Chapter 1

Light shone in his eyes and his vision was blurred by the light, it took him a while to get his bearings. Before his sight had returned his face was suddenly smacked into the cold floor and he could feel a luke warm liquid running down his head and he heard it dripping on the floor. Blood, he was bleeding. He was completely confused by whatever was happening and he still had no sense of his bearings or the time.

“For your own sake, Stay down.” A rough but calm voice resounded in his ear

He tried to look at the origin of the voice but got smacked back into the floor before he could even turn his head.

“Now don't you dare move” the voice whispered with the sound of a lingering threat.

Unwilling to risk losing more blood and maybe even his consciousness if this continued, he stopped moving.

“Right, now that i have your attention , I am the Instructor as you will be calling me from today forward. I'd like to inform you that you will be slaves from now on! Welcome to the Blackburnt Arena!” The voice continued in his calm and rough manner.“You will all become sacks of meat to be sacrificed to the entertainment of the rich and wealthy! Now doesn't that sound like a heap of fun!” The lingering tone of sarcasm evident in his voice

He tried to move his head to the left and right without the instructor noticing and he managed to see a bunch of other knocked down and scared looking kids lying around him. Their ages seemed to vary from 12 to 15 and there where plenty of different hair,eye and skin colours to be seen around him, there seemed to be around 30 of them he was also pretty sure that most of them weren't even human. At least that's wat he thought gathering from the things he could see.

“You have no memories, no names and no rights, you are now simple and fresh meat, fighters for the arena. There is no way out because there is no entrance or exit to be found in this entire complex. First thing is first you will be given numbers so that i as an Instructor don't have to go through the useless effort of remembering your faces”

He could see the kid next to him who had these weirdly slanted violet eyes accompanied by white hair and really pale and snowy coloured skin. He was sweating and trembling because of the words tspoken by the instructor. The kid seemed to be a few years younger than him and possibly the youngest of the kids that had been brought to this place . He estimated the kid to be about 11 years old. Well even though he did say the kid was younger, honestly he had no idea of wat his own age was. He couldnt even remember his own name not to mention the date of his birth.

“Okay! Stand up” The instructor said and his voice seemed to have a bit more emotion in it compared to before.

He stood up and for the first time got a good look at the instructor. The man was not as gigantic as he had expected he seemed to be around 170 centimeters tall. All in all not that tall for an average adult. His muscles however where very impressive and also extremely intimidating as they bulged and took on the look of tough metal cords that coiled around his arms.

There was also an abundance of scars to be seen crisscrossing his arms and shoulders. The mans face itself had a scar which ran from his left jaw to the temple on the same side and another scar that ran from his left mouth corner to a bit below his jawbone wich seemed to have been dented at that spot. In other words he was a tough and rather terrifying man.

“Now you will be partnered up, you will be chained together and these chains will not be removed, these particular chains have some special properties but you will find out about those later! There is 36 of you runts and i expect perhaps 4 to survive.”

He heard a sob come from his left where the pale kid seemed to be panicking and losing control of his bladder as he heard the sound of liquid dripping on the floor.

With a loud smak the kid was suddenly sent flying against the wall behind him.

“If you are already losing your courage now how do you expect to survive!” The instructor roared with his mouth nearly foaming in an outburst of sudden anger.

The man moved to the kid and kicked him in the stomach and sent him flying into the very same wall his body had just dropped down from, as the small defenseless boy hit the wall and coughed out a spurt of blood that hit the floor in a splash that made the boy feel sick to the stomache.

“You better toughen up and fast kid, Or you will be the very first to die!” The Instructor told him immediatly movind into stance to kick the kid again. But before the instructor could finish the kick he had aimed at the poor kid. Not being able to stand this any longer he jumped in front of the kid and blockked the kick by crossing his arms. Getting knocked back into the wall but having reduced the force with his block he didn't really suffer any damage although his arms stung quiete a bit.

“Hhmpf” The instructor sniffed. “So one of you runts actually already posseses some of that much needed courage, and it even comes with a decent bit of reflexes! As a reward Number 637 u get paired with the small coward over there. His number is 636 make sure he remembers it!. The instructor commanded while looking towards the kid determination flashing across his face.

“All of you follow me for the chaining!” The instructor continued as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The kids, not having much of a choice followed the instructor until they came into a hot and smoggy stone walled chamber. It had the resemblance of a dungeon, the walls where made out of somekind of dark stone and the shadows that the forge fire spread across the room where shifting and made the room seem extreamely foreboding.

