The third strike didn't just dent the box. It blew it apart.
Sound slammed through the cavern like rolling thunder trapped in metal. Shards of steel burst outward. Dust shot up in choking grey plumes. The chained people inside were tossed together in a bruised, tangled pile. Jyoti flinched and pressed herself deeper into the rubble. Jagged scraps stabbed into her back, but she didn't move. The air was thick with the stink of blood and rust. Something older hung beneath it, like rot sealed away for years.
The largest beast stepped forward. Its claws scraped over the shredded metal in slow, deliberate strokes. The noise dragged on as if the creature wanted fear itself to linger. Behind it, the two smaller beasts paced in tight circles. They snapped at the air and moved like starved dogs that knew only the taste of flesh. The crushed box sagged under their weight. It groaned as if it still remembered the shape it once had. Inside, chains rattled weakly. Shallow breaths and fading gasps were the only signs of life.
Then she saw him.
The boy rose from the wreckage. He was taller than the others and frighteningly thin. His pale skin almost blended with the torn steel around him. No real light existed in this place, yet his silver hair caught what little there was. It gave him a faint, ghostlike outline. The others barely moved. Their bodies hung limp, eyes hollow and limbs shaking from hunger. Their wrists were rubbed raw where the chains had sliced into them.
But he stood steady.
He didn't beg. He didn't cry. He didn't even shake. Instead, he slipped behind the dying bodies and hid himself from the towering beast's direct line of sight. Every strike the creature landed tore through steel and flesh. The floor trembled with each blow. It was brutal and desperate, but it kept him alive. Jyoti felt something cold settle inside her as she watched. She didn't blame him. This place carved softness out of people.
But the next moments pushed even her hardened understanding to its edge. The bodies around him weren't just shields anymore—they were breaking, collapsing under each blow like fragile sacks of bone. Every strike from the alpha crushed someone else. Limbs twisted at wrong angles, ribs cracked like dry sticks, and the dull thud of bodies hitting metal echoed through the cavern.
He moved with a terrifying precision. He shifted just enough for the dying to take the full force meant for him. His chain‑bound arms tugged their slack bodies into place. Each motion was small and sharp. Each one showed how practiced desperation could become. Not once did he hesitate. Not once did he check if they were breathing.
With her sharpened vision, Jyoti saw everything—the way his eyes stayed blank, the way he calculated each shift, the way not a flicker of remorse crossed his face. Survival was all he cared about. Yet watching it felt like swallowing something heavy and sour. She knew he wasn't wrong to do it. She knew she would've died in his place. But the ease with which he used the dying as armor unsettled her in a way the beasts never had.
Another heavy blow hit. Metal screamed. The last of the box's structure failed. The boy dropped to his knees, still half‑chained. He didn't pause. He didn't even check the space around him.
He gripped the chain threaded through the heap of bodies—what was left of them. They weren't bodies anymore, not really. They were pulp, shattered bone and torn flesh mashed together by the alpha's relentless strikes. The chain was wedged deep inside that ruined mess, slick with blood and fragments. Every pull sent wet, sickening sounds through the air as flesh tore, as bone scraped, as whatever still held form collapsed further.
He leaned back and yanked with everything he had. His arms shook. Tendons stood out like cords. The chain didn't budge at first. The dead weight clung to it, fused together by violence. He pulled again—harder. A sharp crack came not from the metal, but from him. His thumbs snapped under the torque, but he didn't stop. He kept pulling until the chain finally ripped free from the mangled mass with a brutal, tearing jolt.
Blood poured from his hands, but his expression never changed. His breath only grew rougher, tighter, more driven.
He grabbed the long chain tangled through the bodies. Each yank tore it loose with a loud metallic clank. The sound echoed across the cavern and bounced off the unseen walls.
The alpha beast lifted its head.
The boy twisted the chain around his arm, the links slick with blood and clogged with scraps of torn flesh, and though the steel bit deep into his shredded skin he didn't react; instead, with a sharp, vicious flick, he whipped the gore‑soaked length forward, the metal hissing through the air as he brought it down across the beast's massive eyes, the chain cutting through the slick surface in a brutal, wet slice that sent the alpha rearing back with a furious roar that shook dust from the ceiling.
That was his moment.
He ran.
The chain dragged behind him and sparked when it scraped the stone. His thin body darted through the debris with speed that didn't match someone half‑broken by hunger. He weaved through broken beams and jumped over scattered pipes. He slid under half‑melted grates. The smaller beasts lunged after him. Their claws pounded against the metal floor.
Jyoti moved too. She stayed quiet and crouched, hidden in the shadow. Her eyes stayed locked on him. The cavern filled with noise. Claws scraped steel. Pipes trembled. Old machinery hummed somewhere deep in the dark. Iron dust drifted through the air. When it settled on her tongue, it tasted like ash.
The boy stumbled near a fallen grate but caught himself. His breath came sharp and uneven. Sweat cut pale lines through the dirt on his face. Blood dripped steadily from his wrist and left a dark trail behind him. He clutched the chain like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
The beasts slowed. Their noses twitched as they tried to track him through the stirred dust. Their low growls rolled across the cavern.
Jyoti didn't blink.
Her fingers tightened around a jagged piece of metal. She stayed curled deep in the rubble. Even in the darkness, the boy carried a faint silver glow. It was soft and subtle. Something about it tugged at her senses. It wasn't fear. It wasn't pity. It was something sharper.
The cavern seemed to hold its breath.
The boy leaned against an old pipe. His chest rose and fell with fast, uneven breaths. His silver hair glimmered faintly and gave him a strange calmness in a place that smothered hope.
Jyoti felt her heartbeat quicken. She counted his breaths. She counted the distance between them. She counted the rhythm of the beasts pacing just out of sight.
Then she spoke.
Her voice was low but alarming.
"Come this way."
The boy froze. The beasts fell silent. Even the dust seemed to stop moving.
It seemed as the flow of time had stopped for a moment to look at this turn of fate.