Rian took a long, shaky breath, forcing the adrenaline to level out. He wiped a smudge of black grime from his forehead and looked around.
But then he pulled himself out of it and stretched his weary limbs, trying to enjoy the space.
Indeed, space.
Back home he was forced to stay in the margins, tucked away in the dusty, cramped corners of a mansion that was massive for everyone but him. He had spent his years folded into a mildewed attic, navigating narrow crawlspaces, and ducking behind heavy furniture to avoid being seen. Even the luxury of the "family" was cluttered and suffocating, filled with heavy velvet and gold-trimmed junk that left no room for a stray like him to breathe.
And here he was, standing in a completely different dimension that was trying to kill him yet he was enjoying the open space.
'Guess I should go on more goose chases,' he thought with a grimace.
A small, hysterical note of excitement began to itch at the back of his mind.
"I mean, look at the architecture," he muttered, kicking a pebble across the scarred obsidian floor. "No mildew. No cramped attics. Aside from the 'death ink' and the high probability of being eaten, this place is a five-star vacation spot."
Rian with a new spring in his step continued hopping down one step at a time while whistling a small tune.
After all, being marginalized (literally) by his family, they never really let him enjoy the pleasures of life. Like jumping up and down.
After what seemed to be like an eternity of climbing down stairs Rian began to hear a sound.
At first he had no idea what it was but as he got deeper and deeper, it slowly intensified to the unmistakable sound of… cheering?
As he approached the end of the staircase Rian quickly suppressed his footsteps, a skill he learned from looting his pantry back home, and followed where the sound was coming from.
After about two minutes of walking he found a singular unassuming looking door slightly cracked open. The noise at this point was nearly ear splitting, constant roars of people cheering were nearly disorienting Rian making it even hard for him to think, but he pressed on.
Rian walked to the side of the door and slightly peeked in and what he saw made his jaw drop.
It was a colosseum.
The ceilings were higher than what he thought was possible, vanishing into a swirling overhead vortex of violet mist that glowed with a faint, sickly luminescence. Below, a large open area was covered in dark, ash-colored sand, looking like a massive bull pen designed for something far more dangerous than a bull.
And hanging from that vaulted, unseen ceiling was a forest of chains.
Thousands of them dangled like rusted vines, ranging from links the size of a fist to massive, ship-anchor iron that groaned under its own weight. They swayed in a nonexistent breeze, clinking together with a rhythmic, metallic chime that sounded like the heartbeat of a graveyard. Some chains were taut, disappearing into the floor as if holding the very foundation of the arena together; others swung loosely, their hooked ends stained with the same iridescent, dried blood he'd seen earlier.
Indeed, a sense of grandeur like this was hard to come by in the real world. In the mansion, "grand" meant a gold-plated banister or a high-ceilinged ballroom, but even those felt like dollhouses compared to this. The stone tiers of the amphitheater rose up in jagged, impossible ranks, carved directly into the bedrock of the void. They weren't just seats; they were monuments to an audience that had long since perished.
And then he saw them.
The tiers weren't empty.
A crowd of thousands sat in the gloom, their forms draped in tattered, archaic robes. They were going crazy like people high on some hard stuff. Banging their chests and yelling like they just won the lottery.
Just when Rian thought he'd seen it all a sharp voice cut through the entire arena making the entire place go silent.
"Hello ladies and gentleman! Welcome to the daily arena sponsored by me! Hehehe"
Rian looked up toward the source of the noise. Floating in the violet haze above the center of the pen was a figure that looked like a splash of blood against the dark sky. The man wore a tattered jester's mask, its painted grin stretching ear to ear, and a suit of mismatched silk that fluttered in a wind Rian couldn't feel.
'Pff show off'
"To begin today's showing, how about we start with a small appetizer?" the Jester said, tapping his porcelain chin in mock contemplation.
"Bring them in!"
The command wasn't just spoken. It was howled. In response, two splotches of that familiar, oily black ink materialized on opposite sides of the ash-sand floor. They expanded rapidly, spinning into what seemed like swirling portals.
From the left portal, a figure resembling an overgrown dog stepped out. It was a mass of exposed muscle and jagged bone, its fur replaced by patches of coarse, black bristles that quivered like needles. From the right, a crab-like monster scuttled into the light, its shell a sickly, translucent white that revealed pulsing organs beneath. Its claws weren't pincer-like, but jagged serrated blades that sparked as they dragged against the obsidian stone.
Rian, still tucked behind the sliver of the cracked door, felt his stomach drop.
"Those are both abominations," he whispered to himself.
Doorborns.
That was the name the world gave to the creatures spawning from the Doors. Each one was ranked in a hierarchy of power: Abomination, Blight, Horror, Profane, Eldritch, and finally, Primeval. The rank of a Doorborn was visible in the faded, branding-like marks etched into their hides. It looked like a series of jagged tally marks burned into their skin with white-hot iron. A single mark meant an Abomination. But as the tally grew, so did the nightmare. A Blight would have two, a Horror three, and so on. These two each bore a single, jagged scar on their flanks, yet even the lowest tier was enough to tear an untrained human into confetti.
The crowd above didn't care about the classification. They simply wanted blood. Their cheering resumed, a rhythmic, guttural chant that seemed to egg the monsters on.
High above, the Jester drifted lazily through the air, his gloved hands behind his back. He didn't spare a glance toward the door where Rian was hiding, his masked eyes fixed solely on the sand below.
"Oh, look at them! So hungry, so lean!" the Jester giggled. "Why don't you two show our lovely guests what a real struggle looks like?"
The monsters didn't need any further encouragement.
The hound-thing let out a sound that was half-bark, half-shriek, and launched itself across the sand, its twitchy, violent movements throwing up clouds of ash. The crab-beast didn't flinch; it hunkered down, its serrated claws snapping shut with a metallic crack that echoed like a gunshot through the silent arena.
They collided in the center of the pit in a spray of iridescent ichor and grit. The hound tore at the crab's translucent shell, its teeth screeching against the bone-like surface, while the crab's blades sliced deep into the hound's exposed muscle. It was a primal, messy display of violence a desperate fight for survival that felt uncomfortably familiar to Rian.
Rian kept his eyes locked on the fight, after all this was the first time he had ever seen doorborn in person.
After a few exchanges the roar of the crowd rose to a fever pitch as the hound's jaws finally locked onto the crab's pulsing throat, and the first true spray of black blood painted the sand.