“Work time! Get up!”

The harsh voice greeted her as her existence began, uncertainty whispering that she didn’t belong here.

She sat up in the rough cot, a stiff blanket falling around her lap as she did. Familiar, but utterly foreign. Four smooth walls of blank metal, each carved deeply with the same white-glowing symbol, like a bolt of lightning wrapped around an open hand with two fingers upraised.

Looking at the symbol made her feel dizzy, so she looked down instead. The same symbol adorned the floor, and the ceiling. Only the wall from the direction of the voice had a smaller version, less brightly glowing, less dizzying, so she focused on that wall as she got to her feet unsteadily.

Someone had scrawled on the back of the door the number 308, alongside a page listing prices and rules. Rewards for different types of item, values deducted for infractions such as refusing to work, dying, or attempting to escape. Nothing special, all things she could have guessed. But the number…

308. That felt familiar. Right. 308 was her. She was 308.

“Everyone up? Let’s go!”

308 placed a hand on the door, and it swung open. She stepped out into the hall, meeting the confused gazes of her neighbor across the way, and a young man further down the hall looking around uncertainly. Others didn’t bother with curiosity, looking down, or turning immediately toward the source of the voice.

Before the door across the hall closed, she saw the same glowing symbols on his walls, an equally bare room with nothing but a bed identical to her own.

A woman walked down the line with an oversized black marker, scribbling the number on the front of each person’s grubby white tunic. 308 looked down at her number, now scrawled hastily across her chest, as the woman moved on.

She looked up and met 307’s eyes. He was looking at her again. “Hi,” she said, a little awkwardly. “I’m 308.”

“307. Do you know what’s going on?”

“No. You?”

He shook his head. She noticed as his door closed that there was another page fastened to its outside, a longer one this time. She turned to check her own.

308

Human

Female

Deaths: 280

Debt remaining: 29,922,608

She could see the number had begun at 30 million, and below was a list of deductions and items. The biggest was an artifact, valued at 20,000. Most were smaller. Some were additions to the debt; she saw at least six +5000: Killed attempting to escape.

And the list was long. It filled her with a sense of hopelessness, as well as confusion.

Deaths: 280

“Deaths?” she asked, but before 307 could answer, the shouter at the front called out again.

“Three hundreds, let’s move!”

Then they were walking, a double column that quickly became four, then eight, then ten, as other halls joined them in one wide band filing out into the oversized courtyard. Huge walls stretched out to surround them in all directions, split with a dozen towers.

308 felt instinctive fear, looking up at those towers. She knew they were one of the most dangerous things around.

There were various people, some that looked like her, others whose bodies were very different. Some had fur or hooves, flat heads or up-perked pointed ears, flesh pale as marble or blue or red or dark purple, soft cream fur or bristly black, horns, an extra eye or only one eye. She stared around at the assemblage, awed and uncertain. She felt both foreign and a deep sense of kinship with everyone here.

This wasn’t where she belonged. None of them belonged here. They were foreign together.

“You’re working sector 92 today,” their instructor called, pointing to a gate marked 5 off to their right. “Follow the signs, bring back whatever you find, and it’ll be deducted from your debt. If you survive the full day, tomorrow’s haul counts as double. Good luck.”

The crowd turned to the gate, but moved more slowly now. 308 could feel the dread, less than the towers invoked, but the gate was almost as bad. Not quite certain death, but close to it.

“Hurry up! Gate closes in three minutes.”

That galvanized them, overcoming the reluctance as they all hurried. The gate was bad, but being left behind was worse.

308 strained at her memory, trying to remember how she knew these things, but everything beyond waking in her room was a blank.

280 deaths.

Was that good? Bad? She’d tried to escape before, multiple times, yet she was still here. She’d found items, somehow, and turned them in. Why was she here? What did she owe 30 million of, and why? Was this a debtors’ prison? Was she a criminal? A murderer?

Then they were outside, and she felt a moment of absolute certainty that she’d rather have stayed inside and faced the towers. At least that would be quick.

An army of monsters stood waiting for them, lined up and grinning like they’d known their prey would be arriving any minute. Familiar monsters. Monsters that stalked her forgotten nightmares.

Unlike her fellow numbers, the monsters weren’t great in variety. The front ranks were almost entirely giant wolves, but she saw minotaurs scattered among them as well. Enough to be dangerous even without the support of wolves.

The 0s at the front began to slow, uncertain, as those behind pushed up against them, still trying to get clear of the gate before it slammed closed and sealed their fate.

The monsters waited, slavering and drooling, and for a moment 308 tried to convince herself this was just a show. Her pounding heart didn’t believe her rationalization.

A moment later, her fear was proven correct. The sound of the gate closing acted like the gunshot at the start of a race, setting the monsters rushing forward in a wave.

The front ranks were decimated in an instant with no time to prepare, screams and snarls filling the air as the slaughter began. The 100s started banding together, clumping up, readying fists even as the 0s ahead of them were torn apart. 308 felt her mouth go dry, legs trembling, and she looked around frantically for any way out.

The last of the 500s were breaking off and running along the wall to either side, hoping to escape the slaughter, but 308 was trapped in the middle of the crowd, unable to escape.

