Oracion's POV

Each day I wake up with my wounds barely closed or finding new ones formed along my skin. Every night I toss and turn my bruises along this stone, digging in dirt and rubble further into my blood. And every possible hour I use the light of the moon to read Xandier's book.

"I know not the reason for why it's coming to me in pieces...but what I do know is that they weren't here." I read out loud to myself.

"What do you think that means?" Aeron's voice begins to think for me as if he was in the room alongside me.

"He's using 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 as some anonymous thing for someone, so who knows." I give up already, not wanting to bother with that line.

Aeron kisses his teeth, just his foot barely in my vision but even without looking at his face I know he's smiling, "They don't know who they are, they don't even know that they're doing it-"

"Thoughts?" Aeron interrupts me.

"Shut up I'm not even finished." I silence him, "Someone who has no right to be, they who shouldn't be, but is. Always there without a how or why, never questioned but always answered. That is the Regulator."

A silence falls in the room as I wait for him to speak, "You can say it now." I tell him.

His chest releases air as if he's been holding his breath the entire time, "Thoughts?" He repeats from earlier.

I sigh at his childishness before answering, "Someone who has no right to be." I repeat.

"Yeah but who is it?" He interrupts again.

"You have no right to be such an intrusive bitch in this moment, let me speak." I argue.

"My bad." He responds with a hint of guilt.

"Someone...-wait do you think he's saying 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 in order to be cryptic or does he literally mean multiple." I conclude.

"Well damn, you've just made a fucky wucky, opened up a rabbit hole and swan dove in, huh Alice?" He giggles to himself.

I stand up to go hit him, "Shut-" I raise my hand but a knock at my door alerts me.

"Oracion...who are you talking to?" Clementine asks.

I look around the room with my raised arm, noticing the outline of his body and the trace of emerald eyes have already left the space, leaving me alone once again.

"Nobody, why are you here?" I ask as it's unusual for her.

"It's...my dad. I heard him." She informs me.

She said her mother and father got taken into the castle a while ago and judging by her voice, she's not been here long. "Where was he?"

"It was one of these rooms, not too far from you but it's in a place I'm sure you haven't been to before." She sounds discouraged.

I told her I'd help to see if I could possibly find him while I was dragged along but asking to go out of my routine..."Please." She begs. I look around my room, inhaling the cold air and in all honesty regretting even talking to her. "I-can help." She offers.

"I-" I attempt to speak but someone announces themselves first.

"Clementine, why are you here?" A guard comes just barely out the view of the door.

"Did Eragon send you down here!?" She yells at him.

"I'm going to have some fun with him while Noah's out, that okay?" He asks her, audibly shoving past her and seemingly muffling her next words. "Take her away from here, I'm not sure why this animal thinks he's worthy enough to speak to her." He orders another vampire.

'I didn't' The thought passes through my head.

He unlocks the door, opening it barely in time for me to see feet being dragged away past another corner. "Get up." He orders to me after I slump myself down against the wall.

"Get." He kicks me. "Up." He punches me. "You fucking animal." He spits at me.

He reaches for my hair, pulling me up by it and raising his other hand to punch me again. He stops once the precipice of moonlight scratches along the wall I was leaning against. Still holding onto my hair but moving my body away from it so he can see my art better.

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My time better.

"You're far more gone than you're letting on, aren't you?" He laughs hysterically at the blood drawn lines indicating each passed day I've wasted my time here. Each passing day that I've had this useless shell of a damaged body trap me within these walls.

"I was going to have you to myself, but let's tell the other guys about this, what do you say?" He asks, leaning his face closer to mine, close enough to where his breath is the only thing I can inhale.

He doesn't put the cuffs on me. Dragging me out along the blacked out broken brick floor. Past the stairs, past the bathrooms, past the cells that I've never seen open and the ones that are always empty.

"AY!" He shouts just as he kicks down a double set door. The sounds of cheering fills my ears as an unnatural light lines a circular space, nearly blinding me from the immediacy of it all. "I'VE GOT MINE!" He bellows amongst the crowd as they all laugh and cheer for him.

He continues pulling me along the ground, letting me hit each and every step on the way down with my stomach until eventually lifting me up and allowing me to see the full view. Only one thing crosses my mind in this moment as I'm granted the familiarity of this arena, 'So those cages...weren't for animals." I acknowledge as I'm tossed into the sandy pit full of dried blood, broken teeth and glistening shards of metal.

"Is that the new one!?" Some of them shout, others brushing past them to get a closer look at me.

"Who's he going against, Tyron!?" More of them ask towards none other than the scar faced man.

