The old man walked onto the stadium floor with his body and mind intact, but he left with nothing but emptiness in his eyes.
He had survived the round, yet the cost was visible in the hollow slump of his shoulders. Behind him, the cycle of the pit continued without mercy. Goblins, small and green and wretched, charged at the fresh corpse left in the dirt.
They were a frantic blur of teeth and claws, ripping the hair off the girl's body like a child peeling a lollipop. One, larger than the rest, tore through her stomach with a wet, sickening snap, reaching deep until it pulled out her heart. It swallowed the organ whole, grinning as if it were the finest dessert.
Silence fell over the human side of the cages. It was a heavy, suffocating blanket of dread.
As the old man walked past his fellow captives, no one screamed. No one offered a hand. No one criticized his cowardice or his cruelty. There was nothing but the sound of his footsteps.
Every eye was locked onto him, watching the man who walked out with his heart and return with nothing at all.everything was silent until a harsh, guttural voice broke the air.
"You two. Now."
Slaughter. As Keirum watched the next hour , he realized the world had narrowed down to that one word. It was nothing but slaughter. Men, women, and children were being systematically butchered by their own kind. People who might have shared a bond, a home, or a family only hours ago were now tearing into each other with bare hands.
Kids fought other kids with whatever they could find—claws, sharpened stones, jagged sticks, and the splintered bones of those who fell before them.
They scrambled in the dirt for anything they could get their hands on, desperate to take the soul of their opponent before their own was extinguished.
No one could look away. The horror acted like a magnet, pulling their gazes into the center of the ring. They were trapped in a cage like a Kodoku—the ancient jar where venomous insects are forced to kill one another until only the most poisonous remains.
They were being distilled. They were being turned into monsters.
In the middle of a new round, a man standing six feet tall, possessing long black hair and piercing blue eyes, stood across from a boy covered in filth. The man looked capable, strong, and fast. Everyone watching already knew the victor before a single move was made. The man didn't look cruel; he looked merciful. He ran at the kid, his muscles tensing, clearly wanting to end the fight quickly so the child wouldn't have to suffer.
The boy froze in fear. He looked to be about thirteen—just a single year older than Keirum himself. He looked like a rabbit staring at a wolf. But as the man closed the distance, a thick, gray mist suddenly erupted from the boy's pores.
"Huh? What is this?" the man muttered. He slowed down, confused, as he inhaled the swirling smoke.
The effect was instantaneous. His blue eyes filled with hot, streaming tears. Thump. His massive body hit the floor in a heartbeat. The mercy he had intended to show was gone, replaced by a violent, racking cough that grew louder and more frantic. He tried to gasp for air, but with every inhale, his face turned a deeper, more bruised shade of purple. Blood started to seep from his eyes and ears, leaking onto the dusty floor. His head began to swell, inflating like a gruesome balloon under extreme pressure.
Keirum watched in a trance of shock. What is this? he thought. Is it some form of tear gas? No... it's way more poignant. Way more lethal.
One minute passed. Two minutes. Five. The stadium watched in a paralyzed horror. The man had wanted to give the boy a quick death, but he was receiving no such kindness from the universe. Ten minutes of agonizing, gurgling struggle passed.
Pop.
A simple, wet "pop" signaled the end of his soul. A body lay there in the dirt, blood leaking from beneath his fingernails, his mouth, his groin, and his nose. For ten minutes, he had suffered, choking on his own blood, trying to reach for any scrap of oxygen, but the air he inhaled was his executioner. His brain had imploded with such internal pressure that his skull finally burst, painting the floor in a messy sprawl of gray and red. He had a body. He had a skull. But he had no brain. It was gone, scattered like waste.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
As the boy with the mist walked back toward the crowd, the humans parted like the sea. Everyone stayed as far from him as they could. Even Keirum felt the instinct to recoil.
He's scary. How could he do that? Keirum's mind raced, his thoughts tumbling over one another. But through the rambling panic, one singular thought struck him with the force of a lightning bolt: What if I could do that? If I had that power, couldn't I get revenge?
"Revenge," he whispered out loud. The word felt tasteless in his mouth, like dry ash, yet he repeated it. "Revenge. Revenge... revenge... revenge." He didn't chant it to a god. He didn't chant it to the gods. He chanted it to himself, a new mantra for a broken heart.
