Death

Darkness. Beta is all too familiar with it. Ever since he was born, it surrounded him like how a swarm of flies surrounds a rotting corpse. His parents are scientists who use humans and animals alike, to experiment on. When Beta was only 2 years old, he was already made to help dissect corpses. He had to cut along a black drawn line, which had a stark contrast to the pale white body. His actions were in no way precise and resembled a kid drawing over the lines in a mandala. Most kids would start to throw up, or become pale at the sight of innards and blood. But Beta was different. He grew up with the mindset that these things are as normal as breathing.

One year later, on his third birthday, he was called into an unknown room. It looked like any other room inside their house. White, sterile and clean. But one thing was different. There was another child. His parents looked at him with their usual cold, calculating glare and left the room.

"Beta, once the match starts, you will have to kill the other kid. If you do not succeed, he will." echoed his father's voice in the room.

Beta was confused at first, so he didn't realize that the countdown had already come to stop. The kid, who looked like the same age as him, seemed to already know what to do. He came up to Beta and suddenly threw a punch with a strength not befitting a kid, turning Beta's nose bloody in a flash. Beta was scared. He has never felt fear like that before. His nose kept bleeding, turning his white shirt red. The unknown boy didn't stop here. He threw in another punch. This time Beta was hit in his stomach, making him throw up his breakfast.

Beta couldn't comprehend why his parents would send him to fight someone. "Why are you attacking me?" "Who are you?" "Will I really die?" these questions filled his mind. "No! I'm not willing to die! I don't want to die!" with that thought in mind, he punched the boy as hard as he could for his life depended on it. The unknown boy was stupefied, but all the punch achieved was triggering the anger within him. He started punching Beta even harder than before, creating cracking sounds as he did so.

"Gamma wins. Leave the room to the left side.", the voice of Beta's father announced unsympathetically.

As soon as Gamma left, Beta's parents entered the room and looked at him full of disappointment. They picked him up, and placed him in their lab. Meanwhile, Beta was trapped in darkness. He felt a heart-wrenching pain in his chest.

"I died? Just like that?"

He felt an endless fear of the darkness surrounding him. It felt like drifting in space, without any stars. Beta had the feeling that someone was watching him as his soul was drifting around. But he didn't get the chance to find out who it was because suddenly he saw a bright light, forming a rope that pulled him. Once he opened his eyes, he saw the familiar cold eyes of his parents.

"That was your first death. Many will follow if you don't improve fast enough. This time we still had mercy on you. Next time you will suffer the consequences. If you win you'll get something, but if you lose…"

At the beginning, he was still wondering what his parents were talking about, but when he lost another battle after he was called into the arena a week later, he understood it clearly, because once he looked into the mirror he saw eyes that didn't belong to him.

"Your opponent got your eyes, and you got his. Since your eyes were better than his, he chose them as his tribute for winning the battle." That's what his mother told him after he woke up.

Beta became completely pale when he heard that. The thought of suddenly having someone else's eyes in his head shocked him greatly. The fact, that he would lose even more parts of his body if he lost again almost made him go insane.

"From now on you will study 6 days a week and on the 7th day, you will be sent to the arena. You will learn about medicine and poison from your mother and I will teach you how to transfer body parts to others, including yourself."

Beta couldn't do anything but nod at a time like this. When he was just about to complain about having to fight others, his father interrupted him.

"Beta, don't say any more. This world lets the strong prey on the weak. You should learn that as fast as possible. Also, you will be learning martial arts from your brother Zeta. He will tell you when the training starts."

"I have a brother?". He never saw anyone else besides his parents and the boy from earlier so he couldn't quite believe it. "Just how many more people are hidden here?".

On the way back to his room he thought about his father's answer. He, apparently, has many, many more brothers. Beta started wondering if the boy he fought was one of them, but in the end, he couldn't confirm that thought so he just put it on hold for the moment. While he walked the long way back, he carefully looked around his surroundings. He didn't see anything other than the white walls, floor, and ceiling. But now that he knew that there's more to this place, he swore to himself to explore more carefully in the future.

After Beta left, his father started talking again.

