And that bad feeling prove itself right after a week of solitude.
*Clang*
The usual small hatch open as a iron tray was push in. The five kids scrambled towards the tray only to pause immediately.
Wh...what?, Ethan stared at the tray confused
"Why are there only four bowls? Carl asked the golden question.
"They are clearly five of us,why has the portion been reduced?" Dave stared at ash and Lila as if they both should know the answers.
Ash ignored Dave gaze as gears shift in his head.
They have kidnapped us,lock us up for a week,only feeding us a meal per day and now they have reduced the portion by one. What is there goal?,who are they?, and the urgent question now..." He look up at everyone face "who doesn't get to eat".
Everyone have that same thoughts,they where all hungry and none was about to go even hungrier.
They all locked eyes, each on guard against the other watching who would make the first move.
The silence thickens between them, four blows and five starving prisoners, the tension in the air was thick.
Ethan whimpered first.
"I....I didn't eat much yesterday," the smallest said, hugging his knees. His eyes never left the bowls. "I swear. I can share. I can—"
"No," Dave snapped too quickly. His stomach growled like it was betraying him. "Sharing just means we all starve."
Lila swallowed. She hadn't moved. "This isn't random," she said quietly. "They want to see something."
Ash glanced at the hatch, then at the walls, as if expecting eyes to open in the steel. "They're watching."
She glanced at him "one of us has to be left hungry"
"This is a test," Ash said. His voice sounded steadier than he felt. "they clearly want us to fight"
" Well I don't see why not"
"Huh?" × 4
They all glanced towards the source.
Ethan,the youngest, slowly rise from his knees. " This how it's normally is, isn't it? For a begger of course it's always survival of the fittest, fighting for food here and there" he said meeting everyone gaze " I've lived my whole life like this, surviving every inch of the way, stepping on many other, so am definitely getting a bowl".
He paused,his eyes holding an unfamiliar determination "even if it means killing someone here"
The air changed.
It wasn't dramatic at first, just a cold breath against Ash's skin but then it poured out of Ethan like a ruptured lung.
Fog exploded from his body.
A choking, rolling wall of gray that swallowed the room in seconds, slamming into the ceiling and bleeding down the walls. Visibility vanished. The bowls disappeared. The others disappeared. Even the corners of the room ceased to exist.
The already dark room with no visibility just got blinding.
"Shit—!" Dave cursed.
"I can't see!" Carl cried.
Ethan moved.
Bare feet slapped against stone, fast and practiced. He didn't hesitate, didn't stumble. He knew exactly where the tray was—he'd memorized it the moment it slid in.
He probably done this maneuver Many times already. Ash mused Internally. But he wasn't idle
"So that's your answer," Ash muttered, sparks flickering faintly along his fingers.
The room erupted.
A metallic sound was heard from where ash judge was Lila location. She swung on instinct, making the fog rolled due to it.
Dave reacted a heartbeat later.
Glass burst into existence around his forearms, with a open palm forward he fired shards of glass towards the tray direction.
"Get away from the train" he roared
Too late.
A bowl scraped across stone then every one went silent.
They immediately knew Ethan gave gotten a bowl and is probably somewhere in the fog, hidden and eating.
Carl panicked.
The fear cracked something inside him, and the room howled.
Sound detonated outward—amplified screams, metal shrieks, glass shattering, powerful echoes bouncing off the walls until it felt like the room itself was screaming. Everyone clutched their ears as pain stabbed straight through their skulls.
Ash snarled and let instinct take over.
Purple lightning crawled up his arms, veins glowing beneath his skin. He slammed his palm forward.
A lightning strike tore through the fog.
It didn't just light the room. It ripped the fog open, briefly carving silhouettes into the gray. For a split second Ash saw everything:
Ethan crouched low in the shit corner, bowl clutched to his chest.
Dave charging towards Lila, shield raised.
Lila mid swing, her metal blade aiming at Dave head.
Carl on the floor, screaming, sound spiraling out of control.
A moment later, the light vanished. The fog closed again.
*Crash*
A shattered sound was heard and amplified immediately after.
"How the hell did Dave and Lila ended up fighting? How did they even see each other?"
Ash cursed and hurled a black fireball upward—not large, not lethal, just enough to burn the air. It scorched a path through the mist, heat boiling fog into screaming steam.
The shattered into fireworks, burning up the fog and clearing the visibility.
Dave took the opening.
Glass shards formed along his arm and he lunged, firing point-blank at Lila.
Ahhh!" Lila screamed a moment late to defend
Dave seeing an opportunity steadied for another round but the scream got amplified and disorient him.
Ash too felt an headache from the amplified scream and with a frustrated urge to shut the noise maker up, he didn't held back and fired a bolt at Carl's direction.
The lightening left ash hands before his thoughts could keep up.
A sharp crack split the air.
Purple light speared through the thinning fog and struck the far wall.
Carl's scream cut off mid-note.
For half a heartbeat, nothing happened.
The fog finally collapsed in silence, eaten away by heat and electricity, revealing the room in brutal clarity.
And then they say it.
Carl lay crumpled against the wall.
His small body was still, smoke curling faintly from his chest. His eyes were open, glassy, frozen in surprise. No sound came from him now.
Ash's arm dropped.
His breath hitched. "I—" His mouth worked, but nothing followed.
Dave froze mid-motion, glass shards hovering around his forearm before clattering uselessly to the floor. Lila's blade dissolved into metal dust, her armor peeling away as her knees buckled.
One of them was dead or rather killed.
Ash couldn't look at Carl anymore
He stared at his own hands instead, the same hands he used to kill keal and the rest not long ago took another life. Something he thought he would never do again.
"I didn't mean to," he said shakingly. "I just wanted him to stop screaming."
Ethan laughed softly from the corner.
They all flinched.
He stepped forward, bowl half-empty in his hands, fog dissipating around his feet. His face wasn't triumphant. It wasn't even angry.
It was natural, almost like he was used to this kind of situation.
"Welcome to how the poor lives"Ethan said, eyes flicking from Carl's body to Ash, then to Dave and Lila, "survival of the fittest and clearly Carl wasn't the fittest".
He turned to ash " you are".
Ash felt cold beneath his feet, there was something about this Ethan that was vastly different to the one crying before. He was like a wolf in sheep clothes, despite being quite young.
"Is this how Ethan survive?and I thought I had it worst"
Ash opened his mouth about to speak but he paused.
He noticed that with his small gesture, Dave took a subtle step back, almost instinctively.
Lila did the same.
Fear had shifted direction.
Not toward Ethan that catalyst but toward him, the person who killed.
He clenched his fists, lightning snapping once in response to his emotions before dying out.
"They wanted this," Ash said quietly, more to himself than anyone. "They wanted one of us or even more to die!" He said, voice rising.
" This is clearly a sick game to them, they feed us five once a day then suddenly they removed a portion, it's clear to see they want one of us dead and I doubt that will be the end!"
His chest rose in anger as he basically roared at them, trying to explain but they did nothing but further held there guard against him and this made him even angrier.
" Fine then" he said voice dangerously even walking back to his corner, the other watched him for awhile before finally settling back into their corners.
Carl corpse was left untouched.
And so the countdown began