Arcane, Voice of Zaun

I felt my eyes beginning to open, the lids heavy as if weighed down by lead. Everything hurt - my legs, my chest, my face - but mostly my heart. As my vision cleared, I could make out what surrounded me: walls that seemed to shift between stone and metal depending on how the dim light hit them.

The air was thick with the smell of rust and something else, something worse that I couldn't quite place. But there was one more thing, something that made my skin crawl, a man staring at me.

He sat perfectly still on a metal stool, his white hair falling to his shoulders. His red eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my skin crawl. A smile played across his face, but it wasn't like mom's smile. This one didn't reach his eyes.

"And so the mouse awakens."

I barely registered his words. They seemed to come from far away, drowned out by the roaring in my ears and the memories that wouldn't stop playing in my head. All I could think about was mom.

Her still body lying on the dirty street. The blood trickling down her face, leaving trails in the grime on her skin. The way her chest had finally stopped moving under my hands.

Blood.

I looked down at my fists, still clenched tight as if holding onto something that wasn't there anymore. They were covered in dried blood, flaking off in rusty patches. Some of it was mom's, from when I'd tried to save her. Most of it wasn't.

Blood.

The image of the girl I'd attacked flashed through my mind. I could still feel the way her head had given under my fists, could still hear the wet sounds of impact. The blood that had matted her hair, turning it into sticky clumps. She was probably dead now too, just like mom. Just another body in the streets of the Undercity.

Death.

I thought back to mom again. The way she'd sung to me just hours ago - or was it days? I honestly couldn't tell, I was so tired, I just wished for the warmth of her lap under my head. The gentle way she'd stroked my hair.

All gone now.

Because she was dead.

Dead dead dead dead dead.

"Ha," I began to take in deep breaths, each one catching in my throat like broken glass. "Ha, ha, ha."

The gasps turned into something else, something worse. Small hiccuping sounds that I couldn't control started bubbling up from my chest. Tears filled my vision, turning everything into a blur of grey and brown. Snot ran down my face, but I couldn't even lift my hands to wipe it away. I just sat there, falling apart in front of this stranger with the cold red eyes.

Then came the pain, sharp and sudden. His hand connected with my face with enough force to send me sprawling onto the cold floor. The impact made my teeth rattle in my head.

"Stop crying," the man said, his voice as cold as the stone beneath me.

But I couldn't stop. It was like something had broken inside me, something that had been holding everything back, and now it was all pouring out at once. The tears, the snot, the horrible sounds that kept coming from my throat.

SLAP

"Shut up," the man said in a low voice that promised worse things than slaps if I didn't obey.

I tried to control myself, forcing the sounds back down my throat. The hiccups went quiet, but I couldn't stop the tears or the snot. They kept coming, like my body was trying to purge itself of everything that had happened.

"Good enough." He leaned back on his stool, regarding me with those unsettling red eyes. "So first things first your mom's dead. Her body is probably gone by now but yeah she's dead. Now onto better things, you belong to us now, isn't that great?"

I stayed quiet, my cheek still stinging from his slaps. All I wanted was to go back to mom's body, to try one more time to make her breathe, to hear her voice again. But I knew that wasn't going to happen. Nothing would ever be the same again.

"Now I know belong doesn't sound great, but it really is. You see I'm the leader of a gang to which you now belong, we call ourselves Atreides. My name is Lloyd. What's yours? Cause a few of the guys told me that we should just call you mouse."

I stayed quiet.

SLAP

"Answer me, little mouse."

"Paul," I said in a low murmur, tasting blood where my teeth had cut into my cheek.

"I kind of like mouse more, but Paul will do. For now we'll be sending you to the lanes, you'll be begging for scraps there, we'll take 80% of the haul you make and in exchange we'll provide protection, isn't that great. However if you don't earn your keep, we'll throw you into the ventilation systems, so do try and earn your keep. I dislike throwing kids down there, they make a really weird noise when they bump around the metal."

He rose from his chair, the metal scraping against the floor with a sound that made my teeth hurt. He patted his pants, brushing away invisible dust, before going to a door I hadn't noticed before. He was about to walk through it when he looked back at me, those red eyes gleaming.

"Come on, Paul. You don't wanna stay in the isolation chamber."

Isolation chamber? The words made me look around properly for the first time. I had been sitting on the bare floor, and I realized there was nothing else in here except for the chair. The walls were lined with scratches that looked like they'd been made by fingernails, and dark stains that I knew had to be blood. In the corners, I could see fingernails themselves, torn from desperate hands.

I did as I was told, trying to stand, but my legs betrayed me and I immediately fell to the floor. The impact sent shocks of pain through my whole body.

"Oh that's right, Veronica did say that you had torn some of the muscles in your legs," Lloyd said scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe it would be easier to just throw you down the ventilation systems."

No, I thought, panic rising in my chest like the green smoke that had killed mom. I had to keep living. I didn't know why I thought that - after all, I had nothing left to live for. Mom was gone, our room was gone, everything was gone. But a small voice in my head, one that sounded a bit like mom's, was compelling me to keep going. I slowly stood up, my legs screaming in protest with every movement, but I stood anyway.

"Well ain't that something," he said his red eyes staring at me with what looked like approval, after which he turned and walked through the door.

I walked to the door behind him, each step feeling like I was walking on broken glass. After I made it through, he closed the door and locked it with a key that disappeared into his pocket.

I looked around to see what would probably be my new home, if I managed to survive long enough to call it that.

A few dozen people were sitting around the room, which was filled with more things than I'd ever seen in one place. Lights hung from the ceiling, actual working lights, not just the dim nightlight we used in our room. There were chairs and tables everywhere, more furniture than I'd seen in my whole life. I knew gangs ruled the Undercity, but this was way too much. It made me feel small, smaller than I already was.

I felt a hand on my head, worn down and calloused.

"This is Paul, our newest member," Lloyd said, his voice carrying across the room. "Cole, you will take him up to the lanes. Keep him away from trouble."

I looked up at Cole, trying not to show how scared I was. He was around 20, with short brown hair and green eyes that weren't as intimidating as Lloyd's red ones. He was huge, his back like six of mine put together. Maybe that meant I'd be protected well enough? I really hoped so.

Lloyd walked past me and went over to a group huddled in the corner. My legs finally gave out and I fell to the floor, but I could still hear bits and pieces of their conversation floating over.

"Miners..new... thirty or forty silvers..."

I looked around the giant metal house, wondering where I would sleep, if I would sleep. It was strange - I hadn't even noticed, but for a moment, I had forgotten about my mother. Now I was only focused on one thing.

Not getting thrown into the ventilation systems.