As the crowd remained transfixed by the boy with the mist, something deeper and darker was being born within Keirum. And then, the moment he had been dreading became his reality.
"You." A massive Orc pointed a thick, scarred finger at a girl in the crowd. She wasn't as beautiful as Keirum's mother, but to say they looked alike would be a terrifying understatement. She had the same tilt to her head, the same softness in her eyes. "And you."
Keirum's heart stilled. The Orc's finger was pointing directly at him.
No.(Thump)No.(Thump)
His feet moved before his mind could protest. He walked to the middle of the stadium, his vision blurring. On the opposite side, the woman did the same. He stared at her. He wasn't afraid that she was going to kill him; he was terrified because she looked like a ghost. They could have been sisters. They could have been the same person.
"Ju ju ah kek eju!"
The chants of the goblins became a roar, delighted to see a child on the stadium floor once more. Keirum felt his heart begin to match the rhythm of the woman's steps. She didn't look at him with mercy. She looked at him with the desperation of a cornered animal. She reached down to a pile of remains and ripped a jagged shard of bone out of a corpse. It was almost the size of Keirum's arm, and the broken end was so sharp it looked like it could pierce a heart with the slightest thrust.
Thump.
Every step she took closer, his heart beat faster. Mom, what are you doing with that? Are you going to kill me? Are you punishing me for not saving you? For running while you were eaten alive?
Thump. Thump.
As she got right in front of him, Keirum's eyes began to tremble. He knew, logically, that it wasn't his mother. But the sun hit her face at just the right angle, highlighting the pale skin beneath the grime, and the illusion was perfect. She gritted her teeth and charged at him.
She was desperate, but she was slow. Keirum, fueled by a sudden, jagged spike of adrenaline, lunged at her legs. He put his entire weight into the tackle. Thud.
She hit the floor hard, and the bone weapon skittered away. The hand that reached out to reclaim it wasn't hers. It was Keirum's. His small, dirty fingers wrapped around the slick bone.
"Mom, it's okay," he whispered, his voice cracking.
"Wait—wait, we can talk about this!" she begged, her eyes wide with the realization of her position.
"Mom, it's okay. I will save you this time."
"Stop... stop... STOP!" she screamed as he crawled toward her.
Silk.
That was the word in his head as the bone went through her hand like it was soft butter. She screamed so loud it actually quieted the goblins' laughter for a moment. The stadium became a vacuum, containing only her shrieks and the boy's frantic, delusional pleas.
"Mom, don't scream," he said. Rip. He stabbed the bone into her thigh.
"Stop! Please, stop!" she began to beg, tears carving tracks through the dirt on her face.
But the only thing she saw in return was teeth. Keirum had begun to smile—the wide, unnatural smile he had carved for himself.
"Mom, I'm saving you. Are you happy now?" He held the bone with both hands, using his entire body to drive the point home.
The ground, which had once been clear dirt, began to overflow with crimson. Stab. Stab. Stab. Once, twice, ten times. He lost count. As her blood gushed out from every fresh wound, Keirum began to laugh. It was a high, broken sound that echoed off the stone walls.
"Hahaha! Mom, I'm saving you! I promise, Mom, I will save you. You're happy, right? You are... you are happy!"
He was a blur of motion. "Mom, look, I'm smiling! Mom! Stab! Mom! Stab!"
She watched as he made his way up from her feet to her thighs, to her stomach, and finally to her neck. She couldn't scream anymore. She couldn't even gurgle. But he didn't stop.
"MOM! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT MY SMILE!"
He never stopped. Nothing was spared—not the body, not the spirit, and certainly not the face that reflected his own mother's. He kept stabbing until there was nothing left but a red ruin, and the only thing left in the stadium was the boy who finally learned how to save the things he loved.
Author's Note:
Keirum's melody is growing louder, isn't it?
We just hit a major milestone—10,000 words of madness. I want to thank the 88% of you who have stayed until the very end of every chapter. Seeing so many of you stick through the "Perfect Smile" and now this "Beautiful Melody" means the world to me.
If the dread is starting to sink in, do me a favor: Add this to your Collection and drop a Power Stone. It helps the algorithm find more souls to join us in the dark. I'm happy, I wanted to play God so I made my own world, I did all that with only 10k words
See you at 11:00 AM for the next descent.