Ashes and Laughter

My body lurched forward—a puppet on the brand’s strings. Darkness crept across my right eye, swallowing half my vision. The harder I fought for control, the deeper the agony burned. A thousand nails seemed to pierce my flesh, my soul.

“Old man…” My voice was a ragged whisper. “Help.”

Consciousness slipped away like water through fingers.

“Boy! Boy!”

The old man’s voice yanked me back. I blinked—and froze.

Beneath me, a mountain of corpses.

What… happened?

“THAT WAS DELICIOUS,” the mark purred, its voice slick with glee.

I stared at my hands. Crimson coated my fingers, my sleeves, everything. The stench of iron clung to my skin.

Did I… kill them all?

The old man studied me, his face unreadable. “Control that power,” he said, voice rough. “Or it’ll consume you.”

I swallowed hard, counting the bodies. “Weren’t there only three left?”

“There were.”

He exhaled, shoulders sagging. The usual steel in his tone was gone. “You think we’re the only rats in this damned pit?”

“How’re you feeling?” he asked.

“Fine. I… guess.”

Silence. Heavy. Suffocating.

Minutes crawled by as we stared at the cavern walls, the weight of what I’d done pressing between us. Finally, the old man spoke again.

“I was a general once.” His voice was distant, like he was sifting through memories. “Special forces. Empire’s blade.” A pause. Then, quieter: “All I remember is blood. Screams. Friends dying in my arms.”

He met my eyes. “But I’m still here. That’s what matters.”

A flick to my forehead—sudden, sharp. “Forget this old man’s rambling.”

Then, a calloused hand extended toward me.

“Let’s escape this “Pit” together.”

I can trust this guy. The memory arose and departed—just like the recollections pierced me like a knife to the ribcage.

"Han-Ji-Min! Where's my bread!???"

My tormentor's voice. Sweaty and cheap perfume in my nostrils. My knees on pavement, pleading.

And then—another memory, more piercing:

Naked except for underwear. Hung between the school gates. Laughing. Hundreds of eyes. All because I'd grazed against some golden uniform.

"Han-Ji-Min."

My sister this time. Smiling. Always smiling. Tear tracks were carved into her makeup.

"You don't have to worry about getting bullied anymore. Just worry about school, okay?"

"Sis handled it."

Handled it.

Handled a rope to the bathroom rafters instead.

"She was good, man. Real good."
"Yeah... that face she made, begging us to stop? That was hot as hell."
My tormentor and his pack of animals had laughed as they said it.

My hands recalled the crunch of bone under fists—the scrape of their teeth on asphalt like dice.

And the cost?

"Both your parents died in an accident." (Not an accident. Never an accident.)

Memories wrapped tightly around my neck. I couldn't breathe—

"Kid."

The old man's tone drew me back. Black, knowing eyes regarded me.

"What have you been through?"

Before I could respond, the intercom in the dungeon thundered:

"DAY 17. 37 SURVIVORS LEFT."

I gazed at my mark. My hand had desiccated, but the blood stuck to my skin, and the metallic smell clung to me. My pilfered sword was now black as pitch, defiled under the influence of the mark—almost as if smeared in tar.

"Do you know what the marks are, old man?

He growled, regarding my mark. Marks react to the emotions of their host. They're all unique." Pausing for a moment. "No one knows where they come from. Or how they even work."

His gaze rested on my twitching veins. "And yours? Yours is alive. The rest of ours are just decorations.".

Before I had time to consider it, he swung me hard on the back so I staggered. "Forget it! Let's go to the gate before we starve."

The gate was wrong.

Following the butcher's ground where we'd crawled, this was a delusion. Blue light pulsed from the walls of the cave, reflecting from inside a colossal archway hewn from the mouth of a snarling lion. Smoke curled from its jaws like a breath.

"Still the Pit?" I grumbled.

Bam.

I ran into a figure crammed under a ruined cape. "Sorry—"

"Keep your eyes open, dickhead." A tough girl voice, like a shiv.

I was dumbfounded. What the—?

The old man laughed. "Don't worry about her. She's… nice. In her way."

"Do you know her?"

"We have an understanding." He shrugged as she disappeared into the darkness. "No stabbing. Simple."

I strolled the square. Scores of merch loitered about, but nobody was killing anyone. "Why's everybody not killing here?"

"Law of the gate - no blood on the guards." He said in a mocking tone.

To demonstrate it, a group of mohawked thugs began to brawl in the area, before a knife hissed.

A head rolled over. Blood poured down.

A knight in the carnage stood there, armor glistening.

"IS EV-ERY-THING AL-RIGHT?" His voice was gentle, mechanical, like a rusted puppet attempting humanity.

The old man bared his teeth. “ Thanks for the assistance."

The knight scowled off into the distance.

"That," the old man puffed, "is the reason we stay out of the guards' way."

The food was mush—stale bread, lumpy potatoes, milk with a faintly sour odor. But the soldier who brought it to us did not sneer. Did not even flinch.

Only recited the same phrase as he set out the tray:

"JOIN THE EMPIRE."

I glared at the old man. His jaw was clenched.

Why keep us fed? Why employ rejects?

What in the world do they want?

"Kid, you're not hungry?" A voice I hadn't anticipated, an old man's. When I remained standing, he ripped off a chunk of his bread with overacted enthusiasm. "Don't worry. Not poisoned." A mouth full of crumb-speckled grin. "For seasoned branded, at least."

I let my shoulders drop further. "So I can cleanse it?"

"Mhm." His answer was muffled from the space between a mouthful of food.

I waited and watched him devour his food with almost-humorous speed. One blink - gone.

"Gulp! Damn, that was the spot!" He patted at his belly, never once noticing my still-filled plate.

I glared at him.

"Okay, okay." He raised his hands in abdication, flour dusting his stubble. "Time for a lesson."

His calloused finger touched my chest. "This is your core - stores mana." And to my forehead. "This is the wheel - channels it." His finger rotated around us. "Put them together, and." He clicked his fingers. "State. Lets you see openings, sense presences."

My stunned face spoke volumes.

"I'm crap at explaining, aren’t I?" He raked his head with his hand, laughing nervously.

"Yep." Straight-faced.

"YOU BRAT!" He charged at me, all fake rage as he clamped a headlock around me. "Some whit lies keep graybeards' pride whole!" His roar sent dust falling from the ceiling. "I, FOMER CAPTAIN OF THE LION GUARD, COMMAND RESPECT!"

A warmth in my chest - strange, gentle.

Laughter erupted, wild and astonished. The noise was strange after all those years of not making it.

For this one, stolen instant, the burden was gone.

Then the recollections hit home - sister's smile, parents' vacant seats. My laughter fell away on something wet and broken, tears carving channels through dungeon filth.

The old man's hold relaxed. No sense of humor now, only grim understanding as he stood there and let me come apart.

"Thank you." The words flew from my lips raw and unshattered.

He nodded only, and for the first time since the Pit took me, I wasn't alone.

-To Be Continued-