'So that's his name.' I answer myself.

"We have none other than 0803 here!" He yells to hype them up, slamming down a whip across the field.

Chains sound out from a dark hall, clanking, smacking...beating themselves across the floor until a woman is visible to me.

"Make your choice!" Tyron shouts to us, spreading his arms out like some angelic being to show us the various weapons on the ground...none of which is Aeron's blade.

A ring sounds out through the arena, alerting us that it's already began. I wanted to speak, ask or even convince her not to. But the moment her shackles fell undone, she ran to the collection of weapons. Grabbing a dagger no bigger than a kitchen knife.

I stand up from my knees, 'We don't have to do this' I call from within my head as if she could even hear me.

"They took her." She whimpers with bloodshot eyes. She dives for me with blood dried feet that act like shoes, kicking off the sand with each step until eventually swiping at my torso.

I step to the left, watching her fall hopelessly to the ground from using all her energy in that one swing. 'The sooner I do this, the sooner I can keep my promise.' I think to myself.

"Please." She begs, grabbing it once again and mercilessly attempting to stab me once again.

She swipes, I step back, she swipes, I step back. A monotonous and boring routine fit for us numbers. After one more step I hear the crowd behind me begin to chant negatively. "Is this all Noah's pet can do?" The man who brought me in spits with malice.

I look over at him, only to feel a sharp lash across my back. Something so seething it robs my breath away and causes blood to trickle across my skin. "St-" I go to speak but he does it again.

Again. Again. Again. "You're fucking boring, aren't you!?" Tyron shouts, causing my body to quiver even more.

I crouch onto the ground, holding my stomach and fearing the next place he strikes. Looking up only to meet the broken feet of 0803. "I'm sorry...it's for her." She pleas, holding the dagger up to the light that briefly blinds me from the reflected light. "I'm sorry" She repeats as I release myself from the position, falling onto my back and beginning to crawl away.

I quickly pull away my hand from the floor as it slices open from one of the broken pieces of metal along the ground, reluctantly picking it up in the palm of my hand.

"You're going to have to kill her, you know that right?" Freya advises me from behind the woman, just over her shoulder. "For us?" She finishes.

"You're going to have to kill her for the sake of our promise, right?" Requis asks. "For Ira?"

"Everything I've crafted for you was for the strength of a beast, not man. What you have in your hand is what that same animal would fight with" Aeron looks towards my closed blood cloaked hand, "You're used to this, so fight like that desperate animal. Fight like what this woman's been doing." He continues, "Do you think she had the years of experience like you? She doesn't know what she's doing, she just knows what has to be done in favour of her own selfish goals. Kill her like she's about to do to you."

"Kill her for us." Freya chants.

"Kill her for a promise." Requis chants.

"Kill her for love." Aeron chants.

With my ears drowned out from the crowd and my other hand filled with sand, I toss it into the woman's eyes. With her silent screams I kick her legs from under her, climbing on top of her with my whip bruised legs, pouring the last of the sand in her nose to stop her breathing and cause her to open up her mouth. Shoving the metal inside and forcing it to close shut.

"Kill her for a friend." One last voice whispers to me, Ira's.

"Chew". I tell her but she looks at me with widened eyes, furiously turning her head back and forth to decline my order.

I gather more sand, pouring it back into her nose and holding it shut along with her mouth. Whether she suffocates first or chokes on her own blood, that's not for me to decide. I look at her dead in the eyes as she squirms, thrashes and cries.

Freya's feet appear just by 0803's head "She tried to kill you, nobody told her to. She grabbed the weapon. You two could of talked it through and thought of a way out, she forced you to." She reasons with me.

'I didn't speak to her though' My thought denies her. 'I didn't even try.'

"We know it was hard, but we're thankful you did it." Requis reasons with me.

'It wasn't hard.' I deny once more. 'I'd do it again.'

"Should of done it sooner, but I expected nothing less of my brother." Aeron reasons with me.

'I hesitated, I'm sorry. I put you all at risk.' I plea.

As I patiently wait for her death, I can't help but feel something along my stomach. Looking towards her hands and noticing her missing dagger. I laugh to myself at the irony, 'Even despite you being blinded, suffocated and restricted. That motherly grip you had across the key to your daughter still found it's way into me.'

"Didn't it?" I ask her lifeless corpse.

Looking around with my own vision turning to a blur as the colours all begin to fall into a melodic mess. 'Are they cheering for me? Are they shouting at me?' I'm not sure why I'm asking myself these things as if I was some dog waiting for a praise.

'I did what I had to.' A last voice of reasoning speaks within my head, a voice that surely wasn't my own.