Sweat drenched my back as I nervously held the firewood torch gifted to me by the massive man who goes by the name T'kar, who was apparently my brother, well, half brother. Not biological; he says he won't accept me as his full brother until I indulge in human flesh, which is something I won't ever do. He and I were apparently in the same gang, one called Movematch. Why the gang leader, Prpove, settled on such a stupid name was beyond me, but I wouldn't dare voice my opinion.

  After some probing, I managed to gain quite a bit of information out of T'kar. First off, he wasn't very smart, even with such intelligent looking eyes. Marko was also my brother, but he claimed to have seen me selling out to the rival gang from another lane, one called Bonesmearsks.

  Truthfully, he might've been right, and I had no way of knowing, but that had to do with the previous owner of this body, not me. So, for the sake of my continued survival, he was wrong; he was the spy, not me.

  Would I have to kill him? Most likely, was I ready? No, not at all. I would've preferred if this body was truly a blank slate, with no ties whatsoever to anything, but, it seems that wasn't meant to be. How was I going to fit in, though? I've never been in a gang before, nor have I done anything of this nature, much less kill someone! It'd be a miracle if I'm not exposed the moment we enter our so-called 'stronghold.'

  'You can do this bud, you have to do this, bud! If not, you're going to die!'

  I don't want to die, not yet!

  So, I forced myself to calm down, and steeled myself as much as possible, then, I attempted to gather even more information.

  "So, where's the traitor now? I want him dead!" I asked the hunk of muscle, putting on the most viscous vengeful look I could muster as we walked. For extra effect, I moved the torch closer to my face and turned my head to the barbarian, maximizing my odds of being seen.

  His deep blue eyes moved over to me, and a sinister grin wormed its way on his face.

  "I knew you'd ask, big, I mean middle bro! So, I had some of the fellas beat him, and tie him up, he should still be alive!"

  "Good! But, how are we going to...kill him?"

  He stopped, and looked at me like I was some blubbering baboon.

  "What do you mean how? Just like old times, before you went all soft, alive and screaming! Piece by piece, until you've become my full brother again." he said with a nod, "No sibling of mine will go around looking so skinny, with ample meat around, why not partake in some? Look, I know some stuff changed after the boss ate mum, but, get over it."

  Wait what? They ate our mother, and he's fine with that?

  What the heck? Why? What did she do? And what did he mean by alive and screaming! That's just nasty, unnecessary, and cruel; if you're going to eat a man, put him out of his misery and enjoy the rest, at least. This body's family...it's so messed up, man, what horrible luck, utterly abysmal. Now I really wasn't looking forward to this 'Initiation ritual.'

  Should I run? Was it too late to turn back now? Could I even run? With each passing moment, I felt my mental strength slipping; was I really going to go through with this? This was a line that, once crossed, was crossed; there was no going back, but what other choice did I have?

  Before long, we reached yet another crossroads, took a left, then a right, another right, two more left turns, went under a decaying wall, a two alleys, and finally arrived at our base of operations; a medium sized complex, made entirely from wood, huts stacked atop each other and connected by either stairs, ropes, or ladders. Though it looked like it was on the verge of falling down, and creaked in the darkness like a tree's branches in the wind, it held firm somehow, and was brightly lit, all the way from the bottom to the middle floors while the upper floors seemed entirely abandoned.

  Many shifty-looking individuals filtered past us as we moved, with a few pausing for a heartbeat to steal a glance, but would continue on their way a second later, removing themselves from view as they vanished into a random lane or alley. Soon, we reached a fairly tall wall surrounding the hut complex, where a few people gathered, each holding makeshift weapons fashioned from human bones, or wood.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  They didn't look like it, but they were guards, our guards, too, responsible for ensuring that the right people could go on, not spies from other rival gangs. It was crude, primitive, and utterly inefficient, but, apparently it worked? When they saw us, specifically T'kar, all moved aside almost immediately, which caused me to ponder about his status in the gang. Did he have a high position, or was it because of something else, like his immense strength?

  'Could be both, to be honest'

  Once we were in, it was significantly brighter due to the sheer concentration of torches, so out out ours, and took a left turn that led to a dark corner; the back of the building. Though it was dark, it wasn't to the point where one had to force their eyes to see; I could still make out the important stuff.

  And, what I saw shook me to the core; it was a body, one foaming at the mouth, twitching erratically as the last visages of life left him.

