I didn't join the outraged screams and queries, their frantic attempts at persuading a different fate. Too focused on digging for a reason, for some ground to stand on as to reject my own terrifying realization. To finally open my eyes and discover that this was just a particularly bad dream the entire time.

That their blurred faces, their mumbled yet alarmingly realistic voices were simply a product of the imagination—just different roles of a horrific act staged on my very own brain. 

But with the rather pitiful amount of information at hand, my logic seemed... fine. 

After all, what other conclusion could I have arrived at?

The outraged screams didn't stop though, their tireless fears, the bone-chilling cries. Nothing acted as to smother their worries—their burning questions. Only ever did things worsen the already blazing fires, adding fuel to that which already burned so brightly.

Screams that only ever seemed to increase their volume, a dial that could only turn one way. Screams that always went up a note... an inhuman leap when they noticed another person walk beyond their glass wall.

The screams called to the man, to not just stand there and run back, that he should never have even left.

Screams that remained unanswered, like they always had.

I doubt the man even heard a single thing they said to him. The man, wearing the same rags all of us had, just standing there, alone and shaking in the middle of the big circular chamber.

This time though, I knew what to expect, a horrid premonition of what would be next—something the man envisioned too, I guess. 

He didn't look overwhelmingly afraid though, weak in the knees, yes, but not trembling like I thought he would. With his shoulders squared, fists balled and legs spread, he actually had a steady form despite his otherwise jerky act.

Sadly, I wasn't able to see his eyes, not from the distance I stood, especially not when his head was turned observing the area directly opposite his own. It made it impossible to know what he was thinking, why he was still standing when he knew, seen what would happen next.

So, I couldn't shake the feeling that he knew something else. Something that allowed him to just stand there, afraid yes, but not running like a normal person would, as he definitely knew he should.

Maybe a different plan then?

Wait, was he actually planning to fight that? Naked flesh meeting claw and serrated teeth, someone normal facing off against something... else. 

Didn't he understand that it would end just like the act before his one had?

Though, as if to make matters even worse, I realized that even if he—like any normal human—decided not to fight the monster, where was he going to run to? Or even more alarming, where were we going to run towards? There were no doors or windows, no openings that hinted at even the slightest possibility of escape.

But somehow despite this growing barely suppressed panic and nigh overwhelming dread, I still found my focus affixed to the spot where the man himself was staring at. Where I too, had a feeling the monster would come from next. The spot in question: a part of the wall that had begun to open in between two other windows, between two ragged figures cowering in the corner of their rooms.

And yet, the man just stood there, alone and afraid in the middle of the big circular chamber.

His shoulders were shaking—his fists clamped tight, knuckles turning white, legs strung taut, feet a good distance apart. But he did not act, not when a bloodcurdling screech echoed through the chamber, not when the others intensified their already frenzied screaming.

What was he doing? Waiting for his time to strike? If he didn't act soon he was going to die... he knew that right?

And yet, the man just stood there, alone and quaking in front of the horrifying figure.

A figure more or less immobile save for the couple steps that brought it past the now-closed wall. Its back curled, muscles short yet stretched, pulled together as if they were about to snap. And then as if smelling our growing fears, it curled its mouth in a grin and screeched another hellish squeal.

It was only then that the man turned to act, or rather turned and ran. His frightened steps slapping across the sterile-looking floor, his confident facade shattered and strewn throughout his anguished cries.

Sadly, for each step the man took the monster closed in with one more.

He didn't turn around when the monster leapt, didn't duck when the screams said he should have. 

Instead, a horrified scream tore from the man's throat as he slid across the floor, as his body skidded to a halt in front of the window next to my own.

Albeit deathly afraid and clearly injured he still stood facing the monster... the monster which had already leapt his way, screeching its sadistic squeal.

A frightened gasp escaped the man as he attempted to jump out of its path.

Alas, he stood a tad too long, his jump just that tiny bit off, the monster's razor-sharp claws already reaching for his throat.

A heavy thud reverberated through my room as a body hit my window, the monster having forced his jump a little off course.

Now truly desperate the man began wildly kicking about, straining to force the monster a healthy distance apart…

It didn't…

Didn’t care, one, bit—as it just bulldozed through his broken stance, as it clawed through any resistance the man presented, as the man began hitting its head, screaming as his fists met its opponent again and again… 

Until the monster just ducked under them.

