“So are you ready to kill or are you ready to be killed?”
As I sat on the bench in the back room, the cries of hundreds of men shouting their bets beyond the door made my hands shake with nerves. 362 sat in front of me, smiling with a shit-eating grin as he wrapped his hand in a well-soiled white sports bandage.
This guy had been on my ass since I’d arrived a month ago. He was three years older than me, one of the best fighters in his division here at the Gulag, yet he immediately saw me as a threat. Three years his junior, I still matched his size. For a few weeks, the warden took me to a gym, made me train in fight techniques, telling me I would have my first match soon. Every day, I would wake, train, eat, and sleep. I had a routine, but my dreams were plagued with the boy I’d seen in the ring. The one with the dead look in his eyes, his opponent’s guts on the canvas. I knew it would be me soon, forced to kill or be killed.
362 stared me down waiting for my answer.
“I’m going to kill whoever the fuck gets in that ring with me,” I promised. 362’s smile just grew wider at my pissed-off tone. I focused my attention on the white tiled floor, psyching myself up for all that I’d worked for. My legs bounced as the noise from the cage grew louder, and I knew the current fight was coming to a close. My skin was twitching from the shot I’d been getting everyday. My muscles were growing, aching all the time. I was sweating constantly and I was agitated twenty-four-seven, the littlest thing pissing me off.
“You’ll become addicted, you know,” 362 said, and my eyes slammed to his, fiery rage racing through my veins. His long black hair ran down his back, and he jerked his chin in the direction of the door that led to the cage. “Out there, all the men betting on your strength, on your will to survive. You’ll become addicted. You’ll live for the kill … live to see the life force drain from your opponents’ eyes. In that cage we’re both Gods and monsters.”
My mouth tightened and all my muscles tensed. “Never,” I spat back, my voice sounding deeper, rougher.
362 simply laughed.
“This is your first fight. You have no idea how it’s going to feel,” he taunted.
Fists clenching, I said flatly, “I’m going to do what I need to do to get out of here. That’s it. I’m not like you. I won’t like it.”
362 jumped to his feet and approached me. I stood, the concrete cold beneath my feet, and we met face to face. I was Russian; some Georgian piece of shit wasn’t going to best me.
“Not like me?” 362 quizzed. I clenched my jaw and glared into his fucking dead eyes. He smirked, then stepped farther forward until his feet touched mine. “You’re gonna end up exactly like me. You’re gonna die inside. You’re gonna spill so much blood that it’s all you’ll see. At first, you’ll hate it, but with each kill, you’re gonna need it more and more, like some fucking drug. You’re gonna change. Who you are now will no longer exist. You’ll forget who you were. You’ll forget anyone you ever loved.” 362’s lip hooked into a dry smirk, but then his face went blank. “I’ve been here years.” His head tilted forward until his mouth was at my ear, but I held my ground. “And I have no fucking idea who I was before I was brought to this hell. And in time, neither will you.”
My breath came in hard pants, but then 362 moved back. Before I’d even seen him raise an arm, he ploughed his fist into my stomach, my legs buckling as I fell to the ground.
“Enjoy your first fight … I’ve seen your opponent. You shouldn’t die tonight, as long as you keep your eyes alert and you don’t pussy out.”
Spit landed on my cheek as I lifted myself off the ground and stumbled onto my feet. A sudden boom of raucous cheering erupted from the cage. My heart began to race. The gun in the basement sounded.
The current fight had ended.
One fighter had died.
The other now knew what it was like to kill.
And it was now my turn.
Footsteps sounded down the hallway outside, bolts unlatched, and the steel door flew open, a guard appearing before me.
“Out,” he ordered.
Glancing to the back booth in the locker room, I caught sight of 362 practicing with a sai, his bladed choice of weapon. The thin blade twirled around his fingers as he watched me pass, his face betraying no emotion.
The guard smirked as I strode toward him and held out my hand for him to cuff. My stomach tensed as he looked at me; my skin crawled in disgust.
