Where people gather, there are dark and twisted desires that appear

Where dark desires gather, there are people that appear to exploit it for profit

Everyone called it, "Dead Man's Feet".

John Clark stared at his bowl, the familiar and disgusting sludge inside staring right back at him. It dared him to consume it, to be desperate enough to live that he would eat the corpse-gray mash of materials that had been boiled to death. This was not something that a normal person could stomach, it was not something that could be eaten in almost any situation.

John picked up his spoon and ravenously dug into it.

It was something that couldn't be eaten by normal people, and in any normal situation would never have been consumed. But this wasn't a normal situation that a normal person would've found themselves.

The 14-year-old had pale white skin, practically untouched by the Sun's blessings, and black, spiky hair which defied gravity. He was John Clark, and he was no normal person. The boy had eaten this same bowl of food 3-4 times a day, every day since he'd been kidnapped when he was 4-years-old. Sometimes he ate more of it, sometimes he ate less of it.

It tasted the same as it always did, and probably the same as it always would. Like the desperation of someone willing to eat a dead man's foot to survive. At this point, John couldn't even remember what other food tasted like. It'd already been more than 10 years since he'd eaten anything else, after all.

There was a saying, though. Misery loves company. Even if the black-haired boy had already gone beyond miserable and had long-since accepted this kind of lifestyle, he couldn't help but be glad that he wasn't the only one suffering through this.

At that exact moment, John was sitting in a lunchroom full of other boys and girls his age that wouldn't have been out of place in a highschool. Of course, the pale-skinned kid wouldn't have known that. In fact, none of the equally pale-skinned kids in the room would've known either, considering that everyone in the room had been taken when they were 4 as well.

They'd never seen the inside of an elementary school before, let alone a highschool.

John was the oldest of all of the kids in the room, though. They were all around the same age, the youngest being around 11 while John himself was 14, and they were a tight-knit bunch.

He looked up as a tray clattered onto his table directly across from him.

"Hey, John, can I sit here? Thanks!" A high-pitched voice called out, the owner of said voice already sitting down without waiting for an answer. Her short, brown hair was honestly the only bright and cheery thing in the room, aside from her personality. It didn't matter that her smile was a little forced, or that she was a little too cheery for their shared circumstances, Laura was one of the few rays of sunshine left to the group of kids. Heck, she might as well have been the sun itself, it's not like any of them still remembered what it was like, anyway. "SOOOOO… today's the big day, right? Happy Birthday, John!"

Despite how cheery it was, he could clearly see the grip on her spoon tighten.

Another clatter rang out as a boy with long, blonde hair tied into a ponytail set his tray down next to the energetic girl, a calm look on his face. Despite the color of his hair, he was clearly Asian. "Happy Birthday, John."

The black-haired 14 year old that was turning 15 today twitched. "Thanks, Ben."

Before he could even say anything else, John suddenly fell forward, his face smacking against the surface of the table before bouncing right back up again. Laura glared at the person who was now standing right behind him, with Ben giving an icy stare.

The black-haired boy mentally sighed. 'And somehow, I think I already know who it is.' John turned around and looked up to see a kid who was only a few months younger than he was, but already had a frame that was clearly bigger and more muscular than John was.

Dean Winch.

"Better watch yourself out there, Clark. Nobody's going to come and save your ass this time." The 14 year old spat out.

Anyone else would've thought that the kid was just being a bully, and making a threat. John, though, clearly saw the worry in the other boy's sharp, brown eyes. It was a warning, from someone who'd never admit it. "Thanks, Dean. I'll be careful, don't worry."

"Who the hell would worry about someone like you?!" The red-headed boy said as he stormed off.

Laura and Ben watched him leave, both of them clearly suspicious of his actions and were ready in case he made a move. Laura was the first to tear her gaze away from the aggressive boy and turn back towards John.

"Want me to break his legs? I'll do it, y'know." She said in a very not-Laura kind of way. Her voice was lower, and she spoke in an uncharacteristically serious voice, a dark look on her face. "Just say the word."

John just gave a soft smile and shook his head. "Dean's the kind of guy that can never say things right, Laura. He's just as worried for me as everyone else is."

Laura's eyes sharpened. "He's NOT the guy you think he is, John. You've got to stop letting him push you around like that!"

"Laura, he's NOT bullying me. Name one time."

The brown-haired girl opened her mouth, a tirade practically about to cascade out of it, when a hand on her shoulder managed to stop the flood.

"Laura," Ben said in his usual calm manner. "We have to let John make his own decisions and trust that he knows when to turn to us for help."

