Like a Dog

The sun was blinding.

Arven squinted as he stepped into the heart of the Arena, the heat already oppressive. Sand shifted beneath his boots, warm and dry, each step sinking slightly as he walked toward the center.

Around him, the roar of the crowd grew louder, voices rising in a chaotic tide. Thousands filled the stone seats, banners waving in the breeze, merchants hawking drinks and charms in the upper tiers. It was a festival of violence, and he was the entertainment.

Across the sand, Jucir approached with the slow, steady gait of a man who had no doubt how this fight would end. Two meters of muscle, metal gauntlets gleaming beneath the sunlight, his face calm and cold as stone.

Arven felt the weight of his gaze and swallowed hard. The pulse in his throat hammered like a drum.

Above them, the announcer's voice echoed.

"First match! Arven versus Jucir! Bets are locked. Fighters, prepare!"

The words rang out. The crowd roared in reply.

Arven flexed his fingers once, trying to ease the tension coiled in his chest. His mouth was dry. His ribs still ached faintly from a day of brutal training. He could feel the subtle hum of power beneath his skin, the vampire blood lending strength where none should have been.

But standing here now, facing the mountain of a man across from him, that power felt thin. Insufficient.

The gong rang.

And Jucir moved.

Arven didn't even see the first strike.

A blur, then pain. Blinding, bone-deep pain.

Iron smashed into his ribs like a hammer swung by a god. The sound cracked across the Arena like a snapped branch. Something inside gave way. He didn't breathe so much as choke, the air torn from his chest in a strangled heave.

He stumbled back, legs nearly buckling. His arms came up in instinct, but it was already too late.

Jucir was on him again.

A second blow crashed into his shoulder. His body twisted under the force, his balance vanishing. The world tilted. Colors smeared. He barely felt the ground beneath his feet anymore.

The crowd screamed for more.

Another fist, straight into his stomach.

This one folded him in half. He dropped like a stone, mouth open but soundless. His vision went white, then red. Blood surged into his throat, thick and bitter. He gagged on it.

The sand hit his face. It scraped his cheek raw. He tasted dirt and iron.

Move. Get up. Move.

His limbs didn't respond. They felt distant. Foreign.

He clawed at the ground, fingers dragging furrows in the sand. Somehow, his body rose.

Half-standing, swaying.

Then the boot came.

Jucir's kick landed like a battering ram, slamming into his ribs and hurling him across the Arena ground. The crowd roared again, louder, drunk on the violence.

He skidded in a spray of sand and blood, coughing as his body twisted, broken and limp. Every breath now was a blade drawn across his lungs. His ribs burned. Something was wrong inside, bones grinding where they shouldn't.

He couldn't hear his thoughts anymore. Just the beat of pain in his skull. Just the next strike.

Another punch.

His arm snapped backward under the impact. He couldn't even tell if it was broken or not. It just stopped working. Hung there, limp and dumb.

Another punch. This one to the side of his head.

A white flash burst behind his eyes, followed by darkness and ringing silence. His mouth opened in a voiceless cry. He barely felt the next strike.

The crowd was no longer a sound, it was a presence. A storm of noise, pressing against him from all sides. Laughing. Screaming. Feeding on his ruin.

He wasn't a fighter now.

He wasn't even prey.

He was a puppet. A broken toy. Every movement was stolen from him. Every hit rewired his nerves, pushed deeper into a part of his mind that didn't understand the world anymore.

Jucir didn't stop.

There was no rhythm to it. No mercy. Just endless pressure. Fists like iron piledrivers. Boots that shattered his stance. Every hit carved away another piece of Arven. Another bit of defiance. Another scrap of hope.

Somewhere between the next fall and the next breath, time splintered.

The roar of the crowd bled away into a low, meaningless hum. Faces blurred into shapes. The Arena's heat faded into cold. His vision pulsed, dark, light, dark again, like blinking through water.

Pain swallowed everything.

And yet, through that haze, memories rose. Unwelcome. Unstoppable.

A faint, flickering bulb overhead. Mildew on the ceiling. The stink of cheap perfume and cigarette smoke soaked into every crack of the brothel's walls. His hands, his real hands, his old hands, red and raw from bleach, gripping a mop handle until his knuckles turned white.

Muffled laughter from behind thin walls. The rhythmic creak of beds. Moans. Grunts. Tips shoved into hands that didn't belong to him.

And there he was.

Just Arven.

A Janitor.

A Ghost.

Nothing.

Scraping by. Counting coins. Avoiding eye contact. Sleeping with clothes on so he could make it to work on time. His dreams had rotted long ago, buried under rent, hunger, and the quiet humiliation of being invisible.

Friends? Gone. Jobs? Passed over. Nights spent staring at the cracked ceiling, wondering what part of him had failed first.

Then the accident. Then the new world.

A second chance.

Wasn't it?

His vision sharpened again, just long enough to catch Jucir's silhouette towering over him.