Once my wrists were bound, the guard dragged me into the dank hallway, pulling me down a set of steep stairs until the door opened and I entered the mob of men surrounding the cage.
My breathing echoed in my ears as I approached the octagonal metal cage where the Gulag’s warden waited. Some posts around the outside of the cage were manned by guards taking the spectators’ money.
The guard at my back pushed me forward. Then he undid my handcuffs. The warden gripped me by the neck and threw me toward a table full of weapons.
“Chose,” he demanded.
Nervously, I looked at what was on offer: blades, axes, sai, chains … and at the end, a bladed pair of silver knuckledusters.
“Choose!” The warden sneered. “We don’t have all fucking day!”
Reaching forward, I grabbed hold of the spiked knuckledusters, sliding them onto my damp hands, the feeling of steel against my skin so strange.
The guard behind gripped my arm and, turning me around to face the crowd, pointed to the number they’d tattooed on my chest—818. Dozens of eyes focused on me, and money began to change hands.
The guard made me stand for ages, like an animal on show. I surveyed the unfamiliar faces of the crowd, heart thundering in my chest, palms sweating, and the fear of imminent death almost paralyzing my legs. A firing gun sounded and, abruptly, the guard shoved me up some steps and into the claustrophobic octagon. A boy about my age clutched an axe; he was being pushed into the octagon from the opposite side.
My eyes were glued to his. He was about my height, but he was thinner. He too wore only black shorts, the number 591 tattooed across his chest.
As he stumbled into the cage, piss ran down his legs. I could see by the shaking of an axe in his right hand that he was terrified.
The cage doors slammed shut. The warden stood outside and banged on the cage wall, the sound sounding like thunder. “Only one of you comes out alive. No fucking around. No rounds. No breaks. Just kill.”
My eyes widened as I took in his words, but I knew this was what I was here for. I had to kill this boy in order to survive.
The boy looked across at me; by the way he stood, I knew he couldn’t fight. But my papa had taught me from a young age how to take care of myself. I knew how to fight. I knew how to inflict pain … I knew how to kill.
A gun sounded, and the joint erupted. Men were hammering the cage like hungry animals; they shouted things I couldn’t make out.
The warden bellowed for the fight to begin and adrenaline filled my muscles. My opponent stood frozen on the spot, his eyes roving the sick crowd in fear.
My pulse beat fast, the dull thumping deafening in my ears, drowning out the roar of the spectators.
“Move!” the warden screamed. He’d lost his shit. Our two guards stood at the doors behind us, rifles aimed straight at our heads. Self-preservation took hold; I moved to the center of the ring, my opponent receiving a hit on the head by his guard. The boy stumbled forward, crashing into my chest. The volume of the crowd dramatically rose as our bodies collided. Taking advantage of my stronger stance, I punched out my right hand and hit the boy square on his jaw. Blood showered the boy’s face. Dazed, the boy fell, back hitting the floor. Seeing my chance, I straddled his waist and struck him again on the face. Surprise registered on the boy’s face as blow after blow rained down on him. Teeth tumbled to the ground and his flesh tore under the spiked edges of my knuckledusters.
“Please…” the boy whispered, his quiet voice sounding like a foghorn in the middle of the insanity beyond the cage, “Don’t kill me … I don’t want to die … I’m scared…”
My gut twisted upon hearing his plea and my shoulders sagged. I was exhausted and out of breath. Glancing around the dimly lit dingy room, my eyes drank in the howling, bloodthirsty crowd, and my stomach recoiled in disgust. Grown men. Grown men cheering for kids to shred each other, to tear each other to death.
Wiping a bead of sweat from my brow with the back of my bandaged hand, I rolled off the whimpering 591 and staggered to my feet. The guards raised their guns at my movement. I hit the cage’s metal mesh, which groaned as if it were in pain.
“What are you doing, boy?” one of the guards asked. Everything seemed to slow down, my pulse throbbing too slow.
The warden circled the cage until his angry face was inches from mine on the other side of the metal. “Get back and finish him!”