She snorted. "Yeah, right. Like that'll ever happen." Laura looked to the blonde-haired boy sitting next to her. "Y'know, Ben, for someone with the last name Franklin, you really aren't frank or truthful about this stuff. We all know you want to beat him up just as much as I do."

Ben looked away. "I don't know what you're talking about." He lied, forcibly unclenching his shaking fist. "I'm just saying that John knows that we're here for him, and that we'll back him up when he needs it." The blonde-haired boy regretted those words as soon as they left his mouth.

They all knew it wasn't true. Ben and Laura couldn't help him when he needed it the most, because today would be the day that needed them.

And they wouldn't be allowed to help.

Nobody spoke for awhile, and they all sat there in silence. Pandora's box was already opened though, and it was inevitable that they'd start talking about it. You couldn't not talk about it, when it was the goal, the dream, of every single kid in the whole organization. It was what they'd been striving for practically their entire lives.

John was the first to break the silence. "Have you guys heard anything about it?"

Ben spoke up, which was unusual for him as he was always more of the silent type. Today wasn't a usual day, though. "Laura and I haven't heard much, but we have found out that it's at least not going to be someone from our batch."

"Actually," Laura cut in. "I found something out just this morning. You'd be surprised what the guards will let you overhear when they think you're just a bubbly airhead who can't hear anything over the sound of her own voice." She smirked.

The -usually loud, overactive and bubbly- girl motioned them to lean in as she whispered. "One of the guards were saying something earlier about how "hot" the person they're bringing in is and how he wanted to "bang" her, but another one of the guards told him that she'd be "too much for him to handle" so he'd better not start anything with her unless he wanted to die."

Ben and John looked at her with quizzical looks on their faces. Both of them were thinking the same thing, but neither of them wanted to be the one to ask. They looked at each other, a silent war was waged, before it was clear who won and who lost.

"Uh, Laura," John said slowly. "I don't get it. What does any of that stuff even mean?"

Ben nodded, showing her that he was wondering the same thing.

Laura just stared at her two best friends. "Seriously? You guys don't get it? Ugh!" She threw her hands up in the air in frustration. "First off, since they're bringing her in, that means she's not part of any of the batches!"

The confusion on their faces cleared up, and John visibly relaxed. "That's a good thing, right?" He didn't have to tell them that he was worried he'd have to go up against someone from their batch. They already knew, and now they knew that it'd never happen.

"No, John. That's a bad thing. A very, very bad thing." Laura emphasized. "If she was part of our batch, or one of the other batches, then it'd be easier. She'd be our age, probably around our height, yada yada. But!" The brown-haired girl said with a shushing finger, stopping John's comments before he even started. "She's not. They're bringing her in from outside, probably just to make it that much harder for you to win. Whoever it is, she'll be older, smarter, faster, and stronger than us."

"Don't you get it?" Laura continued. "That's why Violent Pete said she's 'hot'. It's because she's dangerous! She's so deadly that his first reaction was to shoot (bang) her. Everyone knows Violent Pete is good, but the woman they're bringing in is so dangerous that she's too much for even Pete to handle!"

John and Ben frowned, nodding to show that they understood. Everything Laura said had made complete sense, and if one of the deadliest of the organization's guards couldn't beat her, then John was in trouble.

A match on someone's 15th birthday was always a Ranked Match. Unlike most of the other times throughout the year, that meant that it'd be a fight to the death. There was no way around it, no surrender, and no help from anyone at all.

The three of them sat there, the grim reality setting in and crashing down like a pile of bricks on them.

However, proving once again that today was not going to be anywhere near normal, Ben broke the silence. "So, what are you gonna do afterwards?" He asked John, as if there was no possibility that he'd lose.

The newly-turned 15 year old smiled. He knew he was lucky to have met them, even if it was at the place they all thought was hell. "You know, I think the first thing I'll do is get some new clothes. Anything's gotta be better than this stuff." John gestured to the "clothes" he was wearing.

Actually, they were the "height of fashion" as "everyone was wearing them"...Ok, the sad truth is that no amount of words could've made the clothes better than they were. Even though literally everyone in the lunch hall was wearing them, they were all equally miserable because of it.

The outfit was made up of 3 parts: a pair of pants, a shirt, and a button-up coat. All three pieces were as gray as the Dead Man's Feet that were in everyone's bowls, thin and terrible quality. They were itchy, scratchy, left rashes on parts of your body that you couldn't reach without seriously contorting yourself, and despite the fact that the outfit came with a coat, you could get sick from the cold easily at night due to how thin it was.

