They call it the Arena of the Fallen. But we’re not fallen heroes. We’re just the desperate, the damned, and the defeated, forced into this spectacle for reasons beyond our control. My name is Jones, though here, names are as disposable as the lives we lead—just another thing to strip away when you’re thrown into the blood and dust.

The arena wasn’t my dream. It was my last resort. When you grow up with nothing, in a world where the rich feast and the poor starve, you learn to survive on whatever scraps you can scavenge. My family clung to hope, tried to fight the rot, but hope doesn’t fill an empty stomach. After they were gone, all I had left was the will to survive. The arena became my only option, a brutal gamble to keep breathing a little longer.

The first time I stepped into this pit, I thought I understood fear. I’d faced hunger, loss, the cold uncertainty of whether I’d see another dawn. But the arena introduced me to a new kind of terror—the kind that gnaws at your soul as the crowd roars, eager for your death. They don’t let us die for good. The magic here ensures we respawn, ready to fight again, and again, and again. It’s a twisted joke—dying over and over, feeling every ounce of pain, knowing there’s no escape.

I’m not a hero. I’ve done things in this arena that haunt me—killed men and women who were just trying to survive, same as me. Each death leaves a scar, not on my body but on my soul. And I’m not sure how many more I can bear before I lose what little humanity I have left.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

But the longer I stay here, the more I see the cracks in this system, the way the regime feeds on our suffering to keep the rest of the world in line. They broadcast our fights, turn our pain into a spectacle. And the people eat it up, too afraid or too numb to see the truth—that we’re just distractions, keeping them blind to their own chains.

Something inside me is shifting. The violence, the blood—it’s still there, but now it feels like something more, like a spark, a pull towards something bigger than just survival. Maybe it’s the whispers I hear in the dark—rumors of rebellion, of fighters who want more than just another round in the arena. Or maybe it’s the weight of all the lives I’ve taken, pressing down on me until I can’t stand it anymore.

There’s a war coming. I can feel it in my bones, in the way the other fighters look at me now, like they’re waiting for something. Maybe I’m waiting too, for the moment when I stop being a pawn and start playing the game on my own terms.

For now, I’m still here, still fighting, still surviving. But something’s going to break. It has to. And when it does, the arena won’t just be a place of death and despair—it’ll be the place where everything changes. And I’ll be ready, even if it kills me for good this time. Because I’m Jones, and I’m done just surviving. It’s time to fight for something more.