Chapter Twelve — No Allies, Only Hunger
They kept the cell full.
Always full.
Every few days — though Lucien had no way to mark time anymore — the guards would open the iron door and throw more bodies in.
New prisoners.
Some looked as broken as the ones already there. Some still had the defiance of the untested, the righteous anger of men who hadn't yet understood what this place truly was. Their clothes matched Lucien's — those faded, sand-crusted tunics and simple sandals, stiff with old sweat and blood. It confirmed what he'd already begun to suspect.
They'd all once fought on the same side.
And now?
Now they were enemies.
Lucien couldn't speak to them.
He didnt help them. Didn't offer advice.
He just watched.
Like a wolf watching a new lamb stumble into the pit.
Some of the newcomers begged. Pleaded in a tongue Lucien didn't understand. Cried for family. Prayed.
It didn't matter.
The cell didn't care about prayer.
The men in it didn't care about language.
There was only food.
And who had the strength to take it.
Lucien had stopped waiting.
Now, when the slot in the door scraped open and the trays slid in, he didn't hesitate.
He moved first.
He struck hard. Without warning. Without guilt.
He didn't just fight for food anymore — he took it.
He'd grown efficient. Fast. Deadly, even without weapons.
He could break a nose with a palm strike. Dislocate an elbow in a blink. Drive his foot into someone's knee and not even pause as they collapsed screaming.
He didn't share.
He didn't apologize.
And the others had learned.
They saw him coming and moved aside — if they could.
If they didn't, they starved.
That's how it worked now.
No rules.
No order.
No alliances.
Just survival.
And every time a new group got shoved through that door, Lucien saw the same cycle begin.
At first, they grouped together. The fresh ones. Still hopeful. Still believing in some kind of structure. Still thinking this was temporary.
That someone might come.
That there was a reason behind it all.
Lucien didn't bother explaining.
He just watched them fall apart.
It didn't take long.
A day. Maybe two.
Then the fights would start.
The begging. The theft. The shaking hands.
The hunger always won.
And those who weren't strong enough to keep what they took? They faded into the corner. Got smaller. Until they weren't there anymore.
Lucien learned not to remember their faces.
Too many had come and gone.
Some died silently.
Some thrashed until the end, dragged out by the guards with bones twisted in wrong directions.
He didn't mourn them.
He couldn't.
There wasn't enough room inside him left for that.
Not after the things he'd seen.
Not after the things men did to each other.
There were no women in the cell. None since he arrived.
At first, that felt like a relief.
Then he saw what that absence meant.
Some of the prisoners — older, stronger, hungrier in ways deeper than the stomach — started looking at the weaker men differently.
It happened quietly at first.
A hand that lingered too long.
A corner of the cell grown too dark.
Then it happened more openly.
Lucien heard the screams.
The begging.
He didn't look the first time.
He did the second.
And something inside him fractured.
These weren't monsters.
They were men.
Men who'd once worn the same clothes. Marched under the same banners. Fought for the same side.
And now they did this.
Because the cell didn't care who you used to be.
It just broke you.
Lucien knew if he let his guard slip for even a moment, they'd turn on him too.
So he became something else.
Not just a fighter.
Not just a survivor.
Predator.
He moved like a beast now — deliberate, silent, deadly. He didn't sleep unless his back was pressed flat against the stone, and his hands were curled into fists even as he rested. He picked his spot in the cell based on who was next to him — not too weak to make him a target, not too strong to make him a threat.
And when they tried him — because eventually, they all did — he didn't hesitate.
No warnings.
No mercy.
He left one with a broken arm. Another with a missing tooth. One never got back up.
The others stayed away after that.
He didn't win the cell. No one won this place.
But they gave him space.
And space was life.
Still, some nights, when the cell was quiet, when no one fought or begged or cried, when the stink of rot got too thick to ignore — he wondered.
What did I come here for?
Not why. That question had stopped mattering.
But what for?
What was this Trial meant to teach?
What kind of god, what kind of force, thought this was something worth surviving?
Was this the point?
Was he the point?
Lucien didn't know.
And honestly, he wasn't sure he wanted to.
Because if the answer came, and it wasn't something he could live with…
Then maybe he wouldn't.