Where Rats Get Hunted

  It was morning, but the sun didn’t reach here.

  The group was escorted through a narrow chain of tunnels just outside the main encampment, veering from rusted stairwells to stone corridors lined with old mining gear. Ancient mining operations had once hollowed this part of the region into a multi-layered labyrinth. Now, it had been restructured—part arena, part prison

  The new battleground.

  The ceiling hung low at first, then opened into a massive cratered basin of stone and scaffolding, jagged iron walkways hanging like spiderwebs over the arena floor. Pipes hissed with steam. Broken rails led nowhere. Cranes and old elevators sat rusted in place, but still hummed faintly, repurposed as obstacles, maybe weapons.

  Above, Workers and Hunters crowded into shaky metal platforms lining the upper ring of the area, their faces dim beneath flickering lights. The structure echoed with hushed voices, whispers traveling in coils.

  Dozai was the first to speak. His voice was a low blade in the quiet.

  “Remember. She doesn’t want a team. She wants the strongest pieces.” He made himself look at each of them, Rei’s white-knuckled grip, Nobu’s flat stare, Roi’s meticulous fidgeting, Kenny’s forced grin. “If one of us breaks out here… she’ll cut them. Keep the rest.”

  He let the words hang.

  “But we didn’t train to survive alone.” His said calmly.

  Nobu didn’t look away from the gate. “Even if we have to drag someone out by their teeth.”

  “No one’s getting dragged.” Kenny rolled his shoulders, the motion cracking the tension in his neck. “We’re all walking.”

  Roi finished securing the nail-trap to her forearm with a definitive click. She tested the mechanism once, her eyes sharp. “We only die if we lose.” She said half joking, mostly fact.

  Dozai saw the two weeks in flashes: Rei’s slips, Nobu’s silence, Kenny’s laughter dying, Roi’s curses, the taste of his own blood.

  He breathed in the rust and their shared fear. He breathed out a commander’s calm.

  “Then we don’t lose.”

  A single hand rose from the highest observation deck.

  Hellick’s.

  The arena’s murmur died instantly like a flame pinched into nothing.

  “Let’s be perfectly clear,” her voice rang out, clean and surgical. “You have had your time in the dark. Now, we see what you’ve become in the light.”

  She savored the silence she’d created, letting their futures dangle over it.

  “If the workers win, they’ll be promoted to Hunters. And maybe receive a special reward... Let's call it a glimpse behind the curtain. Perhaps even a look at what lies beyond these sealed gates.” She smiled thinly.

  She pivoted, her gaze a physical weight descending upon the five small figures below.

  “And If the Hunters win..." Her smile sharpened. "Well…”

  She let the silence finish the sentence.

  “Excited?” Hellick’s tone was a mockery of camaraderie. “No more numbers. No more shackles. Just blood. Your names. Your purpose.”

  She leaned forward, her eyes—predatory, discerning—scraped over each of them in final inventory. “You will have earned your freedom.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Kenny’s gulp was audible. Nobu’s ear gave a single, telling twitch. Rei’s lips moved in a soundless plea. Roi’s thumb traced a groove on her belt, over and over. Dozai exhaled slowly, emptying his lungs of everything but purpose.

  “Let’s not waste another moment.”

  Clap.

  The sound echoed off the walls like a bullet. A shadow dropped from the scaffolding overhead.

  Graceful and sudden.

  Delnora.

  She landed in a crouch, one hand brushing the cracked earth, then rose fluid and unhurried.

  A single, pristine white ribbon was tied around her ankle. Her eyes were wide, pale, and disturbingly dreamy.

  For a long moment, she didn’t speak. She only smiled, her head tilting slowly to one side as if listening to a haunting, private melody.

  “I’ve selected a Hunter,” she announced, her voice a soft, carrying singsong. “Someone with just the right… temperament.”

  She turned, a lazy pivot, toward the far gate. It creaked open, and a girl shuffled forward. Lean, short, drowning in a patchwork uniform, her arms wrapped in tight, stained bandages. Her hair was hacked short and uneven across a furrowed brow. Her eyes—darting, nervous, yet grimly determined—flicked up to the crowd before fixing on the ground.

