Igor came to with a groan, slumped sideways in what felt like a coffin built for humiliation. Every muscle in his body protested as he shifted, burning aches in his spine, a fiery pinch in his neck, and the leftover sting of whatever drug they'd stuck him with still humming under his skin.
He sat up slowly, bracing one hand against the wall to stop the vertigo. The room was small. Cramped, really: barely enough space to stretch his legs. No windows. No visible cameras, but he felt watched. The air was stale, dry, tinged with something metallic and sterile, like a clinic someone had tried to scrub clean of screams.
He took a shaky breath. Rubbed his neck. The injection site was still tender, and he winced.
The only light came from a faint set of LED strips outlining the door. Barely enough to see. He stood anyway, unsteady on his feet, and ran his fingers along the wall like he might find a seam, a handle, some secret button that would let him out.
Nothing.
No handle. No panel. Just a smooth, cold surface.
A chill worked its way up his spine.
Then, tick.
A light clicked on overhead, buzzing faintly, flooding the small room with weak white light. It was the kind of light that made everything look wrong. Skin too pale, shadows too sharp.
Tick.
A screen blinked to life on the far side of the room.
It cast a sterile glow over a single chair. The desk was bolted to the floor. On top: a set of headphones. Sleek. Black. Waiting.
Igor stared at it, chest tight.
Then came the voice. Not a person's voice, a mechanical one. Smooth, hollow, too rehearsed to be real.
"Hello, Subject Eight. Please put on the headphones."
He didn't move.
"Otherwise," the voice continued, "suffer the consequences."
Igor's eyes narrowed. "What consequences?"
The pause was long enough to feel personal.
"Death."
The voice was calm. Too calm. Not soothing, final. Like a judge slamming the gavel down on a sentence already decided.
There was no room to argue. No dramatic escape route. Just walls, steel, and silence. Igor's fists clenched at his sides, nails digging into his palms, but he didn't scream. Didn't lash out.
What was the point?
No weapons. No windows. Just that unblinking screen and the ghost voice ordering him to kneel.
With a breath that felt like swallowing glass, Igor stepped forward and sat. The chair was cold. Too snug. He slid the headphones over his ears.
Click.
Instant activation.
The computer whirred to life, and the assault began.
Images. Blinding. Fast. Violent. A kaleidoscope of nightmares: faces he didn't recognize, symbols that hurt to look at, places that felt wrong, out of time, stitched into memory like shrapnel. It felt like drowning inside his head.
"You will obey," the voice whispered. "Obey the angels."
The tone wasn't harsh. That was the worst part; it was soft, warm, and even. Like a mother singing a lullaby. But it slithered inside his skull like an oil-slicked worm.
He tried to pull the headphones off, but they tightened.
Tighter.
The chair locked down around his limbs. Straps he hadn't noticed before snapped across his wrists, ankles, and wings. His chest seized. His pulse thundered.
He wasn't just being restrained.
He was being reprogrammed.
The voice pulsed in his ears in rhythm with the flashing screen. His thoughts blurred. Panic boiled in his gut, but his mind? His mind felt like it had been silenced.
Too quiet.
His thoughts became chains, and light became pain.
Igor sank and fell unconscious.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
When he woke again, he was moving. Dragged. His boots scraped over grated metal. Cold hands, inhumanly smooth, gripped his arms.
His body hung heavy, muscles slack.
Beside him, Tak was being hauled too. Blank-faced. Eyes half-lidded. Whatever had happened in his cubicle had taken the fight out of him, too.
Neither of them spoke.
They passed under a colossal gate into a steel arena. The structure was inhumanly massive, towering walls like a cage built for titans, crowned in razor wire.
The overhead floodlights blazed with white fire, exposing every scar, stain, and smear across the metal.
Chains clanked in the distance. Something howled.
The smell hit next: rusted iron, sweat, old blood.
They stopped at the center.
A new voice boomed overhead, booming from all directions.
"Subject Eight and Subject Nine. Kill each other."
No preamble. No warning. Just a command.
"It is kill or be killed."
Igor's hands twitched.
The collar was gone.
The restraints on his wings, released.
In front of him, on the floor, rested a weapon: a massive, curved sword. Blackened steel, edges serrated. Poison gleamed on the tip.
He reached for it, barely thinking.
Beside him, Tak stumbled forward, kneeling beside a weapon of his own—a scythe with a jagged edge like a serpent's jaw. Lighter. Faster.
They locked eyes.
The flicker of recognition was still there. Somebody's home.
Igor's senses were submerged in a storm of static and flickering images, the world around him dissolving into a blur.
The command was buried deep, threaded into his nervous system, but there were cracks. In the spaces between the flashes, clarity would flicker, brief and fragile, like sparks in the dark. For a second, he could hear his breath. Feel his pulse. Then the voice returned, deep and insistent, swallowing him whole.
Obey. Fight.
When the order came, his body moved before thought could catch up. The sword felt wrong in his grip, heavy, alien. Like it belonged to someone else. But for a single, precious moment, the fog lifted. His mind cleared just enough to see Tak charging at him, scythe raised.
No.
Stop.
This isn't me…
But the thought was crushed, smothered beneath the voice pulsing in his skull.
"Obey. Fight."
His arms obeyed. The sword swung with deadly force, driven by a will that wasn't his own.
And just before the blades clashed, steel against steel, Igor caught a glimpse of Tak's face.
Cold. Lifeless.
And for one heartbeat, the guilt surged like a scream in his chest.
Igor stopped his sword.
He almost broke himself free of their mind control by sheer willpower.
Then a voice commanded him over the intercom.
A crisp command, filtered through static, clinical, and cold:
"Execute. Do not hesitate."
The words hit like a neural shock.
Igor lurched forward, body jerking before his mind could catch up. Each syllable cut deeper than bone. The voice hadn't come from inside his head, but it had still controlled him. Like a puppeteer tugging strings he didn't know he had.
Tak lunged first, scythe slicing through the air in a blur of silver.
Igor twisted, narrowly avoiding the blade. His wings, wings he hadn't been able to use in what felt like years, flared wide.
Without conscious thought, he launched himself upward, spiraling toward the ceiling of the cage. Then, upside down, he kicked off the metal rafters and rocketed downward.
His sword pointed straight at Tak.
Tak reacted too slowly. He surged forward, trying to intercept, but it wasn't enough.
Steel met skull.
The impact was sickening. Bone crunched. Blood sprayed.
Red bloomed in the air like a rose in fast-forward.
Tak's body seized midair, then dropped like a stone, smashing against the ground with a gut-wrenching splat.
Igor landed gently. A predator descends after the kill. His face, his chest, his arms, painted in blood.
And the floor, wet beneath Igor's knees. Blood pooled, slick and hot, soaking into the threads of his gloves. He could smell it. Metallic and thick. The overhead lights buzzed louder, their white glare burning into his eyes.
Then, as suddenly as he had fought, his body collapsed. His mind sank back into blackness. A marionette with its strings cut.