The crimson haze of the 1st Hello never truly lifted, even in the deep hours of the cycle. In their separate, damp rental rooms, the survivors of the Daily Debt huddled in the dark.
Zippo sat on the cold stone floor of her cramped cell, her chest heaving with every shallow breath. The fifty strokes of the cane had left her back a map of raw, pulsing heat. In the corner of the room, illuminated by a flickering sulfur lamp, lay her severed left hand. It sat on a piece of stained velvet, the red ink of the tattoo—1701256—seeming to pulse with a dull, mocking light.
"What am I supposed to do with you?" she whispered, her voice cracking. She reached out with her remaining hand, her fingers hovering over the cold, pale skin of the limb. "Are you just a trophy?"
Before she could touch it, the air was shattered by the shrill, metallic ring of a bell that vibrated through the very foundations of the building.
The disembodied voice of the announcer boomed, dripping with a cruel, rhythmic excitement.
"Attention, residents of the 1st Hello! The hour of the physical has arrived. It is time for the Parts Attachment Battle! All souls with unattached property, you have ten minutes to reach the Wrestling Grounds. Failure to appear will result in the permanent forfeiture of your limbs to the Furnace. Move!"
The building erupted into a frantic chaos of dragging limbs and panicked shouts. Robert kicked open his door, his face a mask of sweat and agony as he hauled his tethered legs into the hallway.
"Zippo! Get moving!" he roared, seeing the girl frozen in her doorway.
"What is an attachment battle?" she asked, clutching her severed hand to her chest like a doll.
"In this hell, nothing is free," Robert spat, crawling toward the stairs with a speed born of desperation. "They don't just stitch you back together. You have to prove you're strong enough to carry the weight."
The Wrestling Grounds was a massive, circular pit of black sand surrounded by towering obsidian bleachers. Hundreds of mangled souls gathered, each clutching their "property"—heads, arms, legs, even internal organs kept in glass jars.
The announcer's voice returned as the ten-minute mark hit, cold and clinical.
"The rules are simple. To have your parts attached, you must win the Stitcher's Favor. You will be paired against another soul of similar weight. The winner receives a surgical attachment by the High Court Medics. The loser... the loser must carry their parts for another lunar cycle, and their debt to the market doubles."
The crowd looked at the center of the pit, where several figures in blood-red surgical masks stood holding jagged, glowing needles and silver thread.
"Robert! Look!" Zippo pointed toward the entrance of the pit.
A group of veteran brawlers, souls who had been in the 1st Hello for decades, were warming up. They looked at the newcomers with predatory grins. For them, this wasn't just about getting a limb back—it was about the credits and the status that came with winning.
"First Match!" the announcer screamed. "The Crawler versus the One-Armed Spark!"
Zippo turned pale. She looked at her small, severed hand, then at the man split vertically who was already dragging himself into the black sand, his one eye fixed on her with a desperate, starving intensity.
The black sand of the Wrestling Grounds felt like crushed glass beneath Zippo's bare feet. Across the pit, the Crawler moved with a horrifying, rhythmic lurch. Because he was split vertically, his internal organs were visible behind a translucent, shimmering membrane that pulsed with every wet scrape of his body against the ground. He was a man driven by a singular, agonizing desire: to be one piece again.
"I'm sorry, Spark," the Crawler hissed, his voice bubbling through a half-formed throat. "But I can't live like this another day. I need my other side."
Zippo clutched her severed left hand to her chest. She felt small, her single arm trembling as the shadow of the obsidian bleachers fell over her. "I need to be whole too," she whispered, her voice gaining a sudden, sharp edge. "I'm tired of being a half-measure!"
"BEGIN!" the announcer screamed.
The Crawler lunged with surprising speed. Using his one powerful arm like a piston, he launched his halved body forward, aiming to tackle Zippo's legs. She dove to the right, the black sand spraying into the air.
She tried to keep her distance, but the Crawler was relentless. He swung his unattached half—a dead weight of flesh and bone—like a flail. The heavy limb caught Zippo in the ribs, sending her sprawling. Her severed hand flew from her grip, landing several feet away in the soot.
"No!" Zippo shrieked. She scrambled toward her hand, but the Crawler was already there, pinning her down with his one-sided weight. He began to claw at her face, his fingers digging into the sand.
"Give up!" he groaned, his weight suffocating her. "You're just a girl. You can live with one arm. I'm half a man!"
Zippo felt the familiar burn of the 1st Hello—the rage that had led her to kill the men who tried to hurt her on Earth. It wasn't the "Devil Killer's" cold calculation; it was a wild, frantic fire.
She used her knees to buck him off, but he was heavy. The crowd in the bleachers roared, their red clothes a blur of blood-colored light. They weren't cheering for her; they were cheering for the struggle. Robert watched from the edge of the pit, his fingers digging into the sand. "Fight, Zippo! Use your head!"
As the Crawler reached for her throat, Zippo realized her advantage. He was powerful, but he was unbalanced. Every time he moved, he had to compensate for the dragging weight of his other half.
She stopped fighting his weight and instead grabbed his unattached leg. With a scream of pure exertion, she twisted it with all her might. The Crawler let out a wet, gurgling cry of pain as his center of gravity shifted. He slid off her, his halved body flopping into the sand.
Zippo didn't hesitate. She scrambled to her feet, lunged for her severed hand, and used it—not as a part of her body, but as a weapon. She swung the cold, heavy limb like a club, striking the Crawler across his single ear.
Stunned, the Crawler faltered. Zippo jumped onto his back, wrapping her one arm around his neck in a desperate chokehold.
"I... am... Zippo!" she yelled, her teeth bared. "And I'm getting my hand!"
She squeezed until the Crawler's single eye rolled back into his head. He clawed at the sand feebly for a few seconds before his body went limp. He wasn't dead—death was a forbidden gift—but he was beaten.
The announcer's voice cut through the ringing in Zippo's ears.
"Winner: The One-Armed Spark! Claim your prize."
The red-masked Stitchers stepped forward, their glowing needles humming with a low, electric frequency. They didn't offer Zippo a hand up. They simply pointed to a stone slab in the center of the pit.
Zippo staggered to the slab, clutching her severed hand. She laid it down beside her stump. One of the Stitchers leaned over her, his eyes cold and clinical behind his mask.
"This will hurt," he said simply.
He didn't use anesthesia. The silver thread began to weave through her skin, lacing the nerves and bone together with agonizing precision. Zippo bit her lip until it bled, her muffled screams lost to the wind as the needle pierced her flesh again and again. Each stitch felt like a bolt of lightning, fusing the dead tissue back to the living soul.
When it was over, her left hand hung heavy and swollen, a jagged, purple seam encircling her wrist. But as she lay there, gasping for air, she saw her fingers twitch.
She had won. She was whole.
As she was led out of the pit, Zippo walked past the Crawler, who was being dragged away by guards, his parts still separate, his debt now doubled. Robert looked at her as she passed, a grim nod of respect on his face.
But the victory felt hollow. As the evening bells began to toll for the next round of punishment, Zippo looked at her newly attached hand and realized that in the 1st Hello, being "whole" only meant you had two hands to catch the whip with.