THE PIT · HUMAN
They licensed my consciousness to Ares before I had enough sense to object.
Sena was nine when she found me bleeding out behind the filtration tanks and instead of running for help she sat down and pressed her tiny hands against the wound and told me a story about a bird who couldn't fly—kept talking until the medics came.
Sena marches in Ares' Procession because a clerk signed her away before she could object. The armour fits. She never asked for it. — L.
As of the 35th day
The Pit · UNDER · HELD BY The Underground
On the mapThe Gasp Drum, pump service
The bilge stink of overheated copper. A seized pump screams until a wrench taps it quiet.
KIN Yun Tijani
I told that stupid bird story because I thought Yun couldn't hear me and I needed something to do with my mouth so I wouldn't scream. I was nine and my hands were inside my sibling's body and I have never been more frightened in my life; I don't remember the story ending, just the sound of the medic shuttle.
CREW Millicent Hadley
She came down angry and I showed her the silt line myself, and we dumped the tank into the rain — but I noticed she kept one jug back for her own kitchen, and I said nothing.
CREW Afia Zhao
Afia's hands were shaking when she passed me the key, but she'd never admit it, and neither would I. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the wall while those drones combed the corridor and I thought: this is either the day I die or the day I trust someone, and it turned out to be both.
DEBT Shigeru Zhao
I spent half my biofoam ration on Shigeru that night because nobody else in the Pit was going to stitch a man who couldn't pay, and I told him we were square — but he still flinches when I walk into a room, like I'm keeping a ledger only he can see.