Chapter 18: Chapter 18 - The Arena

Kar and Cricket circled the arena, and I was taken aback. “Cricket is beautiful,” I said.

“According to his description, he’s a tri-stag.”

I looked at her. “What’s that?”

“If you look closer, he’s not just a horse,” she pointed. “See the way his mane flows differently around his head?”

I tried to see, but I couldn’t. “I’m not gifted,” I said.

“You don’t need to be gifted to see those that have been.” She waited for Kar to circle around to us again. “Try again.”

This time, when I looked, I could see what she was talking about. The area around the horse’s head shimmered, and branches appeared. “He’s part tree?”

Leigh laughed. “No, he’s a stag—a male deer.”

“Those branches look sharp.” When he passed, I saw his tail too. It was thick and segmented, swaying from side to side as he moved.

The creature defied simple categorization - part horse, part deer, something else entirely. The world after the fall seemed determined to blur boundaries, create hybrids, challenge what I thought I knew. Even the visible world wasn’t as straightforward as it once had been. What other realities existed that I couldn’t perceive? What other transformations were occurring beyond my limited senses?

“Kar is one of the older kids I used to have in the furnace until—” her voice trailed off. “Well, until his gift and Cricket showed up.”

“You liked him?” I asked.

Leigh sniffed, and I saw Kar’s gaze meet hers, though confusion crossed his face. “I try not to get attached to kids anymore.”

Try not to? That meant... I looked at her and frowned. “Me? I’m not a kid?”

“No, but you’re as naive as one. I thought you’d buckle in the first week,” she continued. “But you have something in you, a spark I’ve only ever seen once before.”

“In Kar?”

Leigh nodded, and when she went quiet, I let her. The contest was about to begin.

Two teenagers walked in through the same door Kar had used. “Christ,” Leigh said. “They look way too young for this.”

“My brother’s not thirteen yet.”

Leigh let out another sigh. “They’re getting desperate.”

“Desperate?”

Leigh turned to me, blocking my view of Kar as the fight began. “You said you saw something on the roof, though you probably don’t even realize how bad that was. The creatures out there are growing at a faster rate than those inside these walls can fight off. The fact—” she paused. “The fact that James was killed in the daytime is worrying everyone on the council.”

So this was why they trained children to fight—not just for sport or entertainment, but out of necessity. The settlement was under pressure, the balance of power shifting. Was this happening everywhere? Were all human outposts engaged in this desperate arms race against the creatures of the new world? The implications were staggering—an entire generation of children weaponized out of necessity.

I didn’t want to tell her it was me, that the creatures weren’t really that close, but the surrounding crowd roared, and she spun around, letting me see what had just happened.

One of the teenagers, a young boy, lay on the ground in a scorching ring of fire.

Two older individuals rushed in from the sides of the arena, and it was as if the heavens opened up just above the teen. The fire went out, but he didn’t look good at all. The burnt smell of hair and flesh reached me, and I fought hard to keep my lunch down.

The teenage girl was crying at the side of the arena, and Kar went to her. “What’s happening?” I asked.

“Looks like they want her to fight the next person coming in, and she’s refusing.”

I was on the edge of my seat. I wanted to hear them. You can hear through me, Death said.

“If you don’t fight, you know what they’ll do to you,” Kar warned her.

The boy was removed from the arena on a stretcher, another young man walking alongside him. I saw... blue energy.

Death? I asked. Is that... is that who has been visiting me?

Yes, he replied.

They left the arena, and in their wake, I saw... Reece. He stood at the entrance, looking out at the crowd, and he was...

“Here we have our next contender!” Kar called. “Reece Lightning!”

Leigh chuckled, but I wasn’t laughing.

“I just saw that girl torch another, and you’re laughing.”

“Sorry,” she replied. “You’re too young to get that reference, and you’re right—that is your brother.”

My heart seized at the sight of him. After weeks of separation, there he was, my little brother, the child I’d protected and nurtured through years of hardship. But he wasn’t the same. He stood taller, more confident, a strange electricity seeming to crackle around him. They had changed him, transformed him from the boy I knew into something else—a weapon, a fighter, a “Lightning.”

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I wanted to go down there even more now, protect my brother. When I tried to move, Leigh put her arm on mine. “There are things you don’t understand going on here. He has to stand on his own.”

Reece stalked forward, his palms to the ground. I’d never seen my brother look like this before.

The young girl straightened her back and moved to the center of the arena, where they stood opposite each other.

Kar circled them, Cricket’s heavy stomps accentuating my nerves. He then stepped towards the pair.

“Dueling for second position today. Are you ready?”

Both nodded, and Cricket backed away, head low, ears flat against his head. Maybe he was as nervous as I was.

“Fight!” Kar called.

Fire lit the sky again, this time as the girl circled my brother inside another burning ring. But something else happened.

A crack of lightning came from above, breaking her concentration, and she jumped to the side, barely avoiding it.

Reece stepped over her dying flames and, raising his hand to the sky once more, pulled as if grabbing hold of something. The air crackled, and this time, lightning struck several spots in the arena.

I couldn’t reconcile this controlled, powerful fighter with the boy who used to hide behind me during thunderstorms, who’d clutch my hand when lightning flashed across the sky. The brother I’d protected had somehow become a conduit for the very force that once terrified him. The irony wasn’t lost on me, nor was the symbolism—the frightened child transforming his fear into power.

The girl didn’t stand a chance. I could see it on her face. She was terrified—terrified of my brother.

