There’s dozens of lit torches hanging from The Pit’s circular walls here at the bottom level. Their flickering flames light up the whole place even though we’re essentially at the bottom of a humongous hole in the ground. It seems like The Pit is split into different levels seeing as how there are different sections at different elevations and the walls protrude outwards to differentiate the different levels. There are nine levels in total and above the ninth level is the surface. The problem is, I don’t see any ramps that connect the different levels and it looks like if I want to ascend, I’ll need to scale these stone walls with my own hands.

The light from the torches along with the full moon hanging in the sky above makes it easy to forget where I am for a moment. But reality soon sets back in when the group of men crowding around the wooden box start clawing at me with evil intent in their eyes. With nowhere to go and quickly coming to a realization of what they meant by, “...he’ll do just fine,” panic starts to set in. Bewildered by what’s happening, I take a few steps back before bumping against the box’s back wall.

But the moment my back hit the wall, it felt as though the impact woke me up from my stupor and rage burned my insides, angry at my own craven behavior. For what reason did Bertrand keep bringing me to The Fighting Cock and setting me up with opponents larger than me who kicked my ass every single time if not for moments like this? Well, I don’t think he necessarily predicted I’d end up at the bottom of a hole in the ground, in the middle of nowhere, captured by a group of lunatics, and left to fend for myself against an entire group of men, but close enough. Snarling at the men grabbing at me, I roar out, “If any of you whoresons step foot into this box, you better be prepared to lose your lives!”

Surprisingly, my threat makes them pause for a split second before they all burst out laughing. One of them with a wicked looking scar stretching across his face wipes a tear from the corner of his eye and says, “Listen, boy. Why don’t you come out of that box and come on over to my cave? I don’t know how you got caught or what you were doing before but you have to realize this isn’t a safe place no matter what those psychos up there told you. There’s no salvation here, there’s no cleansing, and there’s sure as all hells no rebirth. There’s just you, me, and all sorts of wolves in this hole of ours that only I can protect you from.

“If you don’t have anyone protecting you down here, then you might get your throat slit in your sleep without even knowing it. But I won’t let that happen to you. I’ll put my neck on the line for you but you have to give me something in return, right? There’s nothing in this world that’s free. You just need to follow me back to my cave and I’ll take you under my wing.”

Seeing the lascivious grin on his face and the eager look in his eyes, I bark back, “You can go back to your cave on your own and go fuck yourself. I can take care of myself and if you have any doubts regarding that, you’re welcome to come over here if you want to lose your head.”

The smile on the scarred man’s face fades and it looks like he’s displeased with my rejection. A second later he looks around at his men and shrugs with a shake of his head before regaining his smile. I guess that was his signal and all hell broke loose with it as his men threw themselves at the wooden box. There has to be a dozen of them at most but the majority of them look scrawny and malnourished.

I pick out the weakest looking one and the moment he extends his upper body into the box, reaching to grab at me, I grab ahold of his head with both hands before pulling his head down as hard as I can and then meeting his skull with my right knee. I let go of his head and take a few steps back, his body lifelessly lands inside the box with a sickening thud as a pool of blood quickly forms around his head. I’m not exactly sure where my knee impacted on his skull but the sensation felt really good and I probably landed right on his nose. Although that knee won’t kill him outright, it did its job marvelously and the rest of the men around me froze in their steps.

Everyone around the box is completely silent and judging by the looks of shock and horror on their faces, they’re not going to be making a move anytime soon. The scarred man’s face grows red with rage and seeing his men frozen in place, he bellows out, “Get your fucking asses in there! He’s just a fucking kid for heavens-” But before he can finish his orders, I reach out from the wooden box and grab another of his cronies by his hair while he’s distracted before slamming his face down onto the edge of the closest wooden box wall. His scream of anguish disrupts his boss’s orders as his broken teeth clatter noisily on the floor of the wooden box.

Hearing such a horrible scream, the rest of his men step backwards in fear of being chosen next. The veins on the scarred man’s face look like they’re about to burst and his face is now a darker shade of red than before which I didn’t think was possible. But before his head explodes from anger, he takes a deep breath and in one swift motion, he reaches into his pocket to grab a knife before stabbing his closest minion in the neck. There’s a look of shock on his minion’s face as he futilely grabs at the wound, attempting to stop the bleeding before collapsing a few moments later. The scarred man’s brutal actions surprises everybody and all of them, including me, can only stare at him in horror with gaping mouths.