And for what?

To die in the dirt. For strangers. For nothing.

Forgotten before the next match began.

A bitter laugh clawed up his throat, scraping blood along the way.

"No…"

The word rasped out, weak, broken. He wasn't sure if anyone heard it.

Another blow smashed into his ribs, knocking the air from his lungs, but the word was still there.

"No…"

He gasped, voice cracking. Tears welled up without permission, stinging eyes already swollen.

"No… no…"

His hands found the ground. Shaking. Weak. But alive. He pushed, bones grinding against bruised muscle.

Jucir loomed above him, quiet and deadly. Another strike came for his head.

Arven lifted his arms. It hurt, gods, it hurt, but he blocked it. The force rattled his bones, but he didn't fall.

Another hit. Then another. Each one stronger than the last. His body moved out of reflex, not strategy. His legs buckled, but he stayed upright.

Blood poured down his face, into his mouth, along his arms. He tasted copper and dust.

"I won't die here," he croaked.

Another punch drove him to his knees.

"I won't die here…" he whispered again, voice failing.

More blood. More pain.

"I won't…"

"No…"

"I won't."

The words echoed in his mind like static. Broken. Overlapping.

I won't. I won't. I won't.

Something cracked.

It wasn't bone this time. It was deeper. Somewhere inside.

The vampire blood surged up from the pit of his stomach, a boiling flood that lit every nerve on fire. Hunger rose with it, not the ache of thirst or desire, but something deeper. Ancient. Animal.

His whole body shook. His fingers curled against the dirt.

He screamed.

Not a word. Not a plea. Just a raw, broken sound. Part grief, part rage, part something that had no name.

Then the word came again, this time jagged and savage.

He lunged.

Jucir reacted too slowly.

Arven's teeth sank into the thick flesh of his opponent's leg. He bit down hard, harder than he ever thought possible. Blood rushed into his mouth, hot and metallic and alive. It coated his tongue, spilled over his lips.

Jucir howled in agony, staggering back, but Arven didn't let go. Not at first.

The moment Jucir broke free, stumbling, Arven rose to his feet.

Not steadily. Not gracefully.

But with purpose.

His eyes were wide now, feral. His lips peeled back into a grin too sharp, too wild.

And he laughed.

It bubbled up through the blood and grit. A sound that didn't belong to any sane man. High, ragged, cracking in the middle like something had come loose in his mind.

He charged.

Fists flew, sloppy, furious, wild. No technique. No control.

Jucir caught one and answered with a brutal punch straight into Arven's face.

Then another. And another.

His cheek split open. His nose shattered. Blood poured down his front in thick lines.

And still he laughed.

That cracked, rasping laugh didn't stop. Not even when the crowd fell silent, watching in horror.

Not even when Jucir drove a fist into his mouth and knocked teeth loose.

Arven let him.

Blow after blow rained down. His skull jerked with each one. His body shook.

But the laughter kept coming. Like something had snapped and wouldn't stop spinning.

And then, without warning, he surged upward.

This time his teeth found Jucir's face.

They sank deep, locking in like steel. Blood gushed over his chin, down his throat.

Jucir thrashed, screamed, tried to wrench free.

Too late.

Arven didn't just hold on.

He slammed the bigger man to the sand.

Mounted him.

And began to strike.

Fist after fist, pounding into Jucir's face.

"Die!" Arven screamed, over and over.

"Die!"

"Die! Die! Die!"

His voice cracked. His throat tore.

Blood spattered with each impact. Flesh gave way. Bone cracked, then shattered. Teeth flew loose. One of Jucir's eyes caved in.

Arven didn't stop.

He couldn't.

The crowd was screaming now. But it was far away again. Like wind through broken glass.

"Just Die Already!"

His fists were raw. His arms numb. But he kept going.

He screamed it like a prayer, like a curse.

Until at last, the body beneath him twitched once-

Then didn't move again.

Silence fell over the Arena. For a single, stretched heartbeat, the world held still.

Then the crowd broke. The roar came all at once, a crashing wave of sound that shook the very walls. Voices screamed his name, boots stomped, fists pounded against stone. A frenzy. A celebration.

Arven didn't hear any of it.

He was still kneeling over the body, breath ragged, hands trembling. Blood clung to his skin, warm and sticky on his face, his mouth, his fists. He stared down at what was left of Jucir, and for a long moment, he couldn't move.

The madness was leaving him now. Slowly. Fading like steam from a cracked pipe. The hunger curled back into the pit of his chest, still present, but quiet.

And in that quiet, the horror slipped in.

He looked at his hands again. At the mess he'd made. Bone crushed. Flesh torn. A man's life erased, not cleanly, not quickly, but piece by piece.

The chanting rose around him, his name over and over, swelling like a storm.

But none of it reached him.

All he could hear was his own voice, echoing inside his skull. Not words now. Just the memory of what he'd done.

And it wasn't over.

Not yet.