The stale air of the cell was thick with tension, the kind that clung to your skin and made every breath feel like swallowing glass. I sat on the edge of my bunk, staring at the concrete floor, my hands resting in my lap, calm despite the storm brewing around me. The whispers had been circulating for days now. They were scared, all of them. Every last bastard in this place.

They had every right to be.

I’d been here long enough to make my name known. It wasn’t hard. You kill one guy, it’s self-defense. You kill two, it’s a reputation. Three? They start looking at you like you're a demon in the flesh. I didn’t care. In here, mercy is weakness, and I wasn’t weak. Not anymore.

A distant shuffle of feet echoed down the corridor, and I knew. It was time.

"Greed," came a low voice from across the room, one of the newer inmates who’d tried to make a name for himself before I put him in his place. "Word is... they're coming for you tonight. Everyone’s talking about it."

I smirked, cracking my neck as I stood. "Let ‘em come. If they want to die, I'll gladly help them with that."

The guy swallowed hard, fear plain on his face. "You don’t get it, man. It’s not just a few. It’s everyone. They’re all too scared to leave you alive, thinking you’ll kill them one by one. The guards... they ain’t gonna step in."

"Good," I muttered, rolling my shoulders, feeling the familiar tension building in my muscles. "At Least I can take as many as possible."

Minutes passed like hours. The sound of footsteps—lots of them—started to fill the hallway. I heard the doors click open, the guards stepping aside, pretending not to see a thing. Cowards. They feared me just as much as the rest of them. I couldn’t blame them, though. Not after what I’d done.

The group finally emerged into the cellblock, eyes glinting with a mix of fear and desperation. I recognized a few faces from the yard. Men who had seen what I was capable of, but now they had numbers on their side.

"That’s him," someone whispered, their voice shaking. "Take him out before it's too late."

"Why don’t you come try?" I growled, stepping forward with a grin that I knew only added fuel to the fire. My body tensed, ready for what was coming. I wasn’t going down without a fight. No way in hell.

They charged.

The first one came at me with more desperation than skill, swinging wildly. I ducked under his punch and grabbed him by the throat, slamming his head into the steel bars of my cell. The sickening crack of his skull split the air, and he dropped to the floor, a lifeless heap of flesh. One.

The next man hesitated just a second too long. I seized the opportunity, driving my fist into his nose with all the force I could muster. Blood spurted like a fountain as he fell backward, clutching his ruined face. He didn't even have time to scream before I grabbed him by the shirt and smashed his head into the concrete floor. His body went limp, unmoving. Two.

Two more rushed in, fueled by fear and anger. I twisted around the first, kicking his knee sideways with a brutal snap, before spinning and driving my elbow into the other’s jaw. His head snapped back, eyes rolling up, but I wasn’t done. I grabbed him by the throat and squeezed, feeling his windpipe crush under my fingers as he gasped for breath, eyes bulging in terror. Three. Four.

I threw his limp body aside just as another set of fists crashed into my ribs, the force of the blow sending pain shooting through my side. I staggered, but I didn’t stop. My fist lashed out, catching the attacker in the throat. He gagged, stumbling backward as he clutched at his neck, eyes wide with shock trying desperately to breathe. Five.

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More kept coming.

But so did I.

I swung at the next guy with a savage uppercut, feeling the crunch of his teeth and bone beneath my knuckles. He fell backward, blood pouring from his broken mouth. Another lunged at me, but I sidestepped, grabbing his arm and twisting it until I felt the satisfying snap of bone. His scream echoed through the block, but it didn’t last long. I drove a knee into his chest, sending him sprawling to the ground, clutching at his ribs, gasping for air. Six. Seven.

The floor was slick with blood. Their blood.

Still, they kept coming. And still, I fought. But the numbers… there were too many. I could feel my body tiring, the energy draining with every strike, every broken bone. They pressed in like a swarm, relentless, desperate to bring me down.

I swung again, my fist connecting with someone’s jaw, but it was weaker now. The blows were starting to take their toll. A punch caught me in the ribs, another to the back of my head, and my vision blurred for a moment.

They were piling on now, grabbing my arms, my legs. Pinning me down. The first wave was dead or dying, but there were always more. Always more.

"Keep hitting him!" someone screamed, their voice filled with panic.

A boot slammed into my chest, then another into my ribs. The pain was everywhere now, sharp, white-hot flashes that made it harder to breathe. I gasped for air, spitting blood as their fists and feet rained down on me from all sides.

I caught a glimpse of the guards, standing at the far end of the block, watching. Not moving.

Cowards.

Another blow to my skull sent me crashing to the ground, the world spinning around me. They pinned me down, holding me in place as the punches kept coming. I tried to fight, tried to swing, but my arms felt heavy, my body sluggish. My vision darkened, the edges turning black as blood pooled beneath me, warm and sticky.

I could barely hear their shouts now. The noise was distant, fading.

And still, I laughed. Weak, but I laughed.

"Cowards," I spat, blood filling my mouth. "It took all of you... just to bring me down."

A final boot connected with my head, and everything went black.

-An unknown amount of time passed-

Darkness. No, not darkness. It was something else. It was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I felt... nothing. No pain, no sound, no air. Just an endless void. Was this death? After all the killing, all the blood spilled, this was how it ended? Alone, fading into oblivion? A part of me expected flames, demons dragging me to hell for my sins, but instead, there was only silence. Cold, absolute silence.

I drifted through the void, or at least I thought I did. Drifted? Sat? Floated? I couldn’t even tell. I had no body to feel with, no limbs to move. Just the awareness of existing in this vast nothingness.

I tried to move, but where? Up, down, left, right—hell, I even tried diagonally, but there was nothing to reach. No direction. No end. Just... more of the void.

Time had no meaning here. Days? Weeks? Years? I couldn’t tell. It felt like I had been here for centuries, but who could say? Without a sky, without light or darkness, there was no marker. No anchor. Only me, alone with my thoughts, drifting endlessly. 

I couldn’t tell anymore if I had just arrived or if I had always been here. It all blurred into one endless stretch of nothingness.

I didn’t even know if I was breathing. Did I need to? Or was I just trapped, a mind left to wander without a body?

And just like that, my mind wandered. I thought about my existence—how I ended up here, why I was here, and if this was some kind of specially crafted hell just for me.

I grew up an orphan on the streets. No one looked out for me, so I did what I had to do to survive. I lied, I stole, I killed. But I never killed without reason. I lived by the laws of the jungle, where only the strong survive. Every action I took was to ensure that survival.

I know I'm not a good man, but I'm not a complete monster either. Yet here I am, trapped in this endless void, left alone to drown in my memories.

Had I been living my life wrong all this time? What were the rules? Who gets to decide what’s good and what’s bad? I don't even know why I’m here.

Perhaps this was it—judgment. Not fire and brimstone, but silence. A silence that gnawed at my thoughts and refused to provide answers. Was this the price for all the lives I had taken, for all the blood on my hands? Not punishment, not forgiveness... but nothingness.

Why couldn't they simply tell me the reason? Was this silence part of the punishment? Or was there no punishment at all, and this was merely what came after death?