Fred didn't sleep that night.
None of the six did.
They were herded like animals into a low, damp cell beneath the Hollow — a place where the stones wept moisture and the air smelled of rot.
The chains on their wrists clinked with every movement, a constant reminder that they were no longer free.
They weren't even considered human anymore.
Just commodities.
Fred leaned against the cold stone wall, knees drawn up to his chest.
The others sat scattered around the cramped space, too exhausted to speak.
Theo stared blankly at the floor, trembling.
Two girls — one with short red hair and the other with a deep scar across her lip — huddled together for warmth.
Another boy, lanky and pale, picked absently at the blood on his hands.
Fred didn't even know their names.
But he knew this: they were bound together now.
By blood.
By betrayal.
By survival.
Morning came with a brutal awakening.
The door to the cell slammed open, and a tall, wiry man strode inside.
His face was twisted with scars, one eye permanently shut.
The other glittered with cold amusement.
He carried a whip coiled at his hip and wore a black sash across his chest.
"Welcome to your new life," he said, voice dripping with mockery.
"I'm Overseer Kael."
"You will call me 'Master.' You will obey without question."
Silence.
Kael's lip curled.
"Good. Quick learners."
He paced in front of them, boots splashing in shallow puddles.
"From now on, you are property of the Hollow."
"You eat when we say. You sleep when we allow. You fight when we command."
He stopped in front of Fred, smirking.
"And if you break?"
"You will be discarded."
His meaning was clear.
Discarded didn't mean set free.
It meant dead.
Or worse.
Kael led them into a massive underground chamber.
Rows of other survivors were already gathered — dozens of them, some scarred, some barely recognizable as human anymore.
They trained with weapons: knives, clubs, chains.
They fought brutally, with no hesitation.
Fred's stomach twisted.
Kael barked an order.
"Line up."
They obeyed.
Not because they wanted to — but because defiance was crushed before it even took root.
Kael tossed a pair of rusted knives at Fred's feet.
"Pick them up."
Fred hesitated.
The whip cracked the air beside his ear.
Flinching, he bent down and grabbed the knives.
Their handles were sticky with old blood.
"Fight him," Kael said, nodding to the scarred girl.
"No mercy."
Fred looked at her.
She was thin, barely older than him.
Her eyes were dead.
She attacked without warning.
Fred barely dodged the first swing, stumbling backward.
The other survivors jeered and shouted, their faces twisted with bloodlust.
This was entertainment to them.
Fred gritted his teeth and parried a second blow, the metal singing against metal.
The fight was ugly, fast, desperate.
There was no finesse.
Only survival.
When Fred finally disarmed her, pinning her wrist against the wall, Kael clapped slowly.
"Not bad," he drawled.
"But next time?"
"Kill."
"We don't reward kindness here."
Fred's stomach churned.
He dropped the knives.
And Kael smiled like a wolf.
"You'll learn."
"Or you'll die."
Loyalty Means Nothing
Days blurred into one another.
Training.
Fighting.
Bleeding.
Surviving.
Every moment was a battle against collapse.
The food they were given was barely edible — thin gruel that tasted of ash and rot.
The water was worse.
Fred learned quickly: trust no one.
Theo tried to stick close to him at first, clinging to their shared memories of before.
But Fred pushed him away.
He had to.
Caring was a weakness here.
A death sentence.
He watched it happen to others — a girl who hesitated to strike down her friend was beaten unconscious.
A boy who tried to share his rations was dragged away, never seen again.
In the Hollow, there was no loyalty.
Only survival.
Only cold, brutal calculation.
One night, after another brutal training session, Fred found something tucked into his rags.
A slip of paper.
Smudged, almost illegible.
Three words.
"Trust no faces."
His heart hammered.
Who had left it?
Why?
He glanced around, but the others were too exhausted to notice.
Fred hid the note beneath the lining of his shoe.
Another layer of fear wrapped itself around his ribs.
It wasn't enough that the Overseers were monsters.
There were enemies among the survivors too.
Pretenders.
Spies.
Days later, as Fred was dragging himself back to the cell, someone grabbed his arm.
Hard.
He twisted, ready to strike — but froze.
It was the red-haired girl from the pit.
Up close, she looked even more broken.
Eyes sunken.
Cheeks hollow.
But her voice was steady.
Urgent.
"They're planning something," she whispered.
"Tonight."
Fred frowned.
"Who?"
"The Overseers."
"A test."
"Not all of us are meant to survive."
Fred's blood went cold.
Another test?
After everything?
The girl shoved a crude, hand-drawn map into his palm.
"Pass it on," she hissed.
"Or we all die."
Before he could ask anything else, she melted into the crowd.
Gone.
Fred stared at the map, heart pounding.
It showed the Hollow's layout — crude tunnels, dead ends, secret exits.
Some marked with X.
Others circled.
It was suicide.
It was madness.
But maybe — just maybe — it was also a chance.
A chance to survive something bigger.
Something worse.
That night, Fred didn't sleep.
He sat in the darkness, the map hidden beneath his leg.
He watched the others breathe, restless, broken.
And he thought about the chains on his wrists.
The blood on his hands.
The cold whisper of death that never left this place.
The Hollow wasn't just a prison.
It was a test.
A forge.
A nightmare designed to strip away humanity until only weapons remained.
Fred knew he was running out of time.
Tomorrow, they would come.
Tomorrow, the real games would begin.
And this time, there might not be six survivors.
There might be none.