Arlo's stomach lurched as the floor gave way beneath him.
The sensation should have been terrifying, the kind that stole breath from lungs and tore a scream straight from the throat, but instead—Arlo found himself laughing under his breath.
Not out loud, not enough for the void to hear, but inside, a low chuckle reverberated against his ribs.
"Of course," he muttered to no one. "Should've known she wouldn't play fair."
The memory of Charlotte's sly smile lingered sharp as glass.
He had let his guard slip around her, let himself forget what she was. Clever, dangerous, always holding cards he didn't even know were in the deck. And he—idiot that he was—had grown comfortable.
Now he was plummeting into pitch-black nothingness, the weightless freefall stretching on and on.
And strangest of all—he wasn't afraid.
The old Arlo, the one who sat in classrooms with eyes glazed over, the one who clutched at certainty like a lifeline, would've been scrambling in terror right now.
He would've clawed at the air, screamed until his voice cracked, prayed desperately for something—anything—to break the fall.
But this Arlo? The one forged from blood, from awakening, from Charlotte's trick?
He wasn't panicked.
He was thrumming.
Excitement lit his chest like wildfire, burning down any hint of fear.
His heart beat fast, not from terror, but exhilaration.
Each pulse sent a rush of raw power through his veins, hot and heavy, so intoxicating he almost wanted to close his eyes and bask in it. The fall wasn't a threat—it was a test, and something inside him screamed to see what came next.
Was it arrogance? Ego? Pride? The words blurred together.
All Arlo knew was that he had never felt so alive, so sure of himself, so eager.
He had no training, no combat knowledge, not even the faintest clue how to fight his way out of a paper bag—but with this strength coursing through him? He didn't care.
He welcomed whatever waited below.
At first, there was only black.
The kind of black that wasn't absence of light but a weight pressing on the eyes. His ears filled with the rush of wind, a low howl that bounced off unseen walls.
Then—something shifted. A faint glow bled upward through the void, pale as a dying torch.
Arlo narrowed his eyes.
The walls around him came into focus.
He was falling through a shaft, a pit carved—or perhaps born—from stone.
The rock wasn't smooth but jagged, cruel, like broken teeth gnashing inward. Surfaces twisted and jutted at odd angles, ridges sharp enough to flay skin from bone if one were unlucky enough to brush against them mid-fall.
And jutting from those ragged walls were platforms.
At first, Arlo thought they were accidents of stone, random ledges left by time.
But the longer he looked, the clearer it became: they were intentional. Carved. Extended. Built to hold.
Some were small enough for a handful of people.
Others sprawled wide, vast enough for a gathering of a hundred or more.
Dozens of them dotted the descent, scattered at uneven intervals, circling the pit in no neat pattern. Some glimmered faintly with light—torches, fires, something alive down there—while others were dark, silent and waiting.
And from those depths rose noise.
Low murmurs.
The scrape of metal dragging across stone. A laugh carried upward, harsh and broken. Chains rattled somewhere far below, a whisper of sound that coiled in the air.
Arlo's lips curled.
"So that's what you've thrown me into, Charlotte."
He angled his body, testing his control.
The shift was effortless—like his limbs remembered what his mind had never learned. He twisted midair, slowed his descent with a movement that felt instinctive, then let gravity pull again.
Another ledge passed him by. Then another. Then another.
Finally, he spotted one large enough to land on without risking bouncing clean off the edge. A platform sprawling outward, long and flat, shadows pooling thick on its surface.
Arlo smirked.
"Let's try this out."
He adjusted, tucked his legs, and drove himself down.
The landing wasn't quiet.
He hit stone with the force of a hammer blow, knees bending with ease his old body never had.
The platform shuddered, cracks webbing out beneath his boots, fragments of rock skittering into the abyss.
For a moment, Arlo just stood there.
The ledge was bigger than he thought. What had seemed like space for "a couple dozen" easily stretched enough for a hundred people. He glanced upward—he hadn't fallen far, not yet. A handful of platforms above, most of them empty, silent, as if holding their breath.
The pit still yawned below, deeper than his eyes could pierce.
He rolled his shoulders.
He didn't feel any pain or ache. Just strength humming through every muscle.
Confidence—no, pride—swelled inside him.
He was about to move, to test the platform's edges, maybe even look for a way down, when a sound pricked his ears.
A Soft subtle whisper.
"Well, well, well…"
Arlo froze.
Chains rattled behind him, the clinking sound carrying like laughter.
"What do we have here? Fresh meat… this early in the season?"
The words slithered through the shadows, curling around him, heavy with amusement and hunger.
Arlo turned slowly.
And in the dark, shapes began to stir.