Leo woke up to the lights in his room illuminating the room, making it as if it were glowing white. Leo groaned, squinting the shielding his eyes from the brightness. He slowly got up and looked around. He saw Anthony up and stretching in preparation for today’s test. He sat up and stared blankly for a bit before getting up and stretching alongside Anthony.

  They stretched in silence, tension crackling in the air. Outside, the dorms were silent. The boisterous living space now stayed silent as everyone dreaded for the warden’s arrival.

  After what felt like hours. The echo of boots clicking on the floor broke the silence, approaching the doorway.

  With each step, the room’s temperature seemingly dropped. Some even began shivering, their nerves giving out. Today, the only conclusion they had was to live or die.

  Looking across the dorms, Leo saw Patrick peeking out the metal door of his room. As per usual, he wasn’t too worried about the situation as he wore a more confident expression compared to the others.

  ‘If only I could have that confidence…No! I’ve got this!’

  Finally, the sound of the boots halted right in front of the door. The two guards stood at attention as the entrance creaked open, revealing Warden Cox in the same clothes as yesterday. He seemed much more tired than before, but that didn’t diminish his presence.

  Stepping in, the warden loudly announced.

  “Good morning, everybody! I hope you’ve all prepared yourselves! I’ll get straight to the point. We will be going one group at a time for each fight, this process is long, but necessary. Please step forward once your or your teammate’s name is called.”

  He took a clipboard from one of the guards hands.

  “The first group we’ll start with will be Jamie. Could Jamie please step forward?”

  After a bit of hesitation, a metal door slowly creaked open, with two blonde men, roughly in their early 20’s, dragging themselves out. Their faces showing absolute horror at being called first. The one named Jamie raised his hand. “H-Here…”

  Warden Cox lazily smiled. “Wonderful. You two please follow me. In the meantime, everybody else please wait for my return and we’ll keep doing this until everybody’s been tested.”

  With that said, he turned to leave, followed by Jamie and his teammate, dragging their feet forward, marching to their possible demise.

  Once the door shut, the room seemed to exhale as if they had been holding their breaths. The atmosphere lightened up, happy they weren’t the first group to have been chosen. But only by a little.

  Leo continued to stretch, preparing both his mind and his body for what was to come. He knew that they weren’t going to make it out of this unscathed like before. They would have to put in everything they had to even stand a chance. He could only pray that their opponent wasn’t a Smogborn.

  But Leo always prepared for the worst.

  Leo turned to Anthony. “Anthony, we should plan something while we can.”

  Anthony tilted his head. “What’s so hard? I frontline, you attack from the sides.”

  Leo sighed. “That’s only if we’re against a normal person. What if a Smogborn is our opponent? What’ll we do then?”

  Anthony shrugged. “Smogborn or not, nothing much will change.”

  ‘Ah! Anthony!’

  Leo, frustrated by his refusal to plan, began to formulate a plan himself.

  At this point, his information was limited. He didn’t even know if they would get weapons like before. If the prisoner was a normal person, a 2-on-1 wasn’t impossible. If anything, that was the best possible circumstance for the two. But that was wishful thinking. Leo wasn’t the most optimistic, and neither was Anthony.

  Knowing Anthony, he was probably thinking similarly as him.

  “Tyler, please step forward!”

  The sound of the warden’s voice surprised Leo. It hadn’t even been five minutes, how was he back already? To make matters worse, the first group was nowhere to be seen. A series of murmurs erupted amongst the dormitory.

  “He’s back…?”

  “Where’s Jamie and Tai?”

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  “Oh god…”

  The fact they hadn’t returned had probably reminded everybody of the fact that they were next, no matter what.

  At some point, the Warden had left with the second batch. But now, everybody was scared of what was to come. But Leo knew being scared was useless, he had to prepare as much as he could. But despite knowing this, his hands couldn’t help but shake.

  The later he and Anthony were, the better.