In fact, the only good thing about it was that it was cheap. So cheap, that every time 2 or more batches were merged together due to low numbers, everyone got a new outfit. Not that any of them could appreciate or understand the concept of something being "cheap" since they'd all been taken before they could even count, let alone understand the value of money. As for why the batches of kids would get low in numbers, well, Ranked Matches happened on more than just people's 15th birthdays.

The dead didn't need their old clothes, and the living needed piles of these outfits just to make blankets thick enough so people didn't die from the cold at night.

Ben and Laura nodded in understanding.

"The second thing I'm gonna do," John continued. "Is finally eat something that isn't this stuff." He held up a spoonful of the gray sludge that reluctantly gave their bodies continued life. The black-haired 15 year old slowly turned his spoon over, until it was completely upside down…. But somehow the evil, grey slime managed to cling to the spoon instead of falling back into the bowl. In fact, John could've sworn that the thing was actually inching closer to his hand! He quickly dropped the spoon before it could reach its goal and it plopped back into the bowl, the greyness finally joining back up with the ooze that it had come from.

The three of them stared at each of their bowls, lost in thought.

"Honestly, I can't even remember what other food tastes like." Laura scowled. "Every time I try, the only thing that pops into my head is, well…" She gestured back to the bowl.

"I'm coming back." The words left John's mouth before he even realized he said them, but somehow he also knew that those three words were probably the most truthful things he'd said in his entire life. "I'm not going to leave you guys like this. I'm coming back no matter what, and I'll be bringing people that can shut this place down."

Laura bit her lip. "John, you know that's-" Her words were once again stopped by a hand on her shoulder, Ben giving her a small shake of the head.

All three of them knew that what John was talking about was impossible.

Ben and Laura both shared the same birthday, and in 4 months they'd be going through the exact same thing John was at that moment. There was just too little time. Either they'd lose their Ranked Match and die, or they'd win and get the thing that every single boy and girl in the room wanted. The Grand Prize.

They'd get sent back home to their families.

Either way, this was the last time they'd be seeing their friend.

The blonde-haired boy with a ponytail shared a look with the brown-haired girl sitting next to him. She nodded, and they both pushed their trays towards John.

"Happy Birthday, John!" Laura smiled.

"It's not much, but it's our present to you. You'll need all the strength you can get." Ben said.

"You guys…" John's eyes teared up, before he hid the streams falling down his cheeks by ravenously digging into the bowls.

Everyone called it "Dead Man's Feet".

A toxic, corpse-gray sludge that some people would probably choose to die rather than eat.

It was also the only thing any of the 3 had to their name. Something that saved your life everyday by staving off starvation, and it wasn't always true that you'd get another bowl before the next day, either. There was a chance that Ben and Laura would have to fight on an empty stomach because they gave away their food. While it wouldn't be a Ranked Match, and therefore not a fight to the death, more often than not the loser would be left with broken bones and a broken spirit.

Ben had lied and they all knew it. It wasn't "not much". It was worth more than gold, and John knew better than to waste the feelings behind it by turning it down.

There was nothing left to say. As John stood up from the table and headed back to his room to prepare for the match, he heard it start up.

"John!" Laura yelled out, banging her fist down on the table.

"John!" Ben took it up, his fist crashing down onto the table in rhythm with her.

A third voice joined in, surprising everyone because of who it came from. "John!" Dean Winch yelled out.

And before he knew it the whole lunch hall, everyone in his batch, were banging their fists down onto the table in rhythm. "JOHN! JOHN! JOHN! JOHN! JOHN!" They chanted. It was their way of sending him off. No matter what happened, they knew they wouldn't be seeing him again.

The only thing he could do was give them a thumbs up as he left, the hopes, dreams, and cheers of the only people he'd ever known fading into the distance as he walked the long, dreary hallway back to the living quarters.

There were 2 hours left until his final deathmatch, and he had to get ready.

A black-haired woman in her late 30's stood, panting. She was tall, or at least she was taller than John was. A mask covered her face, making it even harder for her to see as sweat pooled from behind it and slid straight down into the valley between her breasts. The sight of her would've caused any normal man to instantly fall into lust as she was just that hot. For John, however….

'Opponent is sweating. Vision is likely to be hampered by both the mask and the fluids. Panting, likely to either be at the edge of exhaustion or near it.' Those were the only thoughts behind his stony face, which was covered by a similar mask that the older woman wore.

