(Skyro's Voice)
Phase Three was the place where imagination ended and pure hell began. Behind us, the iron door of the maze slammed shut with a horrific metallic shriek, as if announcing the severing of the last threads of hope. We found ourselves in a vast industrial hall, the sheer scale of which I had never seen before. The walls here weren't white; they were coated in layers of accumulated rust and black oils that wept like cold tears from an impossibly high ceiling, drowning in a pitch-black darkness beyond sight.
The air here was heavy, saturated with the stench of copper and old blood, and a bone-piercing chill that made our breaths emerge as turbulent steam. And in the middle of this metallic chaos sat it... "The Scale."
It was a massive iron scale, its platform as wide as an open grave, its pans trembling with every shift in the air. Above the scale hung a large black digital screen, in the center of which a single number gleamed in crimson red: 0 / 30.
I raised my head slowly upward. There, behind thick, bulletproof glass, in a room suspended directly above us, stood he. Hairo. He wore his noble attire, one hand resting behind his back, the other holding a glass of wine—or perhaps something else. He was looking down at us with a calm smile, a smile utterly unsuited to the terror enveloping the place. His gaze was cold, like a god watching ants war inside a glass bottle.
Suddenly, without warning, something dropped from above.
CLAAANG!
It struck the metallic floor with brutal force, echoing with a long, resonant ring in the silent hall. It was a single "knife." A sharp blade gleaming under the pale lights, with a black leather grip that looked as though it were waiting for a hand to defile it.
There were no other tools. No ropes, no corridors, no exit. Only the seven of us, the scale, and the knife.
The automated voice erupted from the dark corners, a mechanical sound devoid of any mercy: «Phase Three: The Test of Physical Value.» «The weight on the platform must reach thirty.» «You may use your own bodies... or the bodies of others.»
The voice faded, replaced by a silence that crushed our chests. Thirty? Thirty what? Did it mean kilograms of human flesh? Or did it mean a sacrifice that could only be measured in blood?
Our ranks wavered. The five children who had survived alongside me and Number 42 began to back away. One of them, Number (54), collapsed to his knees and began to sob with a muffled sound. Another child (Number 49) crawled slowly toward the knife. His hand was trembling so violently that the blade made a scraping sound against the metal floor.
He picked up the knife and stood up with difficulty. His face was covered in tears and snot, his voice broken like glass underfoot: "Who... who wants to start?" he asked in a hysterical scream, waving the knife left and right. "We have to reach the number... Hairo is watching us! I don't want to die... please!"
No one moved. We looked at each other like starving wolves locked in a tight cage.
And suddenly, the shadow standing beside me moved.
Number (42) walked with steady, calm, and confident steps toward the child holding the knife. He wasn't afraid; instead, he looked as though he had finally entered his favorite domain. In the blink of an eye, and with a movement the likes of which I had never seen, he kicked the child's hand. The knife dropped, and he then grabbed the boy by the throat and pinned him to the floor.
Number 42 snatched the knife and stood over the collapsed child. He looked at the weapon in his hand, then looked at us with a smile that was cold, terrifying, and completely devoid of hesitation.
"A waste of time," he said in a hoarse voice dripping with venom.
He grabbed the child lying beneath his feet (Number 49) and, without the slightest hesitation, seized his left arm and yanked it hard. Before the little boy could even process what was happening, 42 plunged the knife into the child's wrist and began hacking through flesh and bone with rapid, frenzied strikes.
The boy let out a scream that shook the factory walls—a scream I felt pierce my eardrums and lodge itself deep within my spinal cord. Blood flowed profusely, dyeing the metallic floor a dark crimson. 42 severed the hand completely, then mockingly tossed it onto the scale's platform.
The numbers on the screen changed: 0.8 / 30
Number 42 paused, staring at the screen for a few seconds. His breathing was terrifyingly steady. He wiped the blood from his forehead and looked at the child's severed hand with boredom. "Too long... this path is way too long," he muttered in a low voice.
