“I won’t tell you again. Get me the fuck out, or when I find you, I’ll snap your spines,” I threatened in a low voice, as the bars creaked louder with the pulsating power of my anger.

The men still didn’t move. I could smell their fear and it just fucked me off even more.

“Get him out!” a voice ordered from behind and, suddenly, the familiar face of 362 came into view—my greatest rival but the man I spoke to and respected most.

362 grabbed a key and unlocked my door, his broad chest bare, black sweatpants covering his legs and his long black hair hanging down his back. He swung the door open and met me toe to toe at the entrance. His brown eyes bored into mine as my chest pumped with adrenaline. Then he smirked and slapped me on the arm, laughing. Shaking my head, I sized up the two men who blocked my way and then I smiled. I could kill the two weak fuckers in seconds. Snap their necks before they could fucking blink.

The smell of piss filled my nostrils as the two men stood frozen, wide eyes fixed on me. Then the tension of the moment was shattered when a gunshot rang out from upstairs.

362 backed up. “We’ll go out through the east gate. The guards have been overpowered, but they’ll send more soon. We’re the last to be freed. No fucker dared come down here apart from those two. They had no idea it was for you and me.”

362 set off at a sprint back up the stairwell, leaving me stunned at the entrance of my cell. I looked down at the invisible line that separated me from the hallway and, when I looked down, my hands were shaking.

My hands were shaking…

I’d never left my cell of my own accord before. I’d never been beyond this room unless to fight, be tortured or train.

I ran my hand over the mass of scars from being tortured along my body, still feeling the pain that had been inflicted when I’d tried to remember my past. The metal rods the guards would use to shock me, the ones that made you feel like you were dying until you lost consciousness. The pain that felt like fire raging through my body every time I tried to remember anything from my life before this place.

Hearing shouts and what sounded like a brawl upstairs, I clenched my fists and ran back into my cell, ripping my spiked knuckledusters off their hook on the wall.

Bending down to the tub of dirt I kept on the floor, I dipped in my two fingers and ran the dark, almost black, mud under each of my eyes. I’d always hid my eyes. I didn’t know why, it was just something I’d always done. The guards liked it, thought it made me look more vicious, so they collected the dirt for me. They said it made me look more animal than man in the cage.

Slipping on my weapons of choice, I ran my fingers over the carved writing on the wall and recited my mantra.

Alik Durov.

Brooklyn, New York.

Revenge.

Kill.

Hearing the familiar sound of the guards’ heavy footsteps on the stairwell, I threw the hood of my sweatshirt over my head, rolled up the sleeves to free my knuckledusters, and gritting my teeth with single-minded intent, ran full force at the three guards coming my way.

Years of life in the cage, fighting to the death for sick fuckers’ entertainment ensured my strikes were quick and effective. I was a reigning champion. I was the sure bet… I was a machine… I was death.

My spiked fist punctured the chest of the first guard, his heart and lungs sliced open, guaranteeing a swift death. A blow to the head of the second guard saw him drop lifeless to the ground. The third guard turned on his heels when he recognized me. He should. This fucker had beat me, tortured me. It was his time to feel pain.

He’d run just four steps when I gripped his shoulders, wrapped my foot around his calves, and bent him backward until his spine snapped in two. Dropping his corpse, I pounded up seven flights of stairs, not even out of breath.

Revenge.

Kill.

Revenge.

Maim.

Alik Durov.

Brooklyn, New York.

Kill.

They were the only thoughts occupying my mind as I navigated my way through the narrow hallways, dodging bodies under my feet, following the rush of fighters of all ages… even scared little kids, freshly brought into this hell.

I pushed people out of the way heading to the outside, my lungs burning as they coped with the unfamiliar sensation of fresh air. I stumbled as the freezing night breeze whipped the skin on my face and oxygen filled my raw lungs.

Fresh air.

I hadn’t been outside for… I didn’t know how long. Years, I thought. Years trapped in a cell without a glimpse of daylight, breathing in stagnant air, a mixture of dampness, mildew, and blood….

And death.

Death had a unique smell, a unique taste. I had breathed it in day and night, tasted it for so long that I found it difficult to breathe in the clean freshness of the outdoors.

Seeing the other fighters run free and out of the east gate, a guard sprawled on the floor caught my eye, a stab wound to his stomach. 362 was backing away with bloodlust in his eyes, his bloodied sai in his hand—his choice of weapon in our Gulag cage.

362 watched me approach. “We’re free, 818!” he shouted, his face lit with excitement and his words seemed to echo in my ears, my mind not allowing me to believe it.

“Wh-what now?” I asked, looking around the yard filled with dead bodies, the ground drowning with blood, the Gulag’s sirens wailing and prisoners running for the safety of the nearby forests.

362 dropped his tense shoulders and moved before me. “This is it, 818. It’s what we’ve been waiting so long for. What we’ve survived for.” His eyes brightened and he said, “It’s time for us to seek our revenge.”