  Leo sat, thinking for the next ten minutes before the warden once again returned, but this time. The second batch had returned, albeit not unscathed. One had a broken leg, being supported by her teammate, Tyler. Tyler had sustained an injury on his head, but was relatively fine compared to his teammate.

  Limping forward, the two settled at a free table in the dorm. Taking a breather before heading to the Medbay.

  “Jasmine, you’re up.”

  Once again, the warden left, taking the third batch. The door quickly shut behind him.

  This time, Leo left his room and approached the two survivors.

  “Hey, um, you’re Tyler right?”

  Unable to turn his head, he glanced at Leo in the corner of his eye. “What’s up?”

  “I just want to know more about the match. Did you have weapons? What was your opponent like?”

  Tyler sighed. “Yeah, we got weapons. I had a spear while Kate here had a sword. But our opponent was so strong…It’s a miracle we even won that match.”

  Kate weakly spoke up. “The only reason we won was because our opponent was too focused on finishing me off…”

  ‘The numbers advantage does help indeed…’

  “Was he a Smogborn?”

  Tyler exhaled in relief. “Luckily he wasn’t. But don’t let that fool you, those bastards are strong. Stronger than the average person here. It’s safe to say the two on one scenario they’ve made is really an even fight. I heard earlier our opponent was a deserter from the Frontier.”

  Kate groaned in pain, clutching her leg. The adrenaline seemed to have worn off as the pain settled.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get her to the Medbay. Good luck.”

  Tyler supported Kate with his shoulder and exited to the Medbay.

  Ex-soldiers were amongst the prisoners. They’re experienced at that. Anthony can probably hold him off for roughly two or three minutes then. But even then, he’d have to base that on his opponent’s fighting style.

  Once again, the Warden walked in alone. The third batch was wiped out it seemed.

  “Anthony, please step forward.”

  ‘Wow…’

  Guided by fate, Leo had come out right on his turn. Anthony came out and stood beside him, waiting for further instructions.

  “Alright, c’mon you two.”

  “Good luck, Leo!”

  He could hear Patrick’s loud voice ring in his ear before the doors were shut.

  “Got a fan, huh? Nice.”

  The warden continued leading the path. The hallway was dark, illuminated only by weak lightbulbs with the sound of ventilation filling the corridor. They continued walking until at the end of the hall was a small room.

  Moving out of the way, the warden motioned his hand towards the elevator. “After you guys.”

  Anthony and Leo glanced at each other before entering the room, the warden entering after and clicking on buttons on the side of the door before the metal doors shut.

  Leo whispered to Anthony, “What are we in…?”

  “I’ve got no idea…”

  Suddenly, the floor rumbled as the small room shifted. Leo and Anthony grabbed onto the railings on the sides of the room, scared at what was happening.

  ‘Was the room going up?’

  The warden looked back awkwardly. “You two can relax. It’s just the elevator.”

  The two blinked.

  “Elevator…?”

  The warden facepalmed. “ By the Stars…Just relax, it’s just taking us to the arena.”

  Relaxing at those words, Leo calmed down, amazed by this technology. Who knew the floor can shift that quickly with a click of a button. Can all their rooms do that…?

  Suddenly, the metal doors opened, sunlight blinding Leo as the Sun was high in the sky, slipping through the metal bars on the ceiling. Now that he thought about it, it had been a while since he saw the Sun…Basking in its embrace, Leo closed his eyes for a bit, allowing the warmth to spread throughout his body. It felt refreshing.

  “C’mon you two. Choose your weapons there.”

  The warden pointed at a rack of weapons at the center of the arena. Besides the rack, blood dyed the sand with fragments of past weapons thrown around the arena.

  “You can pick them up during the fight as well. But so can the prisoner. And don’t mind the crowd too much. Good luck!”

  The doors to the arena opened, and a wave of cheers could be heard outside.

  “May the Stars favor you…”

  The warden slipped away into the shadows, awaiting the results.

  The metal gate separating them from the arena creaked open, the metal scraping the concrete walls. Leo’s heart was beating wildly at the crazed sight.

  Leo took a deep breath and stepped past the gate into the open arena.