Raised in the Dark

Power is no longer won by armies. It’s taken in the arena.

in a future where global dominance is decided through ruthless tournaments, the weak are cast aside, and the desperate are turned into weapons. Behind the cheers of the crowds and the glory of the champions lies a darker truth- one built on blood, silence, and sacrifice.

From the shadows of a dying a nation and the ruins of forgotten promises, two lives are about to collide. Bound by loss. Driven by survival. And armed with nothing but a vow.

They called her Ghost in the underground.

No ones remembered when the name started. Maybe it was after her fifth straight win in the cage. Or maybe it was after she stopped speaking during matches.She was a blur of motion, a flicker of white hair and cold eyes, silent even when she struck, even when she bled.

She never lost.

Not once.

And not because she was the strongest.

Because she was most afraid to lose.

Losing didn’t just mean hunger- it meant punishment. A second round. A third. A week without sleep. Another injection that set your nerves on fire and made your bones feel like they were splintering from the inside out.sometimes it meant being dragged to the “ White Room,” where no one come back the same.

Kira didn’t want to know what was in the White Room.

So she won.

Over and over. For eleven years.

The underground facility had no name. The children just called it the Box. It was twenty levels deep, hidden en beneath sector 9’s district. Each level was colder than the one above, like the heat from the surface forgot to reach them.

The fighter slept in rows of steel cots. There were no doors, only bars. The lights buzzed constantly overhead- white, sterlie, too bright. They never turned off. Time didn’t pass the same way down here.

You weren’t allowed to ask for the time anyway.

You just waited for the sirens.

Three long tones meant feeding time.

Two shot ones meant training.

A single rising note meant it was fight night.

Kira could count her life by those sounds. Not in days or years, but in buzzes, blows, bruises, and blood.

And yet somehow, amidst all of it, there was Jin.

They were brought in the same year- Kira was six, Jin was five. At first, he was just another kid crying in the dark. Then one night, he crawled over to her cot, shivering from a fever,and asked if he could lie next to her because he missed his mom.

Kira hadn’t spoken to anyone in weeks. But she let him stay.

From then on they were inseparable.

Jin wasn’t strong. He was clever, curious, and had a quiet stubbornness that made the guards hate him. They piped him with same injections they gave everyone else- drugs that rewired bones, enchanced reflexes, forced growth. But Jin’s body broke instead of bending.

By the time he was fourteen, his hands trembled constantly. By fifteen, his heart would skip entire beats during matches. They started benching him, calling hi a failed batch. But Kira still called him friend.

They used to lie on the floor of their cell and stare at the ceiling, pretending the flickering lights in the vents were stars.

“See that one?” Jin would say, pointing. “ Bet it’s blue. Maybe green. I think they change color sometimes.”

Kira used to laugh at him for that . “They’re just bulbs. Flickering because the wiring sucks.”

“But what if they weren’t?” he’d grin. What if we’re really lying under the real sky and someone’s just playing a trick on us?”

Kira would always roll her eyes, but secretly… she hoped he was right.

Hope was dangerous, though. Hope made you think there was something waiting for you outside the Box.

Most kids who got hopeful either broke… or vanished.

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