"Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty."
Arthur's arms locked out at the top of his final push-up. His breath came slow and even as he rose from the cold prison ground, muscles tense but composed...
Here's a rewritten version with tighter prose, stronger mood, and more vivid detail:
Rewritten Scene 1:
"Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty."
Azriel locked out his arms at the top of his final push-up, holding the position for a beat longer than necessary. Not from pride—just control. He rose from the cold stone floor in a single smooth motion, his bare feet grinding against the brittle crunch of broken bone and old dust. The cell reeked of mold, sweat, and dried blood. He barely noticed.
Five days in solitary.
Two meals.
No light except the faint blue flicker of distant mana crystals.
And he was thriving.
His lean frame, stripped of anything soft, was all sharp muscle and coiled strength. Sweat clung to his wild black hair, dripping down his spine. His golden eyes burned faintly in the dark, not dulled by exhaustion, but sharpened by something else.
Something deeper.
They thought this hole would break him.
Instead, it was feeding him.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Heavy. Familiar.
Azriel's lips curled.
"Jeffrey! You're back. You shouldn't have."
The guard paused at the cell door, face twisting into the usual scowl. "That's not my name, freak."
"I know," Azriel said, stretching his arms lazily. "But it suits you. Adds character. You never gave me your real one, so I had to improvise. Relationships are built on honesty, you know."
The guard's glare sharpened. "The only thing you're building is a hole in the ground."
Azriel stepped forward, just close enough to the bars to be irritating. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
With a snarl, the guard hurled the food bowl at the bars. It bounced, flipped, and landed upside-down—spilling a lukewarm mass of sludge onto the dirt.
Azriel looked at the mess, then at the guard.
"Presentation's still lacking, Jeff. But I appreciate the effort."
"Rot in here, beast."
"I'll miss you too."
The guard's footsteps faded, replaced by silence.
Azriel crouched beside the food his creepy smile slowly fading, picking at it with two fingers, then sighed.
"Status."
The slave barracks slumbered under silence, lit only by the faint hum of dying mana crystals embedded in the stone walls. Pale blue light seeped through narrow windows, casting prison bars of shadow across sleeping bodies.
Most of the girls were curled beneath threadbare blankets—if they had one—limbs drawn in tight from exhaustion and cold. Their breathing was shallow, twitchy. Dreams laced with fear.
But not one.
She sat upright in the farthest corner, back to the wall, legs crossed, eyes open.
Awake.
Always awake.
Her creamy white hair shimmered faintly in the gloom, and her pink eyes glowed like twin embers under snow. Calm. Focused. Dangerous.
Her fingers moved in slow, deliberate patterns across the dusty stone floor—tracing ancient sigils with the grace of someone born to secrets. Shadows answered her call, sliding toward her like wolves to a queen. They pooled at her feet, a liquid void that shimmered without light.
"Form," she whispered.
The shadows rose. Fluid. Silent. A silhouette bloomed from the pool—her exact shape, down to the curl of her lips and the droop of her lashes. The copy opened its eyes—identical, pink, and glowing.
"Don't talk. Don't move unless they call you. Look tired. Half-dead. Convincing."
The doppelgänger nodded.
Olivia smirked. "Good girl."
With a practiced breath, she pressed her hand into the cot's shadow. Her body melted into the dark, vanishing like a wisp of smoke into a breeze.
She emerged in the hallway a breath later—silent, formless, weightless.
The world outside her cell was darker, colder. Two guards stood at the end of the corridor, murmuring about something pointless. One yawned. The other scratched at his boot.
She didn't hesitate.
A single breath. A flick of her wrist.
And she was gone again, slipping between shadows like a ghost with purpose.
Left past the armory. Right through the supply closet no one checked anymore. Down the winding corridor that stank of mildew and magic.
To solitary.
To him.
A breath of cold air brushed the corridor, but Azriel didn't flinch.
He sat cross-legged in his cell, shirtless, eyes half-lidded, golden irises glinting under flickering torchlight. The cold stone pressed against his spine, but he barely noticed. His thoughts wandered somewhere far beyond the prison walls—until a voice curled out from the darkness.
"Hey, beast boy."
He didn't move.
"Took you long enough," he said, tone casual but low, almost amused. "Let me guess. Your reflection refused to cooperate again?"
From the shadows, Olivia stepped forward—creamy white hair tumbling over her shoulders like moonlight, a half-smirk already forming.
"You know, if you keep skipping meals to sneak into solitary, you're going to end up a skeleton. And as much as I appreciate skeletons, they don't usually have such pretty eyes."
Olivia rolled her glowing eyes. "Please. Even as a skeleton, I'd still outshine every miserable soul in this dungeon."
Azriel chuckled. "You'd be a very fashionable skeleton. Might distract the guards long enough for me to finally get some decent food."
She leaned against the bars, arms folded, her presence both casual and calculated. The ragged prisoner's robe she wore didn't dim her aura. If anything, it made her look like royalty hiding in plain sight.
"Crappy personality aside," she said with mock sweetness, "I am delightful. You're just blind."
"Blind? You're the one visiting me in the middle of the night. If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone's catching feelings."
"Tch. Don't flatter yourself, furball."
He smirked, pushing himself to his feet with slow, fluid ease. "So... what's the real reason? You miss me?"
Olivia tossed him half a crusty piece of bread through the bars. "I came to tell you something. A plan."
Azriel caught the bread, biting into it like it was a royal feast. "A plan, huh? What kind? The 'barely survive and escape bleeding' kind, or the 'die beautifully in a blaze of glory' kind?"
She crouched beside the bars, pink eyes narrowing. "Neither. It's better."
He studied her face. She wasn't grinning this time. She was serious.
"Alright," he said finally. "Let's hear it."
Olivia leaned in. She whispered the details—fast, sharp, confident. When she pulled back, his expression had shifted.
Azriel blinked. Then frowned.
"You're insane."
She smiled. "That's the charm."
He sighed, brushing dust from his pants, and leaned back against the wall. "We'll be lucky if we survive five minutes."
"We'll be free," she said, already turning to go. Her body blurred at the edges, fading into the darkness like smoke into fog.
"Hey—Olivia," he called, just as she reached the edge of the shadows.
She paused. "Yeah?"
He tilted his head. "Why are you here? I mean really. You don't look like the rest of the dark elves."
A beat of silence.
"My father was a vampire," she said quietly. "My mother... a high elf. Neither side took it well."
His eyes lingered on her for a moment longer. "Yeah," he murmured. "That explains a lot."
She smiled faintly—and then vanished, swallowed whole by the dark.
Azriel leaned his head back, staring at the cracked ceiling above.
"A vampire and an elf," he whispered. "That's one hell of a cocktail."
He closed his eyes, a grin tugging at his lips.
"But it still doesn't explain how she looks better than me when am so god damn handsome. Dammit."
And for the first time in days, the cell didn't feel so empty.