He didn't wait for our reaction. He turned back to the child, who was screaming and agonizing in pain, and with another strike, severed his second hand and threw it onto the scale.
1.6 / 30
He raised his head slowly toward us. His eyes were ablaze with an indescribable ecstasy—the ecstasy of someone who had finally grasped the rules of the filthy game Hairo had set. "Limbs are useless... limbs are merely husks," he said as he advanced toward us.
Everyone backed away in terror, but I stood my ground. I watched him with a macabre curiosity. I wondered: When will he stop? And what price is his mind paying to do this?
The Ultimate Sacrifice
Suddenly, without any warning, Number 42 launched himself like a projectile toward another child (Number 58). He didn't try to sever his limbs this time. He grabbed him by the hair and dragged him with immense force toward the scale. He lifted the child's entire body and placed him on the iron platform.
The child tried to escape, his nails scraping against the metal, screaming and begging all the gods that the factory had forgotten. But 42 was stronger. He pinned him down with his entire weight on the platform, drove his knee into the little boy's chest, and began pressing him downward, as if trying to fuse the child's body into the scale.
The numbers on the screen began jumping wildly: 10... 15... 22...
The child's body trembled under Number 42's pressure. The scale groaned under the weight. Behind the glass, Hairo leaned his head forward, his eyes gleaming with an animalistic anticipation.
27... 28... 29...
The numbers suddenly stopped at the cursed figure. 30 / 30
A deadly silence reigned. Number 42 didn't move; he remained pinning the child, who had lost his voice from the sheer terror and pain. We all looked at the screen, then looked up.
The door didn't open. The automated voice didn't speak. Instead, something no one expected happened.
From the pitch-black darkness of the ceiling, a massive metallic weight dropped. We didn't hear a prolonged scream, nor did we see blood splattering everywhere. We only heard a single sound: "BOOM!"
A heavy, deafening metallic crash shook the entire foundation of the hall. A cloud of industrial dust and sparks erupted. And when the dust gradually began to clear, we found the scale silent.
The platform was empty. The child who had been on it... had disappeared. Number 42 had stepped back at the very last second to stand on the edge of the scale, his white clothes stained with oil, dust, and certain unmistakable splatters.
The factory had swallowed the sacrifice. The mechanism worked exactly as designed; it didn't just want weight, it wanted "souls" to feed its rusted gears.
The Dark Ecstasy
The five of us remaining stood paralyzed, incapable of comprehension. Our young minds couldn't process the sheer atrocity of what had just occurred. Death was swift, mechanical, and so cold it made life seem utterly worthless.
Number (42) raised his head slowly. There wasn't an ounce of regret in his eyes. He looked up toward the glass room where Hairo resided, then did something that sent terror coursing through my veins even more than the scale itself.
He laughed.
A short, shell-shocked laugh, brimming with a delicious madness. He wiped the sweat and blood from his face, and looked at his hand, which was trembling with an obscure euphoria. "Well..." he muttered audibly, shaking his head in awe, "I didn't expect that... I didn't expect it to be this beautiful."
He turned to us, his eyes gleaming with a red glint under the hall's lights. He was no longer the Number 42 we knew; something new had been born within him—something simultaneously malicious and sacred. "But... this is fun..."
The automated voice rang out again: «Phase Three concluded successfully.» «Remaining count: Six.» «You are now... certified property of the Fourth Section.»
I looked up. Hairo was still smiling. He raised his glass in the air as if toasting us—or perhaps toasting the monster he had just created in Number 42.
I walked toward the door that had opened for us. I couldn't feel my feet. I looked behind me, at the silent scale, and the stained floor. I felt then that I hadn't just passed a phase in a test; I had crossed a threshold of no return.
Number (42) walked ahead of me, his steps letting out a confident ring. I realized then that I wasn't in a factory for humans... I was inside a womb that births demons.