Nausea built in my throat as I looked at my guard’s hard face. He had to be in his fifties and he was built like a tank. The barrel of his gun was aimed squarely at my forehead. “You have five seconds to get back over there and kill that pussy, or I’ll shoot you both.”
I heard a similar threat being issued from the opposite side of the cage. Hearing a loud scream, I turned just in time to see 591 charging at me with his axe raised high. Though shocked at this move, I dodged out of the way and dove to the ground—just in time to see 591 crash into the metal of the cage, axe slamming hard against the steel links.
He whipped around to confront me, eyes crazed, the whiteness of gritted teeth shining through his bloodied mouth. 591 panted like a rabid animal. I knew then what had to be done.
My fight response kicked in, sending a surge of energy through my whole body. As 591 charged me, I dropped and wrapped a leg around his calf. 591 lost his balance. As he fell to the ground, without pause, I jumped on his back. I raised my knuckledusters, spiked blades pointing down, and with a fast punch and a deafening roar, lodged the blades into the bottom of his skull. Immediately, 591’s body slackened beneath me.
A gun fired and the crowd roared as blood began gushing from 591’s wound onto the concrete floor. Shocked, I couldn’t move. Staring down, I saw that my bladed weapon was still embedded in his skull. I pulled the blades out, and vomit spilled from my mouth as chunks of bone and flesh came away with them.
A hand roughly gripped my neck, hauling me to my feet. A heavily booted foot pushed 591; his corpse rolled over. 591’s lifeless eyes stared up at me, tearing at my guilty heart. I’d killed. I’d taken a person’s life.
Staggering forward aided by a push on my back, I was once again dragged through the crowd of men, this time exchanging cash. My guard flung me on the floor of the locker room at the back of the basement.
The steel door creaked when slammed shut. I worked on taking long, deep breaths as I struggled with the pit of pain in my stomach. A pair of bare feet came into view. When I looked up, 362 towered over me, stretching his muscles and gripping his favored sai with both hands.
“Block it out,” he ordered.
Reluctantly, I raised my head and sat back on my heels, closing my eyes at the sight of blood spattered on my skin. When I opened them again, 362’s attention was fixed on the steel door, but he threw a glance my way and added, “You have to block out the kill. Block out anything that stops you from surviving.”
I shook my head slowly, clenched my fists, and retched when a piece of bone fell from the knuckleduster and clattered to the ground.
“Block it all out. Survive. Take the beatings. Take the shots. Take the torture, the electric shocks to make you forget your past. Let them turn you. Let them fuck with your head. Let them turn you into a monster. Let them turn you feral.” 362 paused and added, “And anything else the guards want to throw your way when they enter your cell in the middle of the night. That’s the only way to make it through the Gulag. The only way to stay alive.”
The steel door burst open again. Rolling his neck, 362 spun on his heel and gripped his favorite black sai tighter. A cloud of darkness suddenly masked his face. It was a blank, dangerous expression that made shivers run down my spine. 362 strode into the hallway, no cuffs on his wrists, no guard forcing him into the cage. I stared numbly at the door. Then I heard the crowd burst into cheers. They loved him. Those fucked-up men loved 362.
Dragging myself to my feet, I stepped up to the grimy mirror in the stinking box of a bathroom that reeked of shit and piss, just like the rest of this fucking hellhole. I wiped the glass, a bloodied streak from my sopping bandages leaving its mark.
As I stared at my reflection, I couldn’t find the boy I’d always seen. Instead, I thought of my parents, but their images were distorted, so I couldn’t picture their faces. Panic ran through my bones as I tried to remember their features. But it was no use. My memory wouldn’t let me. Next, I thought of—, of him, my friend lying on the ground, his life taken by a dagger to the heart. But I couldn’t picture his face. I couldn’t even vaguely remember what he looked like. Hands gripping the sides of my head, I squeezed my eyes shut, memories steadily slipping from my mind.
The drugs. The drugs were making me forget. They were fucking with my mind. I was remembering less and less, day by day.
“No!” I screamed. Punching out, I smashed the edge of the mirror, a shard of glass shattering on concrete. I couldn’t see them! I couldn’t picture their faces!
