Darkness swallowed them. Not the soft kind that comes with nightfall, but a suffocating, absolute black—the kind that feels alive, like it's pressing in from all sides.
Ethan could hear breathing. Panting. Whimpering. A woman was sobbing somewhere to his right. Someone else muttered prayers under their breath. The platform had stopped descending. They were no longer falling.
The silence didn't last long.
Click.Dim lights buzzed to life along the edges of the arena. A faint green glow revealed the layout of the chamber: a jungle. Artificial but vast, dense, and humid. Towering trees reached upward, their trunks wrapped in thick vines. The air was heavy with the scent of damp earth and synthetic moss. Some of the vegetation looked real. Some didn't.
But everything about it felt wrong.
Like a trap disguised as nature.
Ethan's eyes adjusted quickly. Around him, the other 99 contestants were scattered in loose groups. Some clung to one another. Some already moved toward the jungle, searching for weapons, hiding places—answers.
A loudspeaker crackled overhead.
"Welcome to Zone 4," Mr. V's voice rang with amusement. "Your challenge is simple. One beast. One hundred of you. Defeat the beast before it defeats all of you. No exits. No mercy. No second chances. Good luck."
Then silence again.
That's when the ground shook.
Not violently—but enough for everyone to feel it. A dull thoom. Then another.
People froze.
Another thoom.
A man near the edge of the tree line turned his head just in time to see it.
A gorilla.
No, not a gorilla. Something more. Something worse.
It burst from the underbrush with terrifying speed and fury—at least ten feet tall, built like a machine forged from flesh and rage. Its fur was black as tar, matted with mud and streaks of dried blood. One of its arms was wrapped in what looked like reinforced metal plating. Its eyes glowed faintly red under the stadium lights.
Someone screamed.
The beast answered with a roar that rattled bones and sent birds scattering into the canopy above.
Then chaos exploded.
People scattered. Screams filled the air as the gorilla launched into the crowd with terrifying speed. A man tried to run and was caught mid-stride—lifted into the air and smashed into the ground with sickening force. His body crumpled, limp and broken.
Blood sprayed across the leaves.
Ethan ducked behind a thick tree trunk, heart pounding in his ears. His breathing was ragged. He hadn't moved like this since—hell, ever. He'd never been in a real fight, let alone a battle for his life against a monster.
He peeked around the tree.
The beast had already killed three more.
It wasn't just strong—it was smart. It moved with purpose, targeting the loudest, the most obvious. It was thinning the herd.
"Move!" someone shouted. "Scatter! Don't group up!"
A group of five sprinted deeper into the jungle. The gorilla ignored them—too focused on a cluster trying to climb one of the trees.
It leapt.
The entire trunk shook from the force of its impact. Two people fell. One didn't move.
Ethan stumbled through the underbrush, weaving through thorns and low branches. He didn't have a plan. He just knew he couldn't outrun it for long.
Then something caught his eye—a glint.
Metal.
Half-buried beneath the roots of a twisted tree was a machete. Old, rusted, but solid. He dropped to his knees and dug it free, cutting his hand on a shard of rock in the process. Pain flared, but he didn't care. He had a weapon now. Primitive, but better than nothing.
Someone was crying nearby.
He crept toward the sound.
A girl—maybe eighteen, covered in mud and leaves—was curled in the brush, clutching a piece of broken glass like a knife. She looked up at him, eyes wild.
"Get back!"
"I'm not gonna hurt you," Ethan said quickly, raising his hands. "We need to find cover. And weapons. Do you know if there's more?"
She shook her head, trembling. "It—it killed my brother. It just ripped him in half…"
Ethan's jaw clenched. He reached into his hoodie pocket and tore the sleeve from his already-ruined shirt, offering it.
"Wrap your hand. That glass'll cut you. Stay low. Move with me."
She stared at him like he was crazy.
"Move… where?"
"We're not going to kill it. But we can outthink it."
They moved.
Together, they pushed through the brush, keeping low. Behind them, the screams continued. Occasionally, there were shouts—people organizing. Someone must've found a crowbar or a pipe, maybe more machetes.
Clang.A deep metallic crash rang out.
Ethan looked back.
Five people had built a makeshift trap—a pit camouflaged with branches. But the gorilla had dodged it. One man lunged with a spear. The beast grabbed it mid-air, snapped it like a twig, and hurled the man against a tree so hard his spine shattered with an audible crack.
"We can't beat it head-on," Ethan muttered. "We need to control the fight."
The girl—Jade, she said her name was—pointed to a thicket of thorns.
"There's a fallen tree past that—it's hollow. We could lure it there."
Ethan's brain clicked into motion. He began calculating angles, terrain, distance.
"We need a fire," he said. "Smoke. Something to draw it."
Others emerged from the foliage nearby. A tall man with a shaved head and a blood-streaked face. A woman in torn leggings, holding a piece of pipe like a club.
They'd all come to the same conclusion: hiding wouldn't save them. Only fighting smart would.
✦✦✦
Over the next twenty minutes, Ethan found himself taking command.
Not because he wanted to. But because no one else did.
They set traps—trip wires made from vines, spiked branches, sharpened sticks buried in shallow pits.
They doused leaves in alcohol from a broken crate labeled "emergency supplies," then lit them when the beast drew near. The smoke rose thick and acrid. The gorilla snarled and flailed, confused—but not stopped.
Then they led it.
Step by step.
Toward the hollow tree.
Ethan was bait.
He ran full tilt, arms pumping, chest burning, heart ready to explode. The gorilla chased him, howling.
He dove into the hollow, rolled, and shouted:
"NOW!"
Three people jumped from the branches above, stabbing, swinging, screaming. The beast thrashed, and the hollow began to collapse. The tree fell, pinning part of its body.
That gave them the opening they needed.
A spike to the throat. A blade to the eye. A pipe through the ribs.
The beast let out one last roar—deafening and angry—and fell still.
The arena was silent.
Breathless.
Half the group had died. But Ethan's group had survived.
The lights flickered overhead.
The screen came to life again.
Mr. V's face beamed.
"Well done, Zone 4! A little rough around the edges, but oh so entertaining. Seventeen of you remain. I wonder… how many will make it through the next round?"
The screen flicked off.
The ground shifted again.
Doors opened at the far end of the jungle.
Ethan looked around at the survivors. Bloodied, exhausted, broken.
This was only Round One.
And the real game had just begun.