There was no need for Sex Ed. in an organization that kidnapped and trained children to be lethal fighters who fought for the amusement of the rich. Deprived of any contact from normal society, there was also no way that they would've found out anything remotely close to it. The guards themselves were forbidden from speaking to any of the kids on anything unrelated to the wishes of the global 1%. There was no time for experimentation or discovering their bodies or any of the other things that kids just starting puberty would do. Just trying to live took up every second of their days as each of them could have been called up for a Ranked Match at any time during the year; any who didn't want to die would spend every waking moment training and preparing for it. Perhaps if any of them had lived past the age of 15 they would've discovered it themselves but the sad truth was that none had made it back to their batches after their 15th birthday.

It made for an odd combination of "lethal" and "innocence".

The two of them stood in an indoor arena that could've been mistaken for a highschool's track, an oval-shaped running area on the outside with a large grassy center on the inside. Various blades were strewn about them in the grass, with only their hilts sticking out from the was no wind, as 4 walls enclosed the entire area. There was no sound, as everything was blocked off by the soundproofing technology that made it so nothing from the outside could be heard from the inside, and vice versa.

It was the same as every other time that John had faced someone in a deathmatch, with one exception.

This time, before the match had even begun, the head of his batch had come personally to have a short talk with him.

The black-haired 15 year old shook his head free of the feelings of wrongness and turned his attention back towards the woman in front of him. John narrowed his eyes. 'She's getting tired,' He realized.

That was impossible. The fight was only a few minutes in, even the youngest kid in his batch had more stamina than that!

'I thought this fight was fight was supposed to be the hardest one yet. She's supposed to be so 'hot' that even Violent Pete can't handle her! What's going on?'

It was fishy. There was definitely something wrong.

John had seen people fake exhaustion in the middle of a deathmatch before, only to jump up and kill their opponent at the last second. He could always tell when they were faking.

And the woman in front of him was doing anything but.

Reaching up, John pulled off his mask and glared at the adult woman in front of him. The black-haired lady violently spasmed at the sight of his face, before dropping the knife that she had.

….That only made John even more pissed off.

"HEY!" He yelled out. "What are you doing?! Pick it up and FIGHT ME!"

The woman just stood there, unresponsive.

'Is she just making fun of me? Is she looking down on me?!' John's vision went red as he charged full-sprint straight towards her with his knife in hand.

It was a rookie mistake. Anyone could've taken advantage of his angry, bull-like charge and easily killed him afterwards.

She didn't.

His knife plunged into her body as he stabbed her multiple times, her red splashing out. It wouldn't be the first time he killed someone. It wouldn't even be his hundredth.

She didn't let out a single sound.

The only thing the woman did was wrap her arms around him, softly rubbing the back of his head as he kept trying to kill her…. It took several minutes until she finally fell backwards, dead.

He stared at her.

He stared at his hands.

He stared at the red that he was standing in as it pooled around her body.

He stared at the red which coated his hands.

And John Clark SCREAMED.

Until it was abruptly cut off. The 15 year old was sent flying, the deafening bang of a gunshot making it clear what happened.

The black-haired boy knew that he was dying. A similar, if smaller, pool of red was gathering all around him. As the shadow of his killer stood over him, he recognized who it was that shot him.

Violent Pete.

"W-Why?" He croaked.

He honestly didn't know if he was asking why he'd been shot, why he'd been kidnapped, or why he'd even been born. His head was already starting to go blank at this point.

"-shouldn't blame me, kid. Orders are orders, and the boss-man wants you dead. I might like fighting, but killing you like this don't sit right with me." John's killer crouched down until his head was near John's. "Look, kid. I'll let you in on a secret. You won the Grand Prize. Ya get to go be with your family. You already sent the last one of'em off yourself just now." The man nodded his head towards the dead body still laying on the ground a few feet away. "Your momma's one tough nut. She didn't scream when we cut out her tongue, she didn't crack when we burned that mask into her face, and she didn't even budge an inch when you were stabbing her like crazy."

You couldn't get more heartbroken than a bullet to the heart, but John found out that wasn't true. The pain he felt then was unimaginable.

"Truth is," Violent Pete continued. "The families of all you kids we got you from always come looking for ya. So we kidnap'em too once every few years and mix'em in with your deathmatch opponents every now and then. Ya kill your last one on your 15th birthday, then we let ya go and join up with the rest of your family. S'nothing personal, kid." He finished, standing up and walking away.

...There was nothing John could do. It was his fate to just lie there and wait till he died. But after hearing the truth about everything that was happening, he didn't want to go out like this. There was no way he could just die after hearing everything!

'Please, God, someone, anyone.' He prayed. 'Give me a 2nd chance. I have to kill those bastards that made my family disappear!'

Right before he died, he could've sworn he heard someone say,

"I'll do you one better."

Which was when Jaune Arc opened his eyes.