In hindsight, David knew clicking yes was an absurd notion, but unerringly, he pushed it.

  Blinding light and utter darkness assaulted his mind at once. Angles more than 360 degrees, circles that ended, straight lines that curved—everything was so wrong that his mind shut down.

  To him, it felt as if a very short time had passed. His awareness of time and even space had become relative. Endlessly, he drifted along this space. Unmoving but never stopping in his slow travel, the vessel that held David's consciousness had begun a journey.

  Travel of ancestry- 1st phase initiated.

  With blazing fury, David awoke. A storm of pain ravaged his mind as he began to pinch the bridge of his nose. With tightly shut eyes, something besides the feeling of wrongness assaulted him. From within, his mind probed in every way he could. His body told him nothing, as there was no supernatural sense to rely on.

  As he opened his eyes, a full arm of gray skin greeted him. It seemed smoother than before, and his claws had shrunk. What truly shocked him to his core were his surroundings. David expected to find a soft bed of dirt, moss, and fallen leaves, but instead, he was greeted with soft linen and fur.

  It was cold and dark stone instead of trees and natural light surrounding him. Nothing made sense to David as he came to terms with the data processed in his brain. With a simple twist, he pinched himself but yelped in pain as the nails stabbed into his arm.

  Zeroing in on the fingers, he bled tiny droplets of purple liquid. At least the warm embrace of torches illuminated the cave, but everything was shrouded in darkness beyond his simple bedding.

  A simple flame sparked in the distance. It danced along to a mysterious tune as it bounced up and down. At first, David focused on the sputtering of orange, yellow, and red light, but soon, his ears picked up metallic ringing.

  Never before had he heard this particular sound. It wasn't the ringing of metal being struck or mechanical gears whining. Neither was it the shrill noise of metal grinding against a hard surface. Instead, it was a clacking that steadily increased from a whisper to more than it had been before

  " Wra-thh-unn," a frosty but happy voice echoed off the cave walls. " A new one has been born; praise the song."

  With the flame closer, he saw a huge being emerge from the darkness. Every piece of its clothing was something from a Renaissance fair. The top consisted of an open leather and cloth vest paired with a course linen shirt underneath. Leather boots that appeared sturdy were laced up to mid-calf, and tucked in them were a pair of linen pants.

  What struck out the oddest was the color of its skin—a deep dark gray accompanied by vicious-looking claws and teeth. Roughly braided hair in the color of piercing moonlight adorned the giant's head. David wondered if that's what he would've looked like if the infection on his hand had spread.

  With deft movements, the giant grabbed David. Crushed into the man's chest, he felt as helpless as a tiny kitten. For some odd reason, being so close to the man and hearing his heartbeat hadn't begun to send David into a spiral of confusion. As if glue had been added to conjoining joints, his nerves calmed.

  'Bizarre, truly Bizarre,' David thought to himself. Another jerk followed, and he could see into the man's eyes.

  " As the song has claimed for eons to come, your true name shall be henceforth forgotten. Earn your right amongst my people by survival," the man intoned, but something heavy settled over David as he did so—something corporal, raw, and even primordial as if the words spoken had become a burden upon David's shoulder, an immutable truth that could not be violated.

  David found himself in another room as a black swirl of energy popped beside his face.

  ' None of this makes any sense,' Rage began to settle in his mind.

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  Situated within a small cage were 18 children around the age of five or six. Slight variations were visible, some with darker shades of gray, others with red eyes or markings along their braided hair.

  'I've just been born, and I have to fight to the death with them all?' David thought with outrage. This whole situation was ridiculous, but the blood on his arm told him that this wasn't a mere production of his.

  Some children began to crawl, while others stood there motionless. Every gaze besides David's was cold and calculating. Ruthlessness flashed across one child's face as he observed everyone around him.

  David's gaze remained complicated. On some level, he understood that this was some trial, a sick mockery to challenge him, but did this mean the other 17 children were not real? No amount of shoddy morality, genuine or not authentic, would justify this. As such, David stood motionless, but his muscles tensed, ready and waiting for any other children to challenge him.

  Moving closer with a confident stride was a red-eyed-looking thing. There was something peculiar about the child's gait as if a ghost was following his every move. 'Incorporeal,' David internalized how it appeared to him.

  There was no twisting of the hips or rotating of the spine as the red-eyed child simply extended his arm out. As if playing and pretending to punch something, the boy advanced. Naturally, this was accompanied by clumsy footsteps.

