The first real thing I remember was being thrown to the ground, my leg blazing with fresh pain as I landed on it. After that, everything faded, as I passed out once more.
I don't know how long I lay there. But when my eyes finally fluttered open, I found myself sprawled on the cold stone of the dungeon once more. My mind throbbed painfully as the torch beyond my cell drilled holes into my skull.
Squinting, I realized I was back in the same cell, across from the half-crazed man. I tried to move—just my fingers at first—but even that sent a spike of pain lancing through me.
So I lay there.
Time dragged on as the cold crept in, gnawing at me little by little, seeping through torn clothes and into my bones.
Yet, despite everything, my thoughts kept drifting back to the last moments I remembered. The way Sandra crumpled like dead weight as the stones rained down upon their prone forms. And even though Nolan had dragged us into that nightmare, the thought that they might have died twisted my gut into knots. After all, I wouldn't be here if he hadn't shoved me out of the way.
With a low groan, I planted my palm against the stone and tried again. My arm shook, threatening to give out as soon as I put weight on it. For a moment, I nearly let it.
Then I clenched my teeth and pushed.
The world tilted violently as I managed to haul myself into a sitting position. Colors bled together, the edges of my vision warping and folding in on themselves. I clutched my head and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to shut out the pain, only to tear open an old wound.
Warmth spilled down my face. Blood steamed as it traced my skin, blurring the world in a red haze.
Dizzy and unsteady, I barely had time to react before Joshua slammed against the bars like a madman, staring at me as if I were some impossible thing. But as I squinted into the light, I found Something wrong with him. He looked thinner than I remembered, his limbs gaunt, almost devoid of muscle, with his belly swollen like that of a starved man.
"Y-you're alive?" he muttered, his grin stretching wider as he leaned closer. "Oh… you're alive!" He wailed, the words sending a spike of pain through my skull.
"Not now," I hissed, clapping my hands over my ears.
Yet he ignored me completely.
"Oh," he sang softly, "I've just heard the most wonderful thing." His eyes gleamed. "They're coming here to save us…"
He chuckled.
"Isn't that wonderful?"
Pressing my hands to my ears, I curled in on myself, every moment an unending torment as he sang of a world unlike anything I had ever known, of how they would all be one.
"Just take upon the gift of the old and rejoice…"
I don't know how much time passed, but eventually someone came for me. Rough hands dragged me forward and out into the light of the arena once more.
I didn't care anymore.
With how badly my body hurt, a part of me almost wished death would come.
Yet something deep within me screamed for me to get up. If I stayed like this, I would surely die. What would the others think of me if I just let myself go in such a pitiful way? Forcing myself to move, I strained against the blinding light, my vision swimming as it adjusted to the world around me, where I caught sight of those few who had survived the previous trial.
They all looked better than I felt.
Between the likely concussion and my shattered leg, I knew I wouldn't last long. Still, I tried to pull myself up, only to collapse the moment I put weight on my leg.
It was futile. With an injury like that, there wasn't much I could do. Yet a moment later, large hands hooked under my arms, hauling me to my feet and propping me against their side as they dragged me forward.
I squinted up, momentarily blinded by the light, but as my vision adjusted, a familiar face came into focus.
Nolan stood beside me, wearing that same massive grin. "You look like crap," he said lightly. "What happened?"
Ignoring him, I took in the scene. Everyone had converged toward the center of the arena. Sandra stood just off to the side, a scimitar clutched tightly in her hands. Several others lingered nearby, each gripping whatever weapons they'd managed to claim.
When I finally turned back, a soft chuckle escaped me as the last moments came rushing back. "Protecting your unconscious ass," I muttered.
Nolan chuckled, glancing past me, but the amusement faded just as quickly as his expression tightened into a grimace.
Following his gaze, my stomach dropped.
