Chapter 3

As the lights outside the cages clicked on one by one, I knew they were planning something big tonight.

People gathered across the camp, boots crunching over gravel and damp dirt, the sound dense and eager. Someone dragged wooden crates over to use as seats. Someone else rolled beer kegs to the edge of the pit. Under the yellowed bulbs, every face looked slick, as if coated in oil.

Tonight’s main event was a dug-out dirt pit, its rim ringed with rough boards and wire—an improvised arena. The bottom was layered with mud that had soaked up blood until it turned nearly black. Where it had dried, it split into fine cracks.

The air carried sweat, spilled beer, and something more direct—fresh blood.

A man walked up to the line of cages, tapped a padlock with a stick, and grinned. “Roll the zombie cages over. Roll the prisoner cages over too.”

A few raiders pushed wheeled platforms forward, dragging the zombie cages out one by one. Inside, low-level infected were jostled into a worse frenzy. They slammed into bars, clawed at iron, drool running off their chins.

Then they brought another row of cage carts—this time full of living people.

They were painfully thin, their clothes so filthy the original color was impossible to tell. Red rope marks circled their wrists. Some cried under their breath; some clenched their teeth and stayed silent.

When the two cage carts were lined up beside the fighting pit, the crowd roared louder, as if watching a show that had been rehearsed.

“The rules are simple!” A raider with a loudspeaker climbed onto a crate and spread his arms like a party host. “One zombie, one prisoner—one round. If the prisoner wins, he doesn’t go to the corpse pen tonight. If the prisoner won’t fight—then we feed him to the dead!”

Laughter exploded. Beer was raised. People even started placing bets right there, shouting, “I’m betting on the zombie!” “I’m betting the prisoner can run!”

They shoved me to the pit’s edge. When the lock was opened, my chain clattered loudly. Someone yanked the collar chain around my neck and dragged me forward like livestock.

They dangled a chunk of raw meat in front of me to make sure my eyes tracked it.

Over by the prisoner cage, they dragged someone out as well.

His hands were tied behind his back. There were bruises on his face, and a split at the corner of his mouth. His eyes moved fast—first to the exits around the pit, then to the guns in the crowd, then to me—like he was calculating whether he had any route left.

He wasn’t a quitter. At least not in a place like this. He could still stand straight.

“Come on,” someone jeered. “We found you an opponent.”

The raider untied his rope and shoved him into the pit. He stumbled two steps, caught himself, and whirled back as if to rush up and grab a weapon—only to be kicked hard back into the mud.

Then they shoved me down after him.

The end of my chain was still clipped to an iron ring at the rim, limiting how far I could move—like a leash on a dog. They clearly didn’t want a zombie scrambling out and biting the audience, ruining the “entertainment.”

The man’s gaze locked onto me. His pupils tightened.

His fingers curled instinctively, like he was searching for a rock, anything he could use.

I understood his judgment.

To him, I was just a mindless thing that would rush in and tear him apart.

“Listen up!” someone shouted from above. “Start!”

He didn’t hesitate. He charged, trying to put me down fast, then look for a chance to climb out.

For a living man, it was the most reasonable move.

But I couldn’t let him actually kill me, and I couldn’t let him cause too much chaos in his panic.

What I needed was for the guards to relax completely—ideally to the point where they would open the gate at the last step and drag me away as a harmless “corpse.”

So I met him halfway. I moved deliberately slow, arms swinging clumsy, like reflexive grabbing.

His fist slammed into the side of my face. I let my head roll with it. My lip split, and the taste of blood spread through my mouth.

I could feel the weight of his punch, but the pain stayed strangely muted, like it had to travel through thick padding.

I swayed, then reached forward again.

His next punch was faster, harder.

I lifted an arm to block. My wrist brushed his forearm, a light pull that bled off his power, and I stepped back half a pace—always keeping the distance where I wanted it.

To the crowd, it looked like he was beating me down and I was taking it, yet I still wouldn’t fall.

They started shouting.

“Hit it! Hit its head! Smash its brain!”

“Hurry up! Stop dragging it out!”

“Bite him! Tear him up!”

He suddenly drove his knee into my abdomen.

I folded with it, dropped to one knee as if I’d come apart, hands in the mud, forcing out a hoarse, ragged breath.

He pounced, trying to flip me and pin me, then hammer my skull with his fists.

He was close enough.

I lifted my eyes and spoke in a volume only he could hear. My voice was low and clear, with none of the infected slur.

“Pretend you killed me.”

His whole body locked. His raised hand froze midair, as if someone had hit pause.

His face changed twice in a second—first shock, then disbelief. He stared at me like he needed to confirm he hadn’t imagined it.

The shouting at the rim continued. No one noticed the single heartbeat of stillness between us.

I didn’t give him a second sentence. I only held his gaze and forced him to choose.

He had two options now: cooperate, or die.

His throat bobbed once. Then he forced the panic down. A hard edge flashed in his eyes, the look of a man who had just found a narrow opening.

He raised his fist and drove it down at my head.

The punch landed on my brow ridge with a dull thud.

For a living man, that would be enough to knock him out. For me, it only made my vision wobble slightly.

I let my body go slack and fell into the mud like my spine had snapped, eyes half-open, breath turning shallow and broken on purpose.

He kept hitting—once, twice, three times. He sold it well, hard enough that his knuckles split and started bleeding.

Blood ran down the back of his hand and dripped into the mud beside my face, pushing the smell sharp and thick.

The crowd erupted in laughter.

“That’s it! That’s how you do it!”

“I won, I won! Pay up!”

“Drag that thing to the corpse pen! Next round, next round!”

He panted like he’d truly spent everything, then looked up at the rim and put on a pleading expression, waiting for them to honor their so-called reward: survival.

The raiders visibly relaxed.

For them, the show was over. What remained was just taking out the trash.

Someone jumped into the pit holding a hooked iron pole, the kind you’d use to drag an animal carcass.

With my eyes half-closed, I saw the key ring hanging at his waist.

The hook touched my shoulder and neck first, cold metal pressing into skin.

He yanked hard, trying to roll me over to check whether my head was “broken.”

I moved with the pull, limp and obedient, like dead weight being dragged.

He laughed and muttered, “Heavy bastard.”

In the dust, I slowly lifted my eyes. Through bars, firelight, and shifting silhouettes, I fixed my gaze on his smug face.

My pupils were clear—too clear for an infected.

My wrist flipped, steady as if I’d done the motion a thousand times in a lab, and I snapped my hand around the shaft of the hook.

I kept my voice low, but it was close enough for him to hear—and for the nearest man beside him to hear as well.

“My turn.”