“We can take them! Together!”

The 200s were rallying now, as the 100s saw some success in bringing down a few of the beasts. The wolves were still running rampant, but the numbers had felled a minotaur and trampled it to death, their dead companions piled around its corpse in company.

The wolves reached the 300s, and 308 screamed and punched the first one in the snout, kicking it wildly as several around her helped drop it to the ground. They followed the 100s example and stomped and stomped until the wolf stopped biting and trying to right itself, lying still and broken. Then there was another, and another, and 308 lost track of herself in the frenzy of adrenaline-soaked desperation as they fought for their lives.

Then it was over. The monster wave decimated, a hundred or so of the numbers had survived.

308 had a vague sense that she should be sick, but she only felt numb. This was all familiar, inevitable, inescapable. She was sure she’d been at the front sometimes, been the first in line to scream and die.

She looked down at the wolf they’d trampled, and found it glowed. Not visibly, but in her mind. She touched the glow and an item appeared, hovering in midair with the same purely-mental glow.

Knife, level 1. A simple blade with unlimited potential.

Unthinkingly, she reached out and gripped its handle. The weapon came away from the glow, gaining solidity and weight as it settled into her hand like it belonged there. She spun it, tossed it in the air and caught it, flipped it around and still knew exactly how to reach out and catch it.

“There’ll be more,” one of the women near her moaned, sitting with her head in her arms. “I can’t do this.”

308 didn’t have time to comfort her. She had a weapon now. She hurried forward, joining the ranks of the few remaining 100s and 200s who had also obtained weapons. Some were clubs, axes, swords, knives, even a few with a sling or bow or staff.

Level 1 items were worth a single point against their debt, but would be more valuable in hand.

She understood the strategy immediately, as though they’d practiced this scenario until they knew it by rote. With weapons, they could kill more monsters. Some monsters would drop more valuable equipment. The further they got from the prison fortress, the more dangerous it would become.

The more dangerous, the more potential.

They briefly congregated, some swapping weapons as they liked the look of one better than the other, but most seemed satisfied with what they’d obtained.

Less than a quarter of the survivors were armed, most of the rest milled about back in the slaughter field, or had already fled.

“First two rounds we bring back here,” declared an older blue-skinned man with three horns and fins on his ears, the number 184 across his shirt. He nodded back to the unarmed survivors. “After that, we’ll reassess.”

Everyone understood. There was strength in numbers, safety in being an army. Once they were an armed force, they’d be far better able to face the monsters that awaited them.

The morning passed according to plan.

They fought. Some died.

More weapons were obtained, and they returned to replenish and expanded their numbers before moving on.

They fought again. More died.

308 was fast and aggressive, and fought fiercely. She was injured, but not killed.

Twice she earned a new weapon from her kills, and both times she passed it on to someone else. The knife suited her well.

The sense of hopelessness never left, growing only stronger as the day progressed. She fought it with all her strength, throwing herself into combat even as the challenge level grew higher and higher.

She found a second knife, a level 3 worth 5 points, and kept it.

This time she did not go back with the others, recklessly pressing on into the wilder lands beyond the path.

So she was alone when she found the tribe of sleeping minotaurs.

Heart hammering with twinned dread and anticipation, she crept into the camp.

They’d set no guard, kept no watch. They were vulnerable. And they were strong. Much bigger than those in the initial wave waiting for them outside the gate. Adorned with more ornaments. Better groomed. Everything about them screamed power.

These were the kind of monsters that could drop artifacts. This was the kind of place she could make her fortune.

If she woke any without silencing him the whole camp would arouse and she would die.

308 didn’t hesitate. She did not fear death, only felt a great aversion towards it. She would fight to the last but this was an opportunity she would not flee.

She ghosted through the camp, slitting first one minotaur throat then another as they slept helpless and unaware. She didn’t dare pause to collect the glow gathered around each of them, but hurried from each to the next, assassinating the guards, then the nobles, then the chieftain and his wife.

Only once her task was accomplished and the entire camp lay still in death did she let out a faint laugh, a relieved giggle that verged on mania. She ran from one corpse to the next, artifacts spawning like flowers popping from the ground in spring.

A knife, level 10. A circlet, level 12, with the blue glow of magic. A palm-sized orb of golden light with a level of infinity. An ornate armor set with matching green glows.

She’d never in her life seen so much value gathered in one place. She stowed it all away gleefully, finishing back at the chieftain’s corpse with the golden light.

Clarity Orb. An impenetrable shield around your mind.

[Latent mental obstruction detected. Cleansing will commence in 4, 3, 2...]

308 dropped the orb before the countdown could complete, the words in her mind vanishing with the contact. She stood for a moment, breathing heavily, unsure why she felt suddenly so afraid.

Perhaps… perhaps she didn’t want to know. Perhaps she would rather imagine herself a murderer than know it for a fact. Perhaps she would rather struggle on in ignorance than recall every failure along the way.

She still had so far to go. Better to turn in the orb, forget about it.

She did not. She slowly knelt down, and cupped the dropped orb in her hands.

The countdown resumed.

[3, 2, 1.]

And Teresa remembered everything.