Along the arena walls, insectoid shapes began to pour forward. Creatures like the first ones I had encountered in this world, only far larger. Countless legs moved in a relentless tide, bodies flowing over one another as they surged toward the small cluster of humans huddled together in the center.
It was almost poetic.
Once, creatures like these had given me life in this world. Now they had come to take it.
I sighed, forcing my thoughts into order, and cleared my head for what was coming next.
Pushing off Nolan, he reached out to catch me, but when he realized I was standing on my own, he frowned and looked down, only to see a dark band supporting my leg.
Smirking at his astonishment, I summoned a single dark scimitar that slithered into existence in my palm. All around me, people stared in awe. Even the once-rowdy crowd fell silent, as if caught in some shared trance.
"Keep up," I said with a wink.
In the next moment, I propelled myself forward into battle, officially commencing the second trial of the South.
Within moments, the others shook off their shock. Following my lead, they drew their weapons and charged into the horde with reckless abandon, as if witnessing that single display of power had given them the strength to keep going. They attacked with renewed fervor.
Sliding to the side of a long bug, I sliced upward, right where I had cut a hundred times back at the Barren Sea. Its carapace guided my blade along its body until a large section came undone, killing it on the spot.
Yet despite how strong I might have looked, inside my body was screaming. Every slash and dodge jostled my brain, each movement an agonizing torment. But I couldn't stop. If they saw me falter, we would truly be finished.
Each of us played our role, moving as one. I tore through the horde from within, giving the others the openings they needed to finish off those already wounded or disoriented. Little by little, we carved a path forward.
But I couldn't have done it alone.
Nolan and Sandra pushed alongside me, always at my back, trading positions as we moved, slowly learning how to fight as one.
Finishing off the bug to my right, I tossed my blade upward and willed it into a spear. Sandra caught it mid-air, twirling it as if she had wielded it her whole life before cleanly severing a creature's head. A moment later, she hurled it forward, impaling a charging enemy. Then, in the same instance, Nolan dashed in, snatched it up, and as it twisted into a hammer, he crushed another creature before it vanished from his grip and reappeared in mine.
I ducked low and slashed the underbelly of a creature that leapt at me.
And just like that, the second trial was over.
However, on the Inside, I was falling apart.
My leg was grotesquely swollen, and my head had become a swirling vortex of colors that refused to settle. I barely registered myself collapsing until Nolan caught my limp body just as I passed out.
By the time I came to, I was choking as something strangely familiar flooded my mouth. I coughed violently before I could stop myself, sputtering until the world slowly came back into focus.
That was when I realized I was lying in the lap of a familiar figure, a wet rag pressed to my lips as water dripped from it. Caught off guard, I nearly choked again, instinctively trying to pull away, but she pressed me back down until I finally relented.
"Just relax. You need water," Sandra insisted, squeezing the cloth again and letting the water spill over my mouth and down my face.
Reluctantly, I drank as much as I could, but my body refused to cooperate. I inhaled instead, bursting into another choking fit as I turned to the side, hacking and gasping while I struggled to clear my lungs.
Once I'd regained myself, I pulled away from her lap and looked around in confusion. We were sheltered beneath a strange stone formation, similar to the ones I'd seen back at the Barren Sea. Yet we were still inside the colosseum. Survivors scoured the battlefield, dividing rations and water they'd gathered from the corpses littering the sand. There were more bodies than before, a new variety mixed in, as if another round had passed without me even knowing.
Seeing that I was awake, Nolan trudged over and eased himself down nearby, his body marked with a score of fresh injuries.
"Hell of a time to pass out, don't you think?" he said.
I scoffed and turned my gaze back to the battlefield, watching as two survivors dragged the corpse of a black scorpion off the body of a young man I recognized from the last round.
This wasn't right. What had any of us done to deserve this?
Shifting, I grimaced, then turned back to Nolan and asked the question that had been gnawing at me ever since the final moments of our battle.
"What happened to you?"
He smirked and gestured to himself. "Kinda self-explanatory, don't you think?"