And in the midst of that horrifying sight, time itself seemed to pause as the man's terrified eyes suddenly encountered mine; his reddened, tear-filled eyes, so full of horror it literally spilt out.

The man, at the mercy of serrated claw and teeth and I, a spectator on the front-row seat, a mere witness to the disgusting acts that followed.

I couldn't look away though, I couldn't wrench my unblinking gaze from this dreadful sight, from his betrayed eyes. Not when the monster's teeth sunk even further in the still screaming sack of meat. Not when the screams turned into gurgles of breathless misery.

Alas, a timely death it was not—a death like that couldn't ever be quick enough.

Lungs respiring only blood, a voice severed by claw, skin felled by teeth and jaw; jaws that straight-up crushed bone... crushed hope.

A dim reddish sheen revealing that which should never be seen, a faint light cast on that what should have stayed forever dark.

Some unnatural thing slurping all that was supposed to be his, forcefully seizing that which couldn't be shared, shouldn't be shared—hearts weren't supposed held, torn from one's chest.

Bits and pieces drenched in a brown-reddish liquid, bits and pieces of something originally whole, a liquid still contained not even a few moments before. A person that was alive and breathing, kicking and screaming, turned silent, defiled forever in this o so vivid memory.

I didn't react when the monster began to sizzle and screech, as the interment began for the victor and its victim. As the screams stilled, merely staring at the cleansing ritual.

It was the second horrid act as of yet, another nameless tragedy, another senseless death fading in favour of the colourless rain.

But despite all that, I just couldn't help but wonder who would be next.

And, while I sunk deeper in my own horrifying suspicions, in the horrifying answer that threatened to outright drown me, a beep broke through the viscous silence that filled the chamber.

Subject: 10 expired

I just stared at the blurred letters, at the apathetic notice of those who truly didn't care.

It was only then that I realized that my breathing was already ragged and heavy, that I myself had begun panicking. That the numb trembling of my limbs wasn't because I had been kneeling in abject terror, that I wasn't merely lightheaded from the putrid smell suffocating my sense of reality.

That it wasn't because of their screams I knelt there frozen at the edge of my room. That it wasn't because of them I knelt there alone and petrified, staring at my own horrified reflection.

Staring at eyes that didn't have to meet, thinking of a thought that wasn't even half complete… alas, it didn't have to be. The echo of an idea, of a prospect so dreadful that the shock alone was enough to shatter whatever sliver of control I had left.

The reflected figure then spoke in a voice so utterly broken that it was comparable only to that of my own.

“Subject eleven.”

Reverberating through the room a soulless sentence of two, a soulless sentence subject solely of their woeful future. 

Because that's what they read, slanted and obscured on the clothing which it was written—my death sentence on some worthless piece of fabric. 

It was after this cascading train of thought that something snapped, that something very important outright buckled and crashed.

And yet, I just laughed.

Laughed as I thought of the fact that it was this very thing I was waiting for. For something, someone to finally take responsibility when I couldn't do so. 

Too accepting of my painfilled history, too willing when drowning in an ocean of self-pity... dreams long since having passed my already narrow vision. Unable, incapable of truly drowning out those feelings, to stop breathing the same toxicity that hurt each step in trying to break the surface of my own mental prison.

But I wasn't elated, nor the slightest bit disappointed that the last bout ended only in pain.

I was afraid.

So, so, terribly afraid that the cold emotion numbed, that it outright burned, gnawing and whispering at my remaining sanity. An emotion, so raw, so overwhelming it outright tore and pulled, a mass of thought mingling so much that everything else blurred.

And as if the delirious laughter wasn't enough, as if the irony, the utter absurdity of the situation was a little much. Laughing so hard my lungs themselves cracked up, wheezing and coughing 

until they were begging for pause.

I still stood.

Stood, as my maddening reflection faded, as an overwhelming pressure guided my steps past the glass wall.

Spikes of pain crippling my lungs, naked feet slapping on the cold sterile floor. Walking without thought, without choice, without anything coherent enough to realize I even had one. 

And It wasn't as if I didn't know, didn't understand.

If only it were just that.

So terribly, terribly afraid that the emotion festered and grew, rotting like some incurable disease, taking all that was desperately needed for something else. Some critical thought, some actual plan at last—if there even was one viable, one thought fitting enough to build some actually promising strategy out of.

But there was none, at least none that I thought of.

Again I didn't know what I was doing until it was too late.

