The air was heavy, tainted by a lingering stench of blood and grime. The atmosphere was oppressive. In the gloom of the cell, two azure eyes burned with a feverish intensity.
Atlas sat on his makeshift bed. His tattered rags had been tossed aside. For his first official fight, he had been provided with clothing of slightly better quality, a loose-fitting, long-sleeved black shirt that wouldn't hinder his movements, and black jogging pants tailored from a thin fabric he couldn't recall ever seeing before.
Naturally, he had been given no armor. This was a fight to the death. The Rohar was not known for its mercy, and what use was tedious protective gear to a bloodthirsty crowd?
Atlas felt almost nothing. Wired on the powerful neuro-stimulant Isaac had forced him to swallow the day before, his body seemed to float, entirely anesthetized to pain, while his mind raced at full speed. His gaze was locked, he was mentally preparing himself for the slaughter, the really first one of his life. He had no idea how he will do it.
Isaac in person came down to the slums to fetch him.
"I see you are already prepared. Good. Let's go."
Without wasting time on pointless chatter, the boss turned on his heel and headed toward a flight of stairs further down. Atlas rose and followed with a steady stride.
Let's see what awaits us this time, he thought, glancing down at his own hand. He was still uncertain about what exactly had radiated from him the day before, or how that invisible force had allowed him to crush the mutant.
He followed Isaac up the stairwell, which was plunged in heavy shadow. The only lighting came from a few crackling coal lamps, symbols of a bygone era. Atlas used this brief shared moment to analyze his captor. Though Isaac appeared elderly, he radiated an energy far superior to any old men Atlas had known before. His posture was perfectly straight, his clothes consistently impeccable, nothing was left to chance. He exuded an aura that Atlas couldn't quite put into words. Enigmatic? Dangerous?
He brushed the thought away. Now was not the time to lose focus.
"Well, you like to observe, don't you?" Isaac suddenly tossed over his shoulder, without even turning around. "Tell me, what do you make of me?"
Atlas was caught off guard. How had the man felt his scrutinizing gaze on his back?
Sensing his silence, Isaac continued, "You know, the world as you knew it no longer exists. So stop clinging to your preconceived notions, and answer me."
He's right. I need to stop thinking as if I were still in the old world.
Atlas pondered for a fraction of a second, then decided to answer with brutal honesty.
"I would say you carry deep traumas. Even though you project absolute confidence through your posture and your position, I'd say that armor reflects a profound inner turmoil..."
A faint chuckle slipped from Isaac's lips. Had Atlas been able to see his face, he would have spotted a subtle, amused smile.
"Perhaps," he simply replied, in a tone that left the door wide open to a thousand interpretations.
They finally emerged into a grandiose hall, a place that bore no resemblance to the putrid dungeons where Atlas had been rotting until now. Immense, dark blue columns, adorned with complex moldings, soared toward a ceiling at least ten meters high.
But the most striking feature was the massive frescoes painted directly onto the stone wall. They depicted bloody clashes between gladiators. The strokes were rough, visceral, and unrealistic, yet they radiated a brutal aesthetic that Atlas, an avid lover of art, couldn't help but admire.
His feet slowed without his consent, his gaze dragging across the painted stone as though it owed him something, pulling him into each brushstroke, each frozen moment of violence rendered in pigment and silence. He had to consciously force himself forward, back into the hall, back into the immediate weight of what the day was about to demand of him.
"Impressive, isn't it?" Isaac murmured.
In the distance, a few dozen meters away, stood a towering archway opening to the outside. Beyond the threshold, Atlas could only make out a heavy, gray sky, entirely devoid of color. Dozens of people waited in silence before the arch. Gladiators, like him, awaiting their own executions.
"Good. Join them," Isaac ordered. "Your fight isn't right away, you are twelfth on the roster. Do not disappoint me."
With those words, the old man walked away toward another corner of the hall, likely to supervise the preparations. The Rohar was, after all, the most highly prized attraction in the depths of Odyssey.
Atlas took a deep breath and stepped forward to join the line.
Most of the other fighters were nervous and terrified, sweating from stress despite the biting cold. They were all dressed exactly like Atlas, there was no special treatment here. Their lives held value only in death.
As if to remind them in the cruellest way possible that they were no longer the masters of their own existence, their handlers no longer called them by their names, but solely by their fighting order.
Atlas was Number Twelve.
Now that he was closer to the massive archway, Atlas peered over the cluster of trembling gladiators and finally caught sight of the arena. It was an immense, open-air dome framing that same dark gray sky that always nauseated him. At least it was no longer snowing. That was undoubtedly the only piece of good news for the fighters today, because come rain, wind, or frost, they would have to butcher each other regardless.
Towering grandstands of an immaculate dark blue, over five meters high, encircled the pit. They could easily accommodate thousands of spectators. Blue definitely seemed to be the dominant color and the aesthetic obsession of this faction, Atlas noted, recalling the blue-tinted snow and the columns in the hall.
In stark contrast to this polished architecture, a vast wasteland of packed dirt stretched out in the center. The ground was already stained with the dried blood of previous battles, the silent witness to a massacre that had been ongoing for who knew how long. Thousands of lives must have been extinguished here, caught between fleeting moments of glory and absolute despair.
All around them, the stands continued to fill with a deafening roar. With most of the rows already packed to the brim, the first fight surely wouldn't be long now.
Suddenly, a deep, gravelly voice snapped Atlas out of his reverie.
"What about you? You're the new intersting guy, right?"
Atlas turned toward the source of the voice. A man of immense stature stood there, casually leaning against a blue pillar. He wasn't the least bit nervous, on the contrary, he seemed to be practically vibrating with excitement. His bulging muscles stood out starkly among the other fighters, who were all scrawny and malnourished. He sported the mandatory shaved head, a perfectly chiseled square jaw, and brown eyes that burned with a fierce glare.
"Yeah, I'm talking to you," he said, pointing a thick finger at Atlas.
Then, suddenly dropping his nonchalance to adopt an almost menacing demeanor, the giant added:
"Do you plan to conquer the arena? Or rot in insignificance?"
The question caught Atlas off guard. It strangely echoed the words whispered by the voice in his head, the mysterious call of the Tohotsi, on the day he awoke. Without really knowing why, driven by pure instinct, his azure gaze intensified. His spine straightened. His chin lifted, not in defiance, exactly, but in the quiet, certain way of someone who has already decided how this ends, and is simply waiting for the world to catch up.
"Obviously," he replied with a cutting edge to his voice. "I have no intention of fading away."
The answer seemed to please the colossus. He broke into a wide grin, revealing teeth yellowed by malnutrition.
"Good. That's the spirit I want to see. If you survive your fight, I'll give you my name. Who knows, maybe one day, I'll know yours without you even having to tell me."
Suddenly, a bell rang out. Three distinct tolls.
A sharp, almost clinical sound that brutally reminded everyone of the harsh reality of the present, violently contrasting with the roars of the overexcited crowd. The Rohar had just opened its doors.
The colossus, who had been so relaxed mere seconds earlier, stiffened instantly. His face adopted a martial expression, caught up in the deadly gravity of the moment. He marched toward the archway, shoving the other gladiators out of his path without a second thought.
He disappeared into the harsh light of the arena. Atlas watched his massive back fade away beneath the deafening cheers of the audience.
The colossus was the first fighter.