  “Galvara Chohara,” Delnora crooned. “My little dumpling.”

  Galvara flinched slightly, sweat starting to drip from her forehead. Delnora slid beside her and placed a pale hand on her shoulder. Her fingers flexed, possessive.

  “Don’t disappoint me,” Delnora whispered, her lips almost brushing the girl’s ear. “Dumpling.”

  Then, without warning, she licked the sweat from the girl’s cheek.

  A collective flinch rippled through the worker section of the crowd. Some muttered revulsion. Perdita faces twisting in disgust.

  On the opposite platforms, the Hunters and guards watched, unmoved. Brayden wore faint, bored smirks.

  Galvara didn’t flinch. “I’ll do this for you, Delnora.” She murmured, her voice hollow.

  In one practiced motion, she drew a small knife and drew its tip across her own palm. She held the bleeding hand out, fist clenched.

  The air around her shimmered, warping with a sudden, blistering heat that rolled across the arena in a visible wave.

  With a sharp flick of her wrist, a spiral of molten wire erupted from the earth at her feet. It snaked upward, glowing a vicious red-orange as it wrapped around her forearm, solidifying into a searing, writhing gauntlet. It hissed against her skin and the stench was of burned iron.

  Blood activation girl. Damn. We'll have to take advantage of the 60 seconds after...

  The crowd stirred, voices breaking into low murmurs. Some in awe. Some afraid.

  Delnora, already halfway back to the shadows. She simply hummed a few bars of her private tune, gave a little wave of her fingers, and melted into the darkness, leaving her "dumpling" alone in the circle of heat.

  Roi cracked her neck, a sharp pop swallowed by the arena’s hiss. Her fingers twitched at her hips.

  Rei exhaled a long, controlled breath through her nose. Doing her best to replay everything she'd learn.

  Kenny rolled his shoulders, the muscles in his arms coiling. He bounced once on the balls of his feet, glancing in the direction of his sister in the crowd.

  Nobu didn’t blink. His gaze locked on Galvara’s form, dissecting everything, like her stance and the heat around her gauntlets.

  Dozai was still.

  Utterly, unnervingly still. Eyes low-lidded. Breath slow and measured.

  But beneath the calm, his hand twitched.

  He flexed his fingers—once, twice—then stopped. His palms felt like they were burning. Like he'd just grabbed something white-hot and couldn't unfeel it. The skin of his palm prickled, imagined blisters rising where none existed.

  He shook his hand once.

  Sharp and dismissive, winced, then pressed his palm flat against his thigh to kill the sensation.

  It didn't work.

  The burn lingered.

  Fucking phantom pain.

  He forced the pain down and the world stretched in response.

  The arena’s roar dimmed to a dull wash. He saw not just its glow, but the microscopic shivers of the way it pulsed in time with Galvara’s quickening heartbeat, like a living muscle seeking blood.

  This was his reality. Minutes of thought in a nanosecond when danger is near.

  Above them, a flicker of movement caught his eye.

  Rizaru.

  She leaned against the guardrail in the Hunter’s section, crossed arms and coiled tension. Her chin was tilted down, her crimson gaze slicing through the charged air, finding his.

  She didn’t shout or wave. Just a single, slow, deliberate thumbs-up. Held for one heartbeat.

  Then her hand retreated, folding back against her chest, vanishing into her usual defiance.

  But he’d seen it.

  The almost imperceptible tremor in her fingers before they fisted. For one fractured moment, the strategist’s wall crumbled. Something raw and young flickered across his face, a silent acknowledgement of all the events that led to this moment.

  Then, like iron, his expression set. The softness vanished, replaced by a resolve so cold it burned.

  That single, trembling gesture had severed the last thread of doubt. It had silenced the crowd, the pain, the echoing fear, leaving a screaming commandment in the core of his chest:

  Survive.

  The steam pipe gave a final, shrieking vent. The arena held its breath.

  This was it.

  Hunt or be hunted.