. If you touch the Blue Vein... you never come back. You become... hollow. Like me."
Boris's hand fell. His chest stopped moving. He passed out, his breathing shallow and ragged.
Amani sat back against the cold wall.
A sleeping God. Blue Veins. The Void.
This wasn't just a labor camp. It was an excavation site. The Warden wasn't just punishing rebels; he was mining for a weapon of mass destruction.
Amani looked at the unconscious monster. He ripped a piece of cloth from his jumpsuit and began to bandage his wounds.
He had survived the night. He had survived the Cannibal. But now he knew the true stakes.
The Morning Call
Hours later, the heavy bolts of the door retracted with a deafening CLANG.
The door swung open.
Three guards stood there, rifles raised, expecting to find a corpse. Behind them stood The Warden.
The Warden peered into the gloom. He saw Boris unconscious on the floor, wrapped in his own rags. He saw the blood on the walls.
And then he saw Amani.
Inmate 774 was sitting on the single metal stool in the center of the room. He was battered, bruised, and covered in blood that wasn't entirely his own. But he was sitting upright. His violet eyes met the Warden's red optic lens.
Amani didn't stand. He didn't salute.
"Your pet is sleeping," Amani said, his voice raspy. "He talks in his sleep. You should train him better."
The Warden stared at Amani for a long moment. The mechanical aperture of his eye clicked, zooming in on the bite mark on Amani's neck.
Slowly, a smile spread across the Warden's scarred face. It wasn't a smile of anger. It was a smile of delight.
"Remarkable," the Warden murmured. "Zero gravity projection, yet you subdued a Class-5 Mutant."
The Warden turned to the guards.
"Take him to the Infirmary. Patch him up. And then send him to Sector B."
"Sector B, sir?" the guard asked. "The Mines?"
"Yes," the Warden said, turning to walk away. "He has proven he can handle the dark. Let's see if he can handle the pickaxe."
As the guards dragged Amani out of the cell, Amani looked back at Boris one last time.
I will break this place, Amani vowed silently. I will break the mines. I will break the door. And I will make you choke on your own Void, Warden.
As they entered the elevator, Amani felt a strange sensation. The Null-Cuffs on his wrist buzzed.
It wasn't a suppression spike. It was a signal. A tiny, rhythmic pulse.
Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
It was a code.
I AM HERE.
Amani's heart skipped a beat. It wasn't Darius. Darius wouldn't use Morse code.
This was someone else. Someone inside the prison system. Someone who had just hacked his cuffs.
Amani smiled into the darkness of the elevator shaft.
The Pack was growing.