The screams had stopped hours ago.

Now, there was only the wind hissing through the gaps in the wooden bars and the wet, ragged sound of Thomas trying to breathe through a chest full of broken ribs.

Marcus sat with his back against the rough timber, his knees pulled to his chest.

He had torn the rest of his sleeve to bind Thomas's ribs, doing his best to stabilize the man with the limited first-aid knowledge he retained from Earth.

It wasn't enough.

Thomas was pale, his skin clammy, his eyes fixed on the cage door with a desperation that was painful to witness.

The sun had long since dipped below the treeline, plunging the forest into a suffocating darkness broken only by the campfire flickering near the bandit tents.

Then, the sound of footsteps. Heavy boots crunching on dry leaves.

The cage went deathly silent. Even the onion man stopped his muttering prayers.

The lock rattled. The chain fell away with a heavy clank.

The door swung open, and Snake stepped into the firelight.

He looked disheveled, wiping his hands on his trousers with a casual, mundane motion that made Marcus's stomach lurch.

He didn't say a word. He simply stepped aside.

Elara stumbled in.

She didn't walk so much as she fell forward, catching herself on the doorframe before collapsing onto the dirty straw.

Snake laughed. A low, satisfied sound before he slammed the door shut.

"She got boring," he muttered to the guard outside. "Cried too much. Ruined the mood."

The lock clicked. The footsteps faded.

Inside the cage, nobody moved.

Elara lay where she had fallen.

Her dress, once simple and neat, was torn at the shoulder. There were bruises blooming on her arms like dark ink stains.

But it was her face that terrified Marcus.

It was a void.

There were no tears. No sobbing. Her eyes were open, staring at a patch of mold on the floorboards, but they saw nothing.

The light behind them had been extinguished, snuffed out as efficiently as a candle in a gale.

"Elara..."

The sound came from Thomas. It was a gurgle, a plea wrapped in blood. He tried to drag himself toward her. "Elara... look at me."

She didn't blink. She didn't flinch. She was a shell, hollowed out and discarded.

The silence that followed was heavier than the screams had been. It pressed down on Marcus's chest, making it hard to draw breath.

From the corner, the tool merchant, Gareth, turned away, vomiting quietly into the shadows. The onion man squeezed his eyes shut, rocking back and forth faster, harder.

"They took her soul," Silas whispered, his voice trembling so violently his teeth clicked together. "They broke it. Just like that."

"Don't look," the chicken woman hissed to no one in particular, clutching her own arms. "Don't look at her."

But Marcus couldn't look away.

He stared at Elara's vacant expression, and a cold, cynical fury crystallized in his gut.

In his old life, he had read stories like this.

Dark fantasy novels. Gritty reboots.

In those stories, this was the moment the hero arrived. The moment Theo, or someone like him, would burst from the treeline with a glowing sword.

The hero would slaughter the bandits, save the girl just in the nick of time, and she would weep gratefully into his chest. It was a plot beat.

A tragedy meant to showcase the hero's virtue.

But Theo wasn't here. There was no glowing sword. There was no plot armor for Elara.

This wasn't a narrative device. This was a human being who had been destroyed while Marcus sat ten feet away, useless.

'This world is sick,' Marcus thought, the realization bitter as bile.

He had spent weeks treating this place like a game he could outsmart.

He thought if he just manipulated the romance flags, managed the relationships, and kept his head down, he could skate by.

He had viewed the bandits as generic mobs, obstacles for leveling up.

He looked at Thomas's ruined face. He looked at Elara's dead eyes.

These weren't NPCs. They were people.

And they were suffering because the world was cruel, and the Gods... or the Author... didn't care about background characters.

"Water," Marcus croaked. His voice sounded foreign to his own ears.

He crawled over to the bucket in the corner, dipping a rag into the murky liquid.

He moved to Elara, careful not to touch her too suddenly. "Elara?"

Nothing.

He gently wiped the dirt from her cheek. She didn't recoil. She didn't acknowledge him.

She simply existed, occupying space but no longer inhabiting it.

Marcus sat back on his heels, his hands shaking. He looked down at his palms. Soft. Uncalloused.

The hands of a Viscount's son. The hands of a useless young master. The hands of a life coach.

'What good is empathy here?' he thought savagely.

'What good is listening? I can't talk Snake into being a better person. I can't coach Thomas's ribs back together.'

He felt a gaze on him. A weight on the side of his face.

He turned his head.

The little girl was watching him.

She hadn't moved from her corner since they were thrown in.

While the adults wept, prayed, or broke down, she sat with her back straight against the bars, her legs folded neatly beneath her white dress.

It was unnatural.

Most children would be wailing. They would be calling for their mothers. They would be catatonic with terror.

But this girl... she looked bored.

Marcus narrowed his eyes, studying her in the gloom. Her black eyes reflected the distant firelight, giving them a reddish, feral glint.

Who was she?

He tried to replay the carriage ride in his mind. The chaos of the loading station.

He remembered the onion man arguing about the fare.

He remembered Thomas and Elara cooing at each other.

He didn't remember seeing parents with the girl.

She had just been... there. Sitting next to the grumpy tool merchant.

"Hey," Marcus whispered, leaning slightly toward her.

She tilted her head. The movement was smooth, reptilian.

