When the door closed, the sound echoed for a long time. This was a cell, not like a dungeon. The air smelled of sweat and rust. Fear was mixed everywhere. Sunlight seeped through the cracks, drawing golden lines across the floor. The cuffs had been removed, but the chains had already left marks on his wrists.

  “Get inside, filthy romantic,” the guard grunted, shoving him with the butt of his spear.

  Hope stumbled. Then he steadied himself and smiled.

  “Wow,” he muttered to himself. “This place is smaller than the dungeon.”

  A voice came from the bunk across from him.

  “Did you say dungeon?”

  He emerged from the shadows beneath the bunk. Orange-tinged hair, messy. His face was pale but he looked about the same age as Hope. His clothes were worn, his shoulders slumped. A large sword sheath rested on his back.

  “Yes,” Hope said cheerfully. “I lived there.”

  The boy hesitated.

  “You’re joking.”

  “No.”

  Silence. Then the boy swallowed.

  “My name is Kubo.”

  “My name is Hope.”

  “Are you a gladiator too?” Kubo asked hesitantly.

  Hope thought for a moment.

  “I guess I will be tomorrow.”

  Kubo’s face grew even paler.

  “Tomorrow…”

  Hope sat in the center of the cell, cross-legged on the stone. The chains clinked softly.

  “Are you going out tomorrow too?”

  Kubo didn’t answer.

  Hope noticed his hands trembling. It started small, then became uncontrollable. His fingers stiffened. His teeth chattered.

  “Are you cold?” Hope asked.

  Kubo laughed. A short, dry laugh.

  “I wish.”

  Hope moved a little closer.

  “It’s raining. You might be cold.”

  “On the contrary, I love rain,” Kubo said suddenly. “But at the same time… I’m afraid of it.”

  “How so?”

  “Rain is my power,” Kubo said. “But at the same time… it reminds me of things I don’t want to remember.”

  Hope listened quietly. Kubo took a deep breath. He needed to tell his story to someone.

  “It may be strange to tell this to someone I just met… but if I die tomorrow, I want someone to know what I lived through… The place I’m from is Dryx, the driest region on the planet. It never rains… but when I was born, it rained,” Kubo said. “For the first time, and it rained for days… without stopping.”

  Hope’s eyes lit up.

  “That’s amazing!”

  “Yes. It should have been…” Kubo’s gaze darkened. “But when the nobles heard that the rain had fallen because of me, they came to our home.”

  “For you?”

  “No.” Kubo swallowed. “For my mother.”

  Kubo clenched his fists. Hope tried to understand.

  “So… to make her have children again?”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Kubo nodded.

  “My mother was a beautiful woman, even though she wasn’t noble,” Kubo had said, his voice trembling. “She had blue eyes and hair like golden sand moving in the wind. But when it became known that I had powers, the nobles came. There were many horse-drawn carriages. They broke down the door. They killed my father first. He fought with his sword, but… they tore him apart. My mother screamed… I still remember that scream. She hid me, but they didn’t want me. They wanted her.”

  Kubo’s eyes filled with tears. “They chained her. Dragged her into the desert. Locked her in camp tents.”

  “Every night… a different noble. A different pain. When I crept close, I could hear her screams. The smell of blood. Bruises from beatings. Broken bones. My mother resisted, but each time they hurt her even more… To those wealthy nobles, my mother wasn’t worth even as much as an object. A cheap thing that existed only to bear children… to plant their seeds, so children like me would be born.”

  Kubo took a deep breath and continued. “But my mother couldn’t endure it anymore. She died. When it rained, her blood mixed with the desert sand.”

  Kubo clenched his fists. “Since that day, rain has been my curse. My power, but also my greatest pain. If I hadn’t been born with this power… maybe my mother and father would still be alive.”

  Hope had listened silently. He remembered the dungeon. Dead bodies. Bloodstains. But this… was different. The cruelty of humans. Different from monsters.

  Kubo tried to hold back his tears.

  “They took my mother. They took her from me. That’s why every falling drop reminds me of that day.”

  Hope didn’t know what to say. He tried to speak. But at that very moment… a scream exploded from one of the neighboring cells. It wasn’t a human scream. It began human, then turned animalistic. Then the sound of bone.

  CRACK.

  The scream stopped abruptly. Hope and Kubo jumped to their feet, trying to see what was happening.