  They had no previous memories or knowledge of fighting, David analyzed. With a quick step the fist whistled by his ear harmlessly. Not one to let any chance slip by him, David rotated his own body and grabbed the other's arm. The child's feet lost connection to the stone floor as David tugged on his arm. While doing so David knelt down for even more leverage.

  With a crack, the red-eyed child crashed into the stone cage around them. David was astounded, and it clearly showed on his face. The strength necessary to throw someone his own weight 20 feet ahead and 5 feet high was immense. David ran over and checked on the child. As he discovered life signs, relief washed across his face.

  David discovered upon turning that the others had not been idle. In a mockery of mimicry, the observant children had begun to display mirrors of David's movements. There was no real power behind it, as they had no knowledge of leverage, but it was a frightening display.

  Children were locked in playful but bizarre mortal combat all around David. But something slowly emerged within him without his knowledge. Another charged at him, trying to lock him in a grapple-like play.

  David was ready as he threw a haymaker at the child's crown. Like a watermelon, the head bursts into blood and viscera. Children had a soft spot on their heads that allowed them passage through birthing canals, but this felt different. Not only did these children appear to be significantly older than any newborn David had ever seen, but bursting like a balloon wasn't explained with a soft spot.

  Either through the insanity all around him or the budding feeling emerging from him, David shook the feeling off as he stepped over the headless child.

  " There seems to be an exceptional ' Wra-thh-unn,' amongst them, " some distant conversation drifted into David's mind. " Who's joining produced such a prodigal child?"

  The previous statement was met with laughter, and different voices flowed naturally into the next conversation. " Does it matter? He might be dead next."

  There are more questions and no answers for David. He concentrated back on the fight. Half the challengers had fallen. Something primal told him to flick his hands outwards and spread his fingers.

  As David listened, his nails extended into vicious-looking claws. He took off. With barely 30 feet between him and two opponents currently locked in combat, David took the easy-hanging fruit. While passing the first, he swiped at the child's neck and ripped a mortal wound into it. A fountain of blood erupted from the wounded child as David passed.

  Next came the other, and without a single thought, David dove right in. Flexor muscles tensed as he extended his torso away from the child. An explosive rotation followed as he jabbed his hand toward the opponent's jugular. Sword-like winds howled across David's hands as the child was too slow to evade. With mortal precision, this sword formed from David's hand shredded the opponent's jugular. Another fountain of blood, another child lost.

  A manic grin spread across David's face. The only battle left was a three-way between a child standing a whole foot taller than the rest, a tiny one with a stick-thin figure, and another child appearing as tall as he was wide. Technique and ability escaped David's mind as he tore into the middle of the three without regard for danger.

  With a cackle, he became a turning machine of sword-like grace. He cut a big gash across the tall one's belly, bringing him to his knees. David cut the tiny one's arm in half, bone and all. Meanwhile, the wide one took some time to become incapacitated. Resilient is what David would call him if any mental faculty were left within. He jabbed his opponent in the stomach and barely penetrated. David moved from left to right and cut across the wide one's arm. He drew a deep line. Next were the legs as they suffered an even deeper crosscut with both of David's 'swords.' The hefty one toppled over.

  The tall started to raise himself, spilling guts or not. With hurried steps, David disengaged from his current target, focusing back on the tall one. While his opponent was still recovering, a cruel glint appeared in David's eyes as he rounded his opponent. Once behind, David pressed his sword-like claws into the opponent's neck. Any artist loved drawing beautiful smiles, and at that moment, David wanted to be an artist as he drew the cruelest but beautiful red-colored smile across the child's neck. Oh, the joy he felt in the heat of it. The exhilaration as David scanned every minor fray of the tall one's flesh underneath all the pumping red filled him with such joy.

  The tiny one was crying on the floor, holding what was left of its stump, as David approached. Making sure he angled his nails perfectly, he drove them deeply into the opponent's torso from opposite sides. For good measure, David twisted them before retracting. Whistles and foaming blood escaped the tiny one's mouth before he, too, collapsed.

  With light footsteps of joy, David slowly returned to the wide one. He started a furious barrage of shallow cuts. David held himself back and left the cuts as shallow as possible as he tore in the last remaining child. With every cut once more, artistry flowed from David to his canvas, the flesh and skin of another being. Slowly, a circle emerged as if etched with the finest quills, but this didn't satisfy the deeper part of David's mind. After 10 minutes, he was still grinding away at the opponent's body, but suddenly, he was whisked away from his playground.

  With furious howls, he lamented there would be no opportunity to finish his newest masterpiece.