The steel sang beneath my feet as I moved—controlled, deliberate. Each strike echoed in the cage like questions I hadn't answered yet.
I couldn't sleep anymore. I had questions no one could answer.
I wasn't training to get stronger.
I was trying to understand myself.
Every movement was a search for meaning. Every strike, a confession.
If violence made me feel real… what did that say about me?
Was I broken?
Or was I finally becoming who I was meant to be?
My jacket hung from the cage wall like a ghost. Tattoos burned faintly under the sweat, pulsing in rhythm with my heart. I was breath and bone and ink and memory—and none of it made sense.
I was drawn to it like a moth, but I had no idea why I accepted the jacket. Why I became a member.
I just knew I loved it.
While I was hitting and thinking to myself, that's when I heard something.
Soft footfalls. Confident. Lazy on the surface, but underneath—tight. Precise.
The door hissed open.
Someone stepped in with the same careless gait I'd come to expect. His eyes were mismatched—one a cold, stormy blue, the other a molten gold that almost glowed. Together, they looked like two halves of a war nobody survived.
He sized me up without blinking.
I took a step forward.
He didn't.
That's when I noticed the tattoos—blades, dozens of them, carved into his skin like a record of kills. They didn't look like art. They looked like scars with intent.
"You're the kid," he said eventually, voice rough and low. "The one Cleon thinks is the next chapter member."
"You got something to say?" I asked.
He pushed off the wall, slow and calm.
"Plenty. But you won't hear any of it until you earn the right not to die in a hallway."
Then—without warning—he was in front of me.
Too close.
"Ever thought about what you should be training?" he asked. His voice was quiet, almost casual. "Maybe you're just trying to hit something that isn't there. You should probably be training your mind."
I didn't answer.
He stepped closer, pulling a small glass vial from his belt. The liquid inside shimmered with iridescent swirls.
"I used to sell this," he said, voice low. "Street-level mind openers. Not that dull neural garbage the corps pump into desperate kids. This stuff made people see themselves. Really see. Broke them down. Put them back together. If they were lucky."
He flipped the vial in the air, and I caught it.
Then, before I could blink, I felt it.
A blade. Ice-cold and real. Pressed just under my jaw.
No sound. No warning. Just steel and skin.
Jack's blade inches from me, calm as a shadow.
"Dead," he said flatly. "If I was someone else. Or if I cared less."
He held it there for one more breath, then slipped it back into his sleeve. The movement was so smooth I wasn't sure it ever happened.
"You're quick," I said quietly.
"No," Jack replied, stepping back. "You're slow."
He studied me for a long second, both eyes glinting—one storm, the other fire.
"Most people just chase a high. But under the right conditions… a few saw the truth."
He tapped the vial in my hand with a finger, the glass clicking faintly.
"That's why I sold it. People wanted to escape. I wanted them to see themselves. Sold to suits, to kids, to the desperate. Pushed weight through veins and minds alike. Thought I was a doctor with the cure —until I saw my own truth."
He looked away, distant for a breath, like a ghost remembering how it died.
"Now I sell remedies and herbs—stuff Lokasenna makes. I left the real poison behind when I realized the streets don't care about remedies. They just want to get high."
He started circling the cage, slow and silent. His steps barely touched the floor.
"So Cleon thinks you're ready for the real thing," he muttered. "The jacket. The scythe. The weight."
He leaned against the cage wall again, arms crossed.
"You want to figure yourself out? Good. But don't forget—while you're down here searching for your soul, the rest of the world is burning."
Before I could speak, the door slid open again.
Skull Kid entered like a whisper in steel—chrome-black helmet with neon coral coloring. Flickering data-skull. She glanced between us. Said nothing.
"Briefing in ten," she said.
Jack pushed off the wall, already halfway to the door.
"I'll bring the blades," he muttered. "You bring your identity crisis."
Then he was gone, leaving only the glimmer of mismatched eyes and the aftertaste of truth.