  All they saw was a dark silhouette in the adjacent cell. A man was holding his cellmate. His neck was already broken. But it wasn’t enough. He shoved his fingers into his chest. Spread the ribs apart. Blood began flowing into the corridor. The scream of the man fighting death filled the cell.

  “Gashadokuro… stop! Let me go!”

  But the scream was short-lived.

  Gashadokuro laughed. “Weak bones. But they make good weapons.”

  He pulled out a rib. Scraped it against stone and sharpened it. Then he chose a new target. The gladiator sleeping in the opposite cell was good prey for him. He hurled the sharpened bone through the bars. It pierced the man’s throat and lodged into the wall. The man didn’t even have time to struggle.

  Gashadokuro watched with great pleasure as the blood flowed and the soul left the body. Then came another bone. This time an arm bone. He tore it free. Chunks of flesh dangled from it in disgust.

  “Damn these cursed pieces of flesh that dirty the bone!” he shouted. This time he threw the sharpened weapon into another cell. The screams multiplied. He had begun a massacre between the cells.

  The corridor was a pool of blood. The smell filled the cells.

  “WHAT-”

  Kubo froze where he stood.

  The others in the cells were screaming. The bone struck the bars, scraped, then sank into flesh.

  “Gashadokuro Jr.,” someone muttered from the corridor.

  Kubo froze. Gashadokuro moved in his shadow like a massive silhouette. He was playing with bones like toys… playing with the dead bodies of his own cellmates.

  The guards came running.

  “BACK TO YOUR PLACES!”

  A spear was leveled at the cells.

  “Gashadokuro Jr… again? You killed your cellmates?”

  Gashadokuro Jr.’s face couldn’t be seen. But from his breathing alone, it was clear he wasn’t human. His cell was filled with blood. The blood of two lifeless bodies had spilled into the corridor.

  “Save these massacres for tomorrow. I expect plenty of death tomorrow. Don’t disappoint me, body bags.”

  Darkness fell again. Hope slowly sat down. Kubo’s trembling could no longer be hidden.

  “They’re going to kill me,” Kubo whispered. “Tomorrow or now.”

  Hope thought.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t kill you.”

  Kubo looked at him.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t trust anyone.”

  Hope found that strange.

  “I said I wouldn’t kill you. Why don’t you trust me?”

  Kubo remained silent.

  “Try to sleep. Tomorrow will be sunny.”

  The night passed heavily. Morning came with the sound of metal. The cell doors opened.

  “OUT!”

  They were led into the courtyard. The arena loomed above. Massive. Stone stands, chained gates, sand. The sky was clear.

  Hope stopped for a moment.

  THE SUN.

  It burned his skin. A slight pain. But he smiled.

  “Hello,” he said to the sky.

  One of the guards stepped forward. A scar across his face showed his high rank.

  “I’m sure everyone here knows what’s about to happen. But I’ll repeat it anyway. The only thing you will do is fight! FIGHT TO LIVE! There are no rules. Kill, set traps, cheat, everything is allowed. You must kill your opponent in a savage way. You must satisfy the thousands of spectators who came here to watch you die!”

  He raised his hand and pointed at Kubo.

  “Step forward, young man. You will fight first.”

  Then he scanned the crowd. Somewhere in the back, he pointed at someone tall, thin, corpse-like.

  “Yaat. Step forward.”

  Everyone began whispering at once.

  “Ugh! Yaat… cursed.”

  “Don’t get close to him. He brings calamity wherever he goes.”

  Yaat’s face resembled a zombie. When it emerged from beneath his hat, everyone recoiled in horror. The area around his mouth was torn and stitched. His eyes were completely black. Terrifying. No different from a walking corpse.

  When Kubo saw Yaat’s true face, he fell silent. His trembling slowly stopped.

  The gate opened.

  And now the two of them stood in the arena. The arena filled with a roar.

  The announcer’s voice echoed.

  “FIRST MATCH!”

  Hope raised his hand and tried to smile at Kubo. But he couldn’t say the things he wanted to say, and as the gates closed, the arena swallowed everything.

  Kubo’s story kept spinning in Hope’s mind. Kubo had told it all. In detail. Hope had wanted to answer. “I’m sorry you couldn’t save your mother.” But he didn’t.

  Kubo was now in the arena. He looked at Yaat. His trembling stopped. Fear gave way to numbness. He stood in the very center of the roaring crowd.

  The announcer shouted with all his strength.

  “FIRST MATCH! Rainbringer Kubo vs. the Harbinger of Calamity, Yaat!”