She hurled fireballs at him, but he struck every single one out of the air with lightning. Don’t ask me how.

But he was growing weaker. Each retaliation was dimmer than the last.

I couldn’t understand any of it, but then, as the girl struggled to make one last stand, Reece got his strike in first, and instead of hitting a fireball, it struck her in the chest.

She flew backwards and hit the wall beneath us with a sickening crunch.

Leigh gasped, and when I tried to move again, she held onto me tightly. “No, no, you don’t.”

“She—”

“They’ll help her,” Leigh said. “They have powerful healers.”

But I could see it—something else around her. Darkness.

The healers can’t save her, Death said in my ear. His fluttering wings were strong, beating so fast.

Reece wasn’t doing anything. At the crowd’s roars for his victory and her defeat, he raised his arms, celebrating.

The celebration horrified me almost as much as the injury itself. This wasn’t self-defense or necessary violence—this was performance, entertainment. And Reece was playing to the crowd, reveling in their approval of his victory. What had they done to him in these few weeks? What had they made him believe about himself, about violence, about the value of human life?

She’s suffering, I said.

Yes, her death will not be a good one. The healers will do nothing but prolong it.

You want to take her, don’t you? We grow stronger the more we take?

In the mortal world we grow stronger together.

If you take life in my name?

Yes, the more I take in your name, the stronger we become, he replied. I am already Death. I cannot get stronger.

The healer from earlier rushed across the field. I could see his face now. He was younger than me, that was for sure. Maybe not by much, but his wiry frame told me he wasn’t eating enough, and his strength from earlier—even as much as he practiced—wasn’t enough to save the teen.

He tried, though. I could see his energy seeping across to her, though I didn’t fully understand everything that was transpiring.

I watched the young healer pour himself into a futile effort, his blue energy flowing into her broken body like water into sand. There was something noble and tragic in his refusal to accept the inevitable, in his determination to defy death itself. But some boundaries couldn’t be crossed, some damages couldn’t be undone. I understood this now in a way I never had before.

Help her, I said to Death. Help her in my name.

I didn’t see him move away from me, more than just felt it—a tiny bluster of wind.

“Reece is extremely powerful,” Leigh said. “Yet you have no art skills at all? How strange.”

I was shaking my head, not even watching my brother now—only the girl below us.

She opened her eyes briefly, and I heard Death’s words to her. I claim your essence for Cerys. Pass peacefully, Rose.

What flashed before me was different.

Death Elemental

Kill Count: 1

Mercy Count: 1

Strength: 1%

The notification distinguished between killing and mercy—a nuance I hadn’t considered. Death could be an act of violence or an act of compassion. The system recognized this distinction, quantified it, tracked it. But what did the percentage mean? Was this some measure of how much of Death’s full power I could access? If so, what would happen as that number increased? What would I become with 10%? With 50%? With 100%?

I wanted to understand this, to know more. But the young man’s energy failed completely, and he slumped forward, the others at his side giving him comfort.

Kar stood before my brother, congratulating him on his win, the crowd going wild.

I didn’t want to watch anymore.

Reece’s gift had just taken someone’s life.

No, I took her life. But I did it for the right reasons.

That tiny weight on my shoulder.

Reece is fighting for his own survival, Death said. Do you think if Rose were strong enough, she wouldn’t have taken his life?

I don’t know... I stammered.

If she could have, it would be your brother’s life I would have taken instead of hers. Is that what you want?

No! I gasped. No!

Then look at him. He’s looking for you.

I looked back to Kar and noticed Reece scanning the crowd.

“He can’t see you,” Leigh said.

But he had, and he did see me. I saw his face drop, his shoulders slump.

“No, no,” I said.

“Shit,” Leigh agreed. “We need to leave, now.”

“Next up, Reece Lightning is to fight Rowan Stone!”

I realized, almost too late, that each of their last names hinted at their abilities.

The naming convention was both primitive and profound - a return to an ancient practice where people were defined by their abilities, their trades, their innate qualities. Smith, Weaver, Hunter, Fisher - the surnames of the old world had once meant something similar. Now, in this new world, we were reverting to a more direct, more primal form of identification. You were what you could do, what you could contribute, what power you wielded.

Death, I said. Can you pass a message to Reece for me?

I am not a messenger bird, he replied, a hint of annoyance at my question.

I know, you’re much more than that, but can you try? Please?

I haven’t tried to communicate with mortals in a thousand years.

But you’re talking to me, I said. Try, please. He has to fight; he has to stay alive.

I will try, Death replied. Then with a flutter he was gone.

Rowan Stone entered the arena, and the crowd cried louder, stomping their feet.

“We need to go,” Leigh said.

“I can’t,” I replied.

“You’re going to get him killed,” Leigh said, grabbing my arm and tugging me up and out.

Death’s whispers drifted to me over the crowd. Stay alive, Reece, just like we’ll stay alive. Fight. Fight for your sister.

Tears welled in my eyes, and I took one last look at him before I was out of range.

Lightning struck the sky once more, and I felt it—the pure power of him. Hope in his heart, lightning in his soul.

There was a strange symmetry to our situations now. While I was developing a bond with Death itself, Reece had formed a connection with lightning—a different kind of elemental force, but no less powerful. We had both been changed by this new world, transformed in ways neither of us could have predicted. The children who had fled the valley were gone; two different beings were taking their places.

Your message has made a difference. Death landed on my shoulder, and I felt him. I glimpsed him, though only briefly.

You and I need to talk. Much more.

We do. But not here. Tonight. The roof.