Concentrating hard, I tried to picture her … my solnyshko … but she appeared blurred. All I could remember was a featureless face crying and colorless eyes staring at me in disappointment. The sight of it made my insides twist in fear … And then I saw him. The one who put me in here. The liar. He had no face, nothing to recall but his name now scrolling across my mind—Alik Durov. He was the reason I was here in this shithole. I clung to that name, even as everything else drained from my memory.
It was like doors slammed shut, their entryways forever sealed. My brain started shutting out my past, shutting out everyone from my past, shutting out emotion, shutting out any feeling of guilt for killing 591.
“Block it all out. Survive,” I told myself.
362’s order ran through my mind, muscles tensing as the boy in the mirror steadily filled with numbness. The boy in the mirror quickly became 818 from the Gulag: location unknown.
I blocked it all out. I took the beatings, the drugs, the torture … and everything else they threw at me.
I did everything I was ordered to do.
And I survived
* * *
Gulping in the sticky Brooklyn air, I jerked awake, body drenched with sweat as I slept behind a dumpster, still gripping tightly to the jar of cash clutched to my chest.
My dream ran through my mind, head pounding with the images. Unzipping my sweatshirt, I ran my fingers over my chest and traced the tattooed numbers. 818. My eyes squeezed shut. I saw the kid still looking into the mirror.
A pain ripped through my skull as I tried to remember, the drugs now slowly wearing off.
ARGH!
Revenge, I thought. Forget the motherfucking dream and get your revenge. Zipping up my sweatshirt, I glanced up at a dark but lightening sky.
It was morning.
Jumping to my feet, I stepped from behind the dumpster, cracking my stiff neck and focused on the dockside gym. A light was on inside, cars entering the underground parking garage to the side of the building.
Blood searing in my veins, I pulled my hood over my head, pounded over the asphalt and pushed open the doors. The weak dick from before was behind his desk. He shit himself again, pulling the same gun on me again. I stormed to the desk without even flinching.
The barrel of the gun pressed against my chest as I slammed the jar of cash on the wood. The dick’s eyes shot down to the jar, then back up to me. Sliding off the stool his fat ass was perched on, he banged on a side door.
“Yiv!”
My eyes bored, my jaw tensed, and my palms still clutched the jar. The side door suddenly flew open. Yiv walked through, a pissed scowl aimed at the guy behind the desk.
“What?” Yiv spat, then saw me standing at the desk. His expression changed on a dime, and he hesitated for a minute before he asked, “You got the money?”
I pushed the jar out in front of me and gave him a single nod. Yiv stepped forward and, without counting the cash, pushed the jar at the other guy. “Take it to the boss’ office.”
The guy disappeared, and Yiv lifted the counter. He flicked his chin, signaling me to come through. I followed behind Yiv, savoring the sound of the punching of bags being hit and the grunts of men in training. My skin prickled with the need to train—a driving need to get back to building my body into the honed weapon it had become, to maintain my focus and kill.
The steel of my bladed knuckledusters weighed that bit heavier in my pocket, reminding me of the task I had to perform, of the fights I had yet to win.
Yiv led me to a room filled with about a dozen men, but my eyes sought out only one … and there he was, dead center, his packed body training on the salmon ladder. His fists were wrapped around a metal bar and he used his upper body strength to climb up the rungs as effectively as anyone I’d seen.
I made sure my hood was pushed low over my head.
“You get a trainer, you get the use of the gym all day, and you turn up whenever the fuck we tell you to. You eat here, take whatever the hell we want to pump you with and you don’t complain,” Yiv said, leading me to a back room.
He glanced back at me, seeing my attention on Durov, and smirked, pointing his way. “That’s my fighter, Alik ‘The Butcher’ Durov. He’s the one everybody wants to beat. Five time champion. The guy is a fucking king in that cage. That mean bastard will never die.”
