GLADIATOR | ELYSIUM RISING 1 ✔️

⍢ | 2

Iggy thought he'd never catch his breath.

He wheezed like a wounded animal. After tearing off his cracked helmet, he gulped down endless amounts of fresh air filling the room. Unlike the mines of the tunnel, the room was rife with oxygen. Had he spent another moment behind the doors at his back, his respirator would've failed. His helmet would've been rendered useless.

Spots filled his blurry vision as he tried to steady himself.

A few more seconds and he would've died. The realization shook him to the core.

He let out a breath of relief. Wincing, he got back to his feet. He couldn't put any weight on his injured leg; the pain had amplified, and blood continued to leak from the gash above his ankle.

His fingers coiled around the sleeve of his tattered jumpsuit before tearing off a piece of the fabric. It was a good thing the Au Decimus Mining Company invested in cheap uniforms. Gritting his teeth, he fashioned a makeshift tourniquet around his wound, hoping to staunch the bleeding.

It wouldn't do much, but it was better than nothing.

Iggy wasn't good at many things, but surviving wasn't on that long, embarrassing list. Even as a child, his father taught him to survive. He'd only been a few cycles old when his family left their village in Yensari. Despite his hazy memories of those times, he knew they were better than what his life was now.

Sighing, he limped forward and scanned the rest of the room.

It was rather small, no larger than the maintenance closets dispersed throughout the various floors of the mines. Except Iggy didn't recall one being here on any of the indexes and maps upstairs. Judging by the dust and cobwebs covering everything in sight, he figured it wasn't a new development. It should've been documented. Or mapped, at the very least.

A cluttered desk, storage bins stacked on top of each other, and a single file cabinet were all that made up the secret room. Dim light from a swinging lightbulb illuminated the cramped space.

He frowned.

Turning, he glanced at the shut doors.

That passcode shouldn't have worked. It was an act of desperation, a prayer to the stars. After all, why would his father's birthday be the password for anything in the mines? He might've been a maintenance worker for the mining company before his disappearance, but that didn't mean anything.

Right?

Shaking his head, Iggy decided to examine the messy workstation nearby. Scattered pieces of parchment marked in blue ink were laid out across the wood. He arched an eyebrow at them.

Paper?

He hadn't seen paper in many cycles. Most of the empire had it retired eons ago. The Elysian Empire prided itself on its technological advancements. With their Vitas*, StimHaunts*, MedHubs*, and countless other inventions developed by the brightest Elysian minds, there was no use for archaic technologies like paper. Even the territories the empire loved to neglect utilized more sophisticated tech.

Iggy grabbed one of the wrinkled parchments. Most of the words were written in a language he didn't understand. It took five different documents for him to finally come across a word he understood:

Rebellion.

He blanched. His fingers trembled. The piece of paper suddenly felt as if it was coated in Mandril* venom. Without another thought, he tossed it back onto the table and backed away.

If anyone caught him reading that, he'd be spending the rest of his life in a jail cell somewhere in The Void. Any talk of insurgency was outlawed by the empire. If anyone asked them, the rebellion wasn't real. No one asked anyways. The rebellion was simply a myth drunkards told in the cantinas back in town to pass the time.