I shook my head, the motion sending a sharp spike of pain through my skull. "Why was that worm inside you?"
He froze.
Sandra did too, her head snapping twords him. "Nolan," she muttered, her eyes slowly scanning his body, "what does he mean by that?"
"Where did you hear about that?" Nolan asked, his expression darkening by the second.
Without wavering, I met his gaze. "Don't you remember me?"
He frowned. "What do you mean by that? I've never met you before."
I felt my stomach sink. "So you really don't remember how you got here, do you?"
His confusion only deepened, and seeing no other option, I continued. I told him about the fight at the dinner. How he'd gone after Henry. About the poison and the way his body had reacted, forcing that black worm out of him. About Luke. About the arrest.
When I finished, Nolan stayed silent.
The quiet stretched for some time before Sandra finally broke it. She turned on him, anger cutting through her shock. "You told me you got away," she hissed.
"I did," Nolan said, frowning. "There were no signs of infection."
"Yeah," I coughed, "besides the rampage."
He scoffed, but didn't deny it. "It must have waited," he figured. "But why? What would be the point of lying dormant when it already had me?"
"It could've been your core's power," Sandra suggested.
He shook his head vehemently. "No. You know they've taken down men far more powerful than me in hours. And yet I was spared?"
With every second that passed, I felt more like an outsider. Questions stacked on top of one another until my head began to throb.
"Okay," I said quietly. "Explain. Please."
Sandra didn't answer right away. She stared at the ground, jaw tight, as if she were bracing herself. When she finally spoke, her voice was low.
"We're from a city called Bastion," she said. "Near the Barren Sea."
She paused, then exhaled slowly.
"At first, nothing felt wrong. Bastion is dry year-round, so when the fog began creeping up from the lower districts, people thought it was just another strange weather pattern. It clung to the streets, rolled between buildings. Unpleasant, sure, but harmless."
Her fingers curled into her palm.
"Then the days dragged on, and people started getting irritable. Short-tempered. Arguments broke out over nothing. Sleep became difficult. And everywhere the fog lingered, the air felt… heavy. Like it didn't want to leave your lungs."
She looked up at me, eyes dark.
"After that, the sickness came slowly. By the time people realized something was wrong, abscesses were forming, swelling beneath the skin like they were alive."
I felt my stomach tighten.
"The healers tried," she continued. "At first, they told us it would pass. That panic would only make it worse. The higher districts barely noticed, so nothing was done." Her voice wavered. "It wasn't until the fog climbed higher, until the upper sections began coughing and breaking out the same way, that anyone took it seriously."
She shook her head. "By then, it was everywhere."
Her gaze drifted, like she was seeing it again.
"No matter what we did, it came back. Cleanse an area, burn it out, seal it off. The fog would return the next day, thicker than before. And then people started changing."
She didn't elaborate right away.
"When the mutations began," she finally said, "We tried to fight it, but every day, more people turned, and soon we weren't just losing ground. We were being hunted."
Her eyes slid toward Nolan.
"It ended when Nolan and a select few were sent below the city to find the source of it all."
She turned fully to him now, frustration bleeding through the exhaustion.
"And despite everything I have done for him, he refuses to tell me what happened down there."
"There's nothing to tell," Nolan said flatly. "We lost the city."
Sandra's expression hardened. "That doesn't explain why I found you locked in a cage like some discarded animal," she snapped. "Why won't you tell me? I deserve to know what you saw."
Nolan stayed silent.
She stared at him, anger burning through the exhaustion.
Then the ground rumbled beneath us.
The argument died unfinished as stone groaned all around. Pillars sank into the sand as if the earth itself were swallowing them whole. For a heartbeat, there was only silence.
Then the sand broke.
The first spider tore its way free like some long-buried nightmare, followed by dozens more. Each bore a swollen green sac in place of its abdomen, pulsing rhythmically in time with the crowd's renewed roar.