"Are you alone?" he asked.

She didn't answer. She didn't even nod.

She just studied him, her gaze dissecting him with a clinical detachment that made the hair on Marcus's arms stand up.

Was she in shock? It was possible.

Trauma manifested in strange ways. Some people screamed. Some people went silent.

But shock usually came with fear. He saw no fear in her face.

He saw no confusion. He saw the same expression a cat wears when watching a mouse struggle in a trap. Mild curiosity, devoid of empathy.

Suspicious, his mind whispered. Wrong.

But exhaustion washed over him, drowning out the instinct.

What did it matter if the kid was weird? They were all commodities now. Her silence just meant she wouldn't get beaten for making noise.

Marcus leaned his head back against the bars and closed his eyes, listening to the weeping of the others.

He tried to summon the image of Seraphina, or Catarina, or Vivienne. He tried to think of Iris.

But all he could see was Elara's empty face.

"Up! Get up, you filth!"

The shouting jerked Marcus from a doze he hadn't realized he'd fallen into.

It was pitch black. The fire had died down to embers.

The cage door was open. Bandits were swarming inside, grabbing people by their collars, their hair, their limbs.

"Move it! Shipment leaves now!"

Marcus scrambled to his feet, his legs stiff and aching. He reached for Thomas, trying to help the injured man up.

"He can't walk," Marcus snapped at the nearest bandit. "He needs help."

"Then drag him," the bandit spat, shoving Marcus toward the exit. "Or we leave him for the wolves. Your choice."

Marcus gritted his teeth.

He grabbed Thomas under the arms, hauling the man's dead weight up. Thomas cried out, a sharp, jagged sound, but managed to get his feet under him.

They were herded out of the clearing and onto a dirt track. And there was a carriage waiting for them

But it wasn't a passenger coach. It was a transport wagon, huge and boxy.

It looked like a hearse bred with a prison cell.

"Inside! Move!"

Snake stood by the ramp, holding a whip. He cracked it against the wood, the sound like a gunshot in the quiet forest.

The onion man stumbled, terrified, and scrambled up the ramp on all fours.

Gareth followed, head hung low.

Elara walked like a sleepwalker, needing to be guided by the chicken woman.

Marcus hauled Thomas up the ramp, his muscles burning.

As he stepped into the wagon, the smell hit him. Stale sweat, old urine, and iron.

This wagon had probably carried hundreds of people before them.

"The Southern Route," Silas whispered from behind Marcus, his voice thick with dread. "It's real. The Obsidian Hand runs these wagons all the way to the Free Cities."

Marcus helped Thomas sit against the wall. He sank down next to him, his heart hammering against his ribs.

The Free Cities.

The name was a cruel joke. They were merchant republics south of the Valerian Kingdom, places where coin was the only law.

Slavery was technically illegal in Valeria, but in the Free Cities? It was an industry.

"If we cross the border," Silas murmured, huddled in the dark, "we don't exist anymore. No records. No names. Just livestock."

"Shut your mouth!" a guard shouted from outside.

The heavy doors slammed shut.

Total darkness engulfed them.

There was the sound of a heavy bar dropping into place.

Then, the lurch of the wagon as the horses were whipped into motion.

Inside, the panic that had been simmering finally boiled over into despair.

Someone began to weep silently. The onion man resumed his prayers, faster now, desperate pleas to gods who clearly weren't listening.

"Oh gods, oh gods, please... I have children... I have a shop..."

Marcus stared into the blackness.

He couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He could only hear the breathing of the others, the rattle of the carriage, and the throb of his own pulse.

He thought about his "master plan."

He thought about Operation: Redirect.

He thought about the "Pact" with Damien.

It all seemed so small now. So stupid.

He had been playing a romantic comedy while standing on a trapdoor.

He shifted his leg, and his boot brushed against something small.

The girl.

She was sitting right next to him. In the dark, he couldn't see her, but he could feel her presence. She wasn't shaking. She wasn't crying. She was just sitting there.

"You okay?" he whispered, the words automatic.

Silence.

Marcus leaned his head back against the vibrating wood of the carriage wall.

He was a transmigrator.

He had knowledge of the future.

He had four of the most powerful women in the kingdom interested in him.

And none of it mattered.

Because he was... useless. He was physically weak. And he was currently property of the Obsidian Hand.

'Is this how it ends?' he wondered, the cynicism washing over him like cold water.

I died of a heart attack trying to fix other people's lives.

Now I'm going to die in a mine or a brothel because I tried to fix a plot hole.

The carriage hit a bump, throwing him against the shoulder of the person next to him.

"Sorry," Marcus muttered.

No one answered.

The wagon rattled on into the night, carrying them south, away from the plot, away from destiny, and straight into the dark.

For the first time since arriving in this world, Marcus didn't try to formulate a plan. He didn't try to coach himself into optimism.

He just sat in the dark and let the dread take him.

This wasn't a novel. This was... hell.

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A/N:

Hey guys! How is the new writing style?

And most importantly, how was the chapter? Was I able to express the dread and cruelty of this world? Or was it meh (not that good)?

Volume 2 will be different from Volume 1. It will have world building, It will have new characters. It will tkae the story to the next level. It will be a bit... not-so-fairytale story.

Tell me if u like that, or is it a turn off.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.