The clang of chains echoed down the narrow, dimly lit corridor as a young boy was dragged through the stone halls, his frail form barely able to support the weight of his shackles.
The guards, brutish and silent, prodded him forward with unfeeling hands. His hollow eyes stared straight ahead, not flinching from the jeers or the harsh stares of the other gladiators.
From behind his cell bars, Aelric watched. This name no longer held the meaning it once had.
Once, he had been a man of faith, a scholar in the quiet cloisters of a distant monastery.
Now, he was nothing more than another broken piece of the colosseum's vast, grinding machinery.
Beside him stood Valkira, her arms folded across her chest, her face unreadable but her eyes burning with a quiet fury.
The sigil branded on her skin—a red dragon coiling around a tall tree—etched a tale of its own across her arm, the scales of the dragon shimmering faintly beneath the fabric of her sleeve.
As the guards ushered the boy down the hall, dragging his scrawny body like a ragdoll, Aelric's gaze moved over the other gladiators. Some of them were busy sharpening their blades or tending to wounds, but most of them turned to watch the newcomer with a mix of disgust and mockery.
Aelric had heard the rumors of his first fight—the one against the small girl, no older than eight, trembling in her innocence.
"Did you hear what he did? This guy just triumphed over a kid! We gotta cheer him up!" one gladiator whispered with a sneer. "That boy... He ate her. Took a bite right out of her after he killed her."
Another gladiator, his face twisted in disdain, chuckled darkly. "Desperate for flesh, human flesh, I suppose. A real piece of work. I guess we should call this beast of a man a child eater from now on!"
Aelric didn't need to hear more. He could see it in their faces—they mocked the boy, as if what he had done was just another disgusting spectacle to be laughed at.
If the guards hadn't been there, Aelric knew, some of the more volatile gladiators would have attacked him right then and there.
He saw it in their eyes. They weren't just angry—they were disgusted. They saw him as less than human, a beast who had fallen as low as one could go.
"I don't know what's worse," Valkira muttered under her breath. "What he did... or the fact that he's still alive."
Aelric looked over at her, sensing the tension radiating from her.
Her hands were clenched tightly by her sides, her jaw set in a firm line. Valkira was never one to show weakness, but something had cracked in her—he could feel it. Her voice, usually calm and collected, now held an edge to it that hadn't been there before.
"He ate her, Aelric," Valkira hissed, her eyes burning as she stared him. "A child. How can anyone—how can he—do something like that?"
Aelric's gaze moved to the man's frail figure as the guards roughly pushed him into his solitary cell.
The boy's face was gaunt, his ribs clearly visible beneath his skin. His eyes flickered, but there was no emotion behind them. Just emptiness.
Aelric watched him for a long moment, his brow furrowed as the others in the hall continued their murmurs. Some mocked him. Others openly loathed him. But none of them saw what Aelric saw.
"Do you think he chose to do that?" Aelric asked quietly, his voice soft, though it carried weight. "You think he wanted to?"
Valkira's fist tightened even more, her nails biting into her palms. "He could've fought differently. He could've—"
"Survived differently?" Aelric interrupted gently. "There's no room for anything else here. Only survival. Two warriors enter the field but only one exits. That's the rule here."
She whirled on him, her face flushed with anger. "A mere child is not a warrior! And it doesn't excuse him. It doesn't excuse what he did to that girl."
The monk sighed, his eyes never leaving the boy's cell. "But does it excuse what's been done to him? They starved him. They isolated him. They made him a tool of death..."
"Starved him?" Valkira scoffed, shaking her head. "Do you mean to say he didn't have a choice but to kill her and feast on her remains? You expect me to believe that?"
Aelric sighed. "I'm not justifying his actions, Valkira. No. What I'm saying is... this place breaks people. It's not just the bodies they tear apart. It's the souls. They break you down until all that's left is the need to survive, and nothing more. That boy is not just a fighter. He's part of the system, and the system is made to strip away everything you are. Your will, your dignity, your very humanity. And when it's done, you're left with whatever's left inside you... whatever you're willing to sell."
Valkira's breath came fast as she clenched her fists tighter, her knuckles white. "He didn't just kill her—he desecrated her corpse. Like she was nothing more than food."
"Food..." Aelric repeated, his tone distant as his mind turned inward. "Maybe it's what he's been reduced to. Maybe it's the only thing that mattered to him in that moment—the need to survive. We all have something we cling to, Valkira. Something to keep us alive. It might not be pretty, it might not make sense to anyone else, but it's what keeps us going."
Aelric paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. Valkira's eyes were cold, distant, but Aelric could see the conflict beneath them. His own past—the monastery, the teachings, the vows—had not prepared him for what he saw here, in this dark, suffocating place. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't help but feel sympathy for the boy who had eaten a child to survive.
"Take a look at him," Aelric said quietly, his voice almost a whisper. "The boy's not a monster, Valkira. He's a victim. And if he was willing to go to such lengths... to eat that child, even at the cost of his humanity... then there must be something left inside him. Something to live for."
Valkira's eyes narrowed, her face twisted with fury, and for a long moment, she said nothing. The anger that burned in her was palpable, so raw, it nearly crackled in the air between them. But the truth, unspoken yet undeniable, lingered in her gaze.
"Some men don't deserve to live," Valkira muttered, the words barely escaping her lips, but there was something in the tone—something that wasn't entirely conviction.
"Everyone deserves to live," Aelric replied.
"And so did the innocent girl he slaughtered and feasted upon."
Aelric took a long breath, his mind wandering back to the empty halls of the monastery, the quiet prayers he used to whisper into the wind. Was there a way to save the boy? Or was he beyond saving?
"I wonder what's left of him," Aelric mused, his voice barely above a murmur. "What is left to cling to in this place when everything else has been stripped away? Even monsters have something—something that makes them act the way they do. He might be lost, but I can't believe he's completely beyond redemption."
Valkira's eyes hardened, but she said nothing more, turning her gaze to the floor, her anger churning into something darker.
Aelric couldn't help but feel the weight of her silence. He knew she had reasons for her rage. But something else lingered beneath the surface, something far more personal. Aelric had learned long ago that this place had a way of twisting people. And Valkira had been twisted by something far greater than the arena.
The air between them thickened, heavy with unspoken truths. The gladiators around them were still talking—some laughing, some sneering, but others were now oddly quiet, as if they could sense the tension in the room.