The scarred man cleans his knife on the back of the shirt of his slain minion without a care in the world as if he wasn’t the one who just viciously killed his own underling. Standing back up slowly, he ignores me and looks around at the rest of his men, nonchalantly saying, “The Pit isn’t a place for the weak, never has been. There’s a funny little concept I learned during my stay in the army called the law of the jungle. The strongest survive, plain and simple. The Pit is the embodiment of that idea and it has built on it, expanded on it, and refined it continuously throughout the years since its creation.

“When I first got here, I had to relearn that law personally, firsthand. I was the same as all of you. I had to bow my head and get down on my knees for the bottom level’s ruler. But the difference is, I waited for my chance. When I saw it, I slit his throat while he slept and took over all he had.

“Down here, where the kingdom can’t touch us, where society can’t judge us, life is broken down into the most basic, primal, human instincts. Only the strong survive and if you’re too weak to keep what belongs to you, then you didn’t deserve it in the first place. I was weak and I lost my dignity. But I grew strong and I took it back. All of you are welcome to come and take your dignity back from me. I welcome it.

“But if you’re still too afraid, too weak to take it back, then that’s fine as well. Take your time, plan, and then one night, maybe you’ll get the chance to be like me all those years ago and finally take back what’s rightfully yours.

“Until then, you’ll listen to my orders. You’ll jump when I tell you to jump. You’ll fight when I tell you to fight. And you’ll die when I tell you to die. Now get the fuck in there and beat that kid until he’s half dead. Let’s give him a warm fucking welcome into The Pit!”

Where the fuck am I? What kind of godsforsaken hellhole have I landed myself into? The scarred man is completely insane and by the looks of it, his underlings are the same seeing how that… speech of his gave them immense courage. Emboldened by his words, his men threw themselves at the box, completely forgetting what happened to their two friends.

It quickly turned into a frenzied melee inside the box as all of them crawled over each other to get to me. The first one to reach me was a kid who couldn’t have been older than me and was shorter than me by at least a full head. He looked terrified when he saw me but his eyes were filled with hysteria and he lunged at me, hoping to sacrifice himself by grabbing onto my waist. Before he could latch on, I fired off a punch, aiming at the right side of his jaw and landed perfectly, his unconscious body flopping down onto the box’s floor.

Stepping over his body, I aim a kick at the next opponent’s groin and he crumples to his knees, howling in pain. Grabbing onto the left side of his face, I slam his head against the box wall and his howling stops. Before I could even regain my footing and search for my next victim, someone in my blind spot grabbed a handful of my hair and punched me in the stomach, almost knocking the wind out of me. Gritting my teeth in pain, I turn my waist towards him and return a kick at his stomach. He lets go of my hair and stumbles backwards a couple of steps, coughing painfully.

When I try to chase him to finish him off, something trips my left foot and I fall face first. Wincing in pain, I look back and see the kid from before grabbing onto my foot with a dazed look on his face. I manage to kick his hand away but not before the rest of them rush me down and start stomping on me. I can’t even attempt to fight back or try to stand up as all of them ruthlessly stomp and kick me. All I can do is try and keep my vital areas safe as I curl my body into a ball on the ground.

My whole body erupts in horrible pain as I plan what to do next but when someone kicks my left thigh and lands exactly where I cauterized myself, I can’t help but scream out in pain. That was a mistake because my cries only fueled their fervor and they specifically kept aiming at my thigh. Over and over again, for countless minutes they kept stomping on me with no indication that they were getting tired at all. I can’t even open my eyes to see what’s happening in case some random kick hurts them.

I have no idea how long their beatdown went on for but it seemed like they finally got tired and slowed their attacks. My entire body is excruciatingly painful and my breathing is ragged. I don’t think anything is broken but they damn sure tried. When the stomps finally stop, I try to flatten my body out and get ready to stand up to start my counterattack but nothing happens. After I flattened myself out, my body wouldn’t move no matter how hard I tried and I could only lay there on the ground.

It hurts to move at all and I can’t even lift my head up to look around. All I can do is stare at the unconscious body of the first man I kneed in the face as I fade in and out of consciousness myself. Funnily enough, his pool of blood spread far enough towards me that it touched my pool of blood and mixed together. Huh, I didn’t even know I was bleeding. When I finally have the strength to weakly raise my head off the box’s floor, someone’s foot comes flying at my face and everything goes dark. Now why does this seem familiar?