Didn't know I walked straight to my death until there was no way back. Didn't know I set foot on a stage primed for yet another horrific act—at least, not until it had already been already set. 

Not until they started screaming again, begging, demanding this to end, to stop another experiment before it even began.

Not until something else, too, realized I was just standing there, alone and quaking in the middle of the chamber. 

And as if smelling my fear, lured by a meal, another monster screeched yet another bone-chilling squeal.

It was only then that the pressure faded, replaced by an all-consuming fear that coalesced into something so much greater. 

Still, I stood.

Stood there when it already commenced its lust-filled sprint, its eyes boring into helpless flesh; a mouthwatering prize largely uncontested.

I stood because there was nothing else I could do.

Though wasn't that the very thing I was waiting for? For something to finally take responsibility when I couldn't do so. Having lost myself in the painful ebb of life only ever waiting for the eternal storm to calm down, hoping for some eventual solace outside the freezing ocean.

And so, I just stared at nearing teeth and glowing eyes, at a fate all but sealed with time.

But I didn't want to die, not there, not then.

I wanted the storm the calm down, not... die out. I wanted to live without my mistakes, I wanted a path other than the one I had already taken. For something to carry me and my past, my guilt and my pain, to a place I knew didn't deserve to stay. 

To end my suffering.

But I didn't want to die again, not then, not ever. 

Blue flashes of light glaring over crimson red, droplets of guilt trailing straight to my greatest regret.

Wasn't that why I ran?

Ran the unending marathon of pain and past, of mistake after mistake, trying but failing to outrun the soul-devouring guilt. 

Ran from being myself.

A pathetic notion that was, to go and run to some superficial comfort—some stupid self-delusion really. Because even back then I knew better than that... better than most actually…

That the past is something you carry forwards... always.

And some just can't bear that burden—can't bear their mistakes, can't trudge along the path they had willingly taken.

I certainly couldn't.

And I deserved nothing less but shatter under the agonising weight of my mistakes. For my rotting remains to be carried off to whatever landfall happened to be closer.

Willingly drowned in an ocean of self-pity, toxins clouding all reason, cold ocean waves only ever partly numbing the pain. Running from a boulder that threatened to crush whatever tiny sliver of my soul was left.

And yet, there I stood—at life's end, trembling and alone, dying in a place no one other than the dead would know.

Though, the funny thing is, I could have stepped aside anytime, walked another route and never looked back. Nobody would blame me for that, nobody would have blamed me for deciding it could have been better, for reaching to new light—a brighter future at last. 

And yet, there I stood—at the edge of a cliff, shackled to a stone I myself threw off. Deserving nothing other than to break absolutely everything when I inevitably hit the ground. 

If only there wasn't something greater than that.

If only I didn't fear death…

…didn’t fear them.

And so, in front of serrated claw and teeth, I—for the first in my life—took a step aside.

It didn't work out.

My hesitance, way too long, my eventual action way too minimal, a mere step to avoid my death—merely another pathetic attempt at thoughtless self-preservation. A path only leading to ever more pain.

Like always, I'd been too late.

A mistake that ushered claws to shred through my skin, deep cuts tearing through muscle and flesh, bones scraped utterly bare.

I screamed.

It didn’t care though. For the monster, my pain-filled performance simply acted as proof that it hadn't missed.

It simply lunged once more, a sadistic screech escaping its horrid throat.

I could only stare at the dreadful sight of jagged teeth and red glowing eyes, could only use my arm to save mine.

Blinded by a sacrificial limb I felt the air rush from my chest as the impact cracked my ribs. 

Claws dug into skin, teeth tore through muscle and flesh, a sacrifice ensuring only a view ever so vivid. 

Jaws that twisted and churned through skin and limb, shredding the bone I myself had thrown it. Claws playing ribs, a mad hunt for something just out of its reach. 

Pain only numbed by a desperate effort to gain some grip, some shallow hold as my life slipped away from me. 

I kicked and writhe, screamed and floundered with my desperate limb, trying but failing to get it off me.

Glowing red eyes glaring at mine, judging… waiting—eyes glazed with a sadistic gleam as its claws latched under my ribs.

Though at that bleak moment, the lowest tone in a grand finale that would—one way or another—finally put an end to this horrid show. A ray of hope shone through the darkness that threatened to swallow me, a glaring weakness in the bindings that tore me to pieces. 

