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.”
R-E-V-E-N-G-E… I spelled out each letter in my head, feeling the anger take hold of me. My mind suddenly caught up with my heart telling me my chance had finally come. After years of killing and becoming the monster the guards had wanted me to be, I was going to get my revenge.
“Where are you going?” I asked 362.
“West,” he answered darkly. “My retribution lies in the west.”
362 had been the one to make me write Durov’s name on my cell wall, I didn’t remember him doing that, but he told me he had when I first arrived. He too had a name on his wall. Those inscriptions drove us. They gave us a past when there wasn’t one left in our heads. They gave us a reason to live.