  [Marko Atum:

  A spy from a rival gang four lanes over, specifically the Bonesmearsks, tasked with infiltrating the Movematch gang, uncover key intel about hunting ground, and some other things. But, after an unlucky encounter with a spy from another rival gang, he was killed via myriad river water ingestion.]

  Wait, Marko? Isn't this the guy we were looking for? So, there's multiple spies within the gang, from different gangs, too. What a headache. Also, what exactly was the myriad river? The name alone gave the idea of a river composed of many other rivers, but I could be wrong. The fact that its waters were enough to kill a fully grown man suggested a lot of things, a lot of extraordinary things, too.

  But, I would think about that later, right now, I had to figure out what to do. T'kar walked over and crouched down in the darkness, his massive form towering over Marko's dead body like a single, massive shadow, a contemplative look etched into his scar mired face as he scrutinized the body, eventually reaching out to snap off a rat skin pouch from Marko's waist, and tore it open to reveal a polished wooden jar, no larger than one's pinky finger, containing a black, thick liquid.

  [Purified Myriad river water:

  Water extracted from the Myriad river by members of the Evolution cult, purified to enhance killing power, one of the many products of the Evolution cult, who specialize in drugs, old magic, and evolution.]

  So there were cults, too, huh? And cults with magic at that, real magic. Were the ones responsible? But, why? What have we done to offend them? Or, was I just overthinking things? Before I formed a conclusion, I needed more information first; the info gained from the skills were good, but they were limited, so I had to nip this bad habit of jumping to random conclusions based off such a limited amount of information at the bud before it screwed me over later.

  I walked over, stooped down as well, and pretended to examine the jar, then, I turned to T'kar.

  "Do you know anything about the Evolution Cult?"

  T'kar paused his thinking, and looked at me for a moment, seemingly trying to discern why I'd ask such a random question now, of all the times.

  "Oh, them? They're a bunch of fancy weaklings from the second floor, supposedly, they have magic, too. But, I don't believe it unless I see it! But, that's not important now, look, look at this jar! Those stinking Jarlings, using the same method to silence a potential loose end again!"

  With a heavy sigh, he contained, "You know, I never really expected him to be a spy, but, turns out he was, such a shame, now we can't eat him because of the poison, a pity!"

  Wait, so he wasn't saddened by the fact that he was dead, but the fact that he couldn't eat him anymore?! How did this guy even think?

  Sigh, but, second floor? Could it be that we're in a dungeon? Or maybe my mega-structure theory wasn't so far-fetched, after all. But, who would go out of their way to build such a thing? And one with multiple floors at that, large enough to accommodate thousands of people. Now, I am no genius, but I knew that ordinary wood could not do such a thing, so there had to be some magic involved, absolutely.

  The more I learned, the more curious I became, and a part of me even wanted to meet the architect of this place. But, all of that was for later, now, I had to gather more information about these Jarlings the barbarian spoke of. From the way he spoke, this wasn't the first time something like this happened in the gang, so I examined the jar itself.

  [Polished wooden Jar:

  The specialty of the Jarlings, a rival gang whose leader is a carded Carpenter with a jar kink; he believes that jars are all one should ever needed in life, and his philosophy is reflected in the gang members, who always carry around a rat pouch filled with various jars, containing all sorts of things, usually the essentials, like potent poison in the case of an emergency.]

  So if these jars were only used by members of the Jarling gangs, and Marko was a member of the Bonesmearsks, who did not carry jars around with them like the jarlings, what did that mean?

  A conspiracy, a scheme, one involving not just our own gang, but many more, from the looks of it!

  I sighed, and used my free hand to massage my forehead; this was getting more complicated than I anticipated, much more complicated.

  But, why would they scheme against us? Did our leader have something they desired, or was it simply out of revelry?

  Regardless, no matter how I looked at it, the situation was bad; there were an unknown number of spies within our gang, and strongholds, from an unknown number of gangs, too, with ulterior motives. Some were smart, too; they were eliminating other spies, and shifting the blame to other gangs, hoping for them to take the fall while they remained hidden.

  It was a smart play, one that left me deeply paranoid, too; who could I trust now? Wait, why did I want people to trust anyway, they were all cannibals who'd turn on you at the bat of an eye!

  Nobody I've met so far was worthy of being trusted, not even this so-called half brother of mine.

  Suddenly, T'kar shifted his gaze to me, and I felt a sudden chill creep up my spine as his eyes became sinister, lifeless, and cold, void of any emotion.

  "Well? Number 2, did you successfully drop off the package at the designated spot?"

  Huh? Huh?! What?!