"He's an incredible child. Beta is much more intelligent than the other kids so far. I truly wonder how he will turn out to be. Even though he lost this time, his improvements can't be neglected. We should prepare more samples for him to fight against so that it's just the right difficulty to let him experience a life and death situation with a little ray of hope. If he simply beats everyone to death the moment he meets them, we won't get our desired result."

"Honey, do you really think he can handle it? He might go crazy like the others before him."

"We will see. With his intelligence, he might just be able to do it. Oh right, prepare some weapons for the next arena day. I think it's better to start early."

Meanwhile, Beta inspected his room. There's not much in it. Just a simple white, clean bed, a shutter for the food-lift, a bookshelf, a desk for his studies and a door to the bathroom. He never needed anything else other than that. When he has nothing to do, he just reads a book. There's nothing really interesting about books like "Molecular Biology" or the several books about old languages, but it's still better than lying on the bed and looking at the ceiling. When he gets hungry, he just waits for the food to arrive through the food-lift. He always thought that his parents prepare the food, but now that he knows that there are other people aside from his parents, he starts wondering if someone else makes his food.

The next day Beta got woken up by an unknown person who made him follow him with hand signals. Even if he has never seen that person before, he can assume that this is his brother, Zeta. As they walked along the long corridor, a door he has never seen before opened at the side. After they went through that door they arrived in a huge room with grass on the ground and an artificial sun on the ceiling. When the person who's probably his brother Zeta turned around, he was able to get a good look at him for the first time. He's around 1,87m tall with a stern face and a body build like a bear. But the most outstanding feature about him is his warm smile. Another strange new thing for Beta who have never seen a smile before. It was no wonder he found it strange for his parents always looked at him with a serious, cold face.

"What are you staring at me so intensely for? Do I look weird? Well, I guess I'll introduce myself first. I'm Zeta, your brother. I will teach you martial arts. Today, I will show you how to fight with your body, but be prepared, this will be a very hard lesson. I'm sure you can handle it though, either way, you have to."

Once Zeta finished explaining he got into a stance and punched Beta hard. Beta flew for 2 meters and laid on the ground, not even knowing what exactly happened. He stood up, thought about the whole process and finally decided to change the way he stands on the ground to a more defensive posture.

"You're catching up fast, huh? As you already noticed, the first lesson is about dodging. I could share my experience with you or teach you some techniques, but that would be detrimental to your growth. The best way to truly grow and strengthen yourself is to create your own techniques through the life and death battles you experience. Now it's time to really get started."

The instant Zeta stopped talking he already threw a fist towards Beta...

On the evening of the same day, Beta laid on his bed and thought about his martial arts training. "I've died 5 times today, huh?". Every time he died he was pulled back to life to continue training. Beta improved fast, but he still couldn't manage to land a single punch on his brother. He quickly let go of these thoughts and started sleeping soon after. The next day his father called him so he walked along the corridor, surprised that the door to the martial arts training field was still there. As soon as he arrived in his father's room he started looking around. He saw nothing but the table that he wakes up on once he dies, but this time with an addition. There's a person on the table. He looked at his father inquiringly.

"Beta, today you will learn about the art of changing your body. You will take this boy's arms and replace them with yours. One step at a time of course. We'll start with the left arm for now, so get ready to first cut his and then yours off."

Beta was shocked speechless. He became pale, but he didn't dare to disobey his father. He also knew that it was necessary in order to improve. Beta slowly cut off the arm of the boy. When he looked into the boy's face Beta froze for a second. "It's the one I lost my match against." Although the thought of getting the arm of someone else put him off, thinking of the extraordinary strength the boy possessed made him more willing to risk it. After finishing to cut off the boy's arm with his father's instructions, Beta prepared to cut his own arm off. He looked at it, grit his teeth and cut it. The excruciating pain almost made him pass out, but he ignored it as much as he could. He needed to become stronger. He didn't want to die anymore. When he was halfway through, he hit his bone and passed out. The next day he woke up and quickly looked at his left arm. His father reattached it. He was relieved and disappointed at the same time. With the new arm, his chances in the next fight would have been much better. As soon as that thought crossed his mind, he saw his mother walk into his room.

"Follow me."