Somehow the the fire of the forge calmed 637 as he watched the flames move in their unpredicatable swaying patterns. There was also a forge master present who was slamming a humongous hammer onto an anvil. The man himself was even more musculour than the instructor with arms nearing the size of tree trunks. He was absolutely sure that this man was not human at the very least. The black eyes with the red irisis made that painfully obvious. Not to mention the black curled horns growing out of his head

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The man was not alone however. Next to him stood an elderly man with sharp electric blue eyes. The man seemed unmoved by the events happening before him. Although the robe he was wearing effectivly covered the body to an extent where one could not be sure of his build. The way the man oozed danger had even 637 on his toes.

“This is the forge master and the elder and they are here to connect your chains and give you the slave mark! This mark will need to be put on your skin so you can under no circumstances go against the orders of anyone from Blackburnt City. Another thing of note is that if you do not get this mark then the magic of these halls will kill you within the week. Now who wants to go first and get his skin branded!” The instructor said gruffly looking at the kids without a hint of pity on his face. “636” He said looking at the small white-haired kid. “Why dont you go first!” his words only made the small boy tremble more, a sheen of sweat could now be seen decorating his snowy skin.

He tried to back away through the other kids as if he thought he could disappear into the walls if he moved back far enough. Seeing this, 637 quickly stepped forward while glaring into the instructors eyes.

“So 637 you wanna go first huh, all the same to me!” He said grabbing his arm and dragging him to the forge master. He was pushed face down onto a slab of stone that felt warm to the touch. The instructor held him down and fastened the hard leather restraints at each corner of the stone slab around his wrists and ankles.

Meanwhile 637 could see the forge master slowly pulling out a dark iron metal bar with at the end of it a glowing red hot symbol of some kind of bird. He walked to 637 until he was no longer in his field of vision. He could feel the heat closing in on his back as the instructor suddenly walked back into his field vision.

“Better brace yourself kiddo this is gonna hurt alot” The instructor said with a note of gentleness in his rough voice. “ 637 screamed out before muffling his scream into a grunt as he stared viciously into the eyes of the instructor even though his body was trying its hardest to break free his eyes met the instructors and refused to budge.

“Hahahahahahahaha hey Forgie this kid's got some stones doesn't he, he might even survive training!”' The forge master just grunted in response as he put the metal rod back into the fire. The instructor moved out of his vision again and released him from the restraints. He then pushed the kid to the other side of the counter before returning to the group and grabbing the white haired kid. 636 as his name seemed to be for the moment was trying to squirm his way out of the instructors grasp and started to whimper and cry.

The instructor just ignored him and pushed him down on the counter and fastened the leather restraints. As the forge master pushed the rod onto the back of 636 he started to scream, tears flowed out of his eyes streaming endlessly. The eyes of the young boy however seemed to start glowing in a viscious purple light. Until after wat seemed an eternity the forge master was done and the instructor pushed the kid to 637 who caught him before he would fall face first onto the ground.

“You ok?” 637 asked the small boy putting him back on his feet. The small boy nodded looking into his eyes with gratitude.

“Next up! We are going to chain you two together come here” The instructor told them as he moved to the anvil where the forge master clasped first 637's right foot in the a black iron chain and then 636's right foot was clasped into the other end of the chain. The forge master then pulled a thin glowing hot rod out of the fire and welded the claspings shut. The chain was of darkest black iron he had ever seen and was made from a kind of metal he had never seen before, other than that the weight of the chain was astounding. The distance between his feet and 636's was perhaps 50 centimeters.

After the chains had been completed the blue eyed elder walked forward. He removed his hands from the pockets of his robes. A strange blue light eminated from his hands, the veins visibe because of the blue light that seemed to glowing from the blood of strange elder. The elder started to mumble some words below audible range. The words seemed to have an effect though, 637's skin started to tingle and goose bumps spread themselves all over his skin. The hairs on his arms and leggs standing up from an invisible tension.

The light spread itself over the chain and the change in it was extremely unnerving. Glowing with a ghastly blue light the chain transformed the weight that he had at first felt from the clasp on his angle grew less and less until it dissapeared completely. He could however still see the chain, the chain however seemed to have no real form anymore however.

He tried moving away from 636 and the chain just lengthend itself. The chain seemed to grow he could even feel it pulsing around his ankle. Fear flowed through the chain and then he realised. His soul and 636's had been attached somehow. He could almost feel whatever 636 was feeling. Feeling may not exactly be the right word but it was asif he could sense those feelings.

Helping 636 to the back of the room he sat down on an empty stone bench against the wall and just stared at it in wonder.

Soon enough the instructor started dragging the other kids to the stone counter. This, 637 thought while glaring at the 2 large men in determination, Is something i will definitely survive. No matter how strange the things that are happening here may be, i will not be distracted. I will make it out of this, no matter wat these people might think. If one can enter it one can leave it and i will find out how!

While the other kids where getting branded and where screaming and crying he was already mentally preparing himself for whatever was going to come next.