My nostrils flared with rage as Durov dropped to the floor. Taking out a dagger, he turned to a dead pig hanging upside down on a hook from the rafters. It only took a few perfectly precise strikes for Durov to slice the pig in half. He stood back, chest heaving, eyes lit with that addictive fire of violence, his blade dripping blood at his feet.
That bastard will die, I thought.
As if sensing my fury, my hatred for the man I’d vowed to destroy, Durov’s psychotic stare tried to meet mine, but my hood covered my eyes. His eyes narrowed as he stared me down.
A hand grabbing my shoulder made me react. I gripped the wrist with my right hand, spun around, and slammed the attacker against the wall, his arm almost breaking as I wrenched it up his back.
“Hey! It’s Yiv!” a muffled voice said. It was the trainer, so I let go and stepped back. Yiv turned and ran his eyes up and down my body. Shaking his arm, he declared, “You’re quick. Good. You’ll need to be quick here in The Dungeon.”
I didn’t give a response, and Yiv carried on down the hallway. Still feeling Durov’s eyes on me, I glanced back and he was resting his arms on the ladder, watching me.
Watch me, I thought. See the man who is going to slaughter you.
Yiv led me to a back room where a drunken man was lounging in a seat, clutching a bottle of vodka in one hand. Yiv cursed and kicked the sleeping drunk’s leg. “Get the fuck up!”
The drunk snorted and woke, his bleary eyes immediately landing on me. “What?” he asked in a heavy accented voice.
Yiv reached forward and yanked him to his feet, the half-empty bottle of vodka smashing on the floor. Yiv turned to me, the drunk’s unfocused eyes meeting mine, and Yiv pointed to the trainer. “Viktor, you got a fighter.”
The trainer—Viktor—seemed to hear this. Brushing aside Yiv, Viktor stood right in front of me. My lip curled as the older man gripped my muscled arms, walking around me to check I was in good shape.
Viktor’s eyes narrowed. “Your name?”
I stared blankly at the floor. “I have no name.”
Yiv backed away to the exit door and I could hear his fucking condescending laugh. “You have a week and half of training until the contest. You report here every morning and don’t leave until we say you can. You signed up for this. We now own you. You belong to The Dungeon. You leave, we kill you. You talk of this place, we kill you.”
“Understood,” I replied.
Yiv laughed again and looked at Viktor, then at me. “He’s never had a fighter make it past round one.”
Zipping open my sweatshirt, keeping my eyes down low, I saw Yiv’s smile drop from my peripheral vision as he drank in my ripped, scarred, and tattooed body.
“He’s never had a fighter like me before. I bring death.”
Yiv, for a brief moment, looked worried, then immediately walked out the door. Hearing Viktor snort behind me, I swerved, fisted his shirt, and rammed him against the wall. His face reddened as he tried to say something.
“What—”
“You listen to me and you listen good. I don’t fucking need you. I’ll win this alone. I’ll kill Durov alone.”
Viktor’s eyes suddenly lit up. “You want Durov?”
“It’s the only reason I’m here,” I growled.
Viktor tried to smile but I dropped him to the floor. Reaching into my sweatshirt pockets, I pulled out my knuckledusters and pushed them on my fingers; I immediately calmed. These weapons were a part of me.
Viktor rolled to his feet, his eyes huge as he stared at my chest, the color draining from his cheeks. “Wh-what did you s-say your n-name was?” he stuttered. Shrugging off my sweatshirt, I kept my eyes down and spotted a shelf filled with supplies. Walking across the room, I picked up the jar named ‘Eye Black’, dipped my fingers into the grease and smeared the black under my eyes.
Stretching out my arms, feeling the familiar exercises loosening my limbs, I repeated, “I have no name.”
“No name? What has anyone ever called you?” Viktor asked from behind me.
818, I thought, but I dared not say the number out loud. Catching my reflection in mirrors lined against the wall, I saw the tattoo forcibly etched on my back by the guards. Dropping to the floor, I started with a few reps of push-ups.
When Viktor’s feet came into view, I paused briefly to say, “Raze. The only name I’ve ever been called is Raze. Because I’d raze any fucker that got in my way.”