And so, driven by dread and despair, I—for the first time in my life—reached for brighter light, a better future at last… 

And clamped down hard. 

Two sacks of liquid gave way, popping and leaking, empty of the twisted sense of joy that had filled them.

The monster screeched.

Teeth dismissed limb, claws released ribs, hurling rage-fueled slashes at the one who had blinded it.

Alas, my grasp of the light a bit soft, the monster's razor-sharp claws already reaching for my throat, its move only just slightly off course.

I didn’t feel the pain though, didn’t feel the claws as they tore across my face. Only noticing something was so, so terribly wrong when half my vision suddenly went up in smoke.

I kicked and screamed, cried and writhe, my mind drawing blank even as one of my kicks hit.

I merely crawled away in the opportune moment I unknowingly created, my hand instinctively reaching for that which it had stolen from me. 

But hurt, it did not—not then, not ever; not like that.

In the end, a shrill scream is all that left me, unable, uncaring for what I truly felt—a mere vocal guise for the immense horror chocking me out. 

My heart thundered against my broken chest, pounding at my head over and over again. Crimson red leaking through my shivering hold, trailing alongst hand and limb, trickling from hair and finger…

All the way down to the sterile-looking floor. 

The rumbling rhythm joined only by that of my rasp, irregular breathing. A grand collaborated effort hollering over reason, over the fleeting thing which had failed me. And in between that despairing melody—a piece o so miserable—sounded the monsters' tormented screeching… 

It called to me.

Its suffering had bled through the rhythm… changing it, the sound too different, furious when I gazed all but distant, disoriented when I just beheld its hazy figure. Its pain enraged it, whereas mine was numbed by the horror my injury instilled into me.

Aimless when mine contained a newfound purpose.

Like always I didn’t know I made an irrecoverable decision until it was too late. Didn’t stop myself when I noticed I ran, didn’t kick in the breaks when I realized I wasn’t running away.

If only that were the case.

So focused on its pain, its boiling fury and rage, my clamant steps went disregarded entirely, my suicidal behaviour overlooked in favour of its own grievous injuries. It didn’t know what was about to hit it… until I had already done so.

Bone met bone, one backed up by reckless speed and desperation, the other… not so much.

It didn’t screech, didn't squeal—not this time, this time it cried out, the horrid sound grating over the walls. Its jaw loosely hanging about, teeth painted a familiar bloody colour. Its pair of red jewels, long gone and replaced with crimson tears, a hollow yet hate-filled gaze—waiting… judging.

I didn’t care though. To me, the monster's pain-filled performance simply acted as proof that I very much hurt it.

I simply kicked once more, a scream tearing itself free from my throat. 

Alas, its neck had yet to snap, its nightmarish existence yet to end. Crude slashes thrown here and there, protesting its fate only by way of its weakened screeches. Its final stand, a pathetic resistance offered to me wholly sightless.

A mistake that ushered another kick to thoroughly shatter whatever fragment of its skull was somehow still intact.

The horrid figure sailed through the air, its pained cries echoing through the chamber, silenced only by the jubilant shouts reverberating from the glass walls.

Spikes of pain crippling my lungs, naked feet slapping on the cold sterile floor.

Still, I followed.

And there it laid—not even five steps off, broken and shaking, seemingly aware of the cold about to take it. Jagged teeth and claw, an abyssal gaze reflecting nothing but loathing and disdain; a pure hatred for the one about to take everything away.

It tried though.

Muscles strained and twitched, tearing at the broken things still holding it—a low growl escaping its broken jaw. A final act of defiance, standing as if to reject the loss of a supposedly straightforward victory.

And I… I just kicked.

Sliding over the sterile-looking floor the monster’s growl turned silent, its life extended solely by the distance I would need to walk towards it.

Sadly, I never saw its eyes, never was able to witness what would have flashed through them as I stomped down for one last time.

A nauseating crunch reverberated through the room, a horrid amalgamation of flesh and bone parting as if to allow a conclusion to finally put an ending to this dreadful show. 

So I just stood there, alone at last.

And over the rejoicing crowd, over the grating sound of my irregular breathing, the pressure returned, guiding my actions once more.

I could do nought but follow.

Red prints trailed after my steps; reflections of an act, of phantom memories painting the part of myself I left there.

I didn’t know I lived until the rain started again, didn’t know I actually lost until my reflection told me so.

If only the light hadn’t blinded me as it had.

If only I died like I should have.