The Fear-Eater's Arena

The blood on the arena floor is warm. That is the first thing Vesper learns.

She does not remember arriving. She does not know why an elf is wearing a

schoolgirl's uniform, or why she can read the words painted in dried blood on

the banner above the stands: WE WAGER OUR SURVIVAL.

She knows three things. Her name. An empty classroom. And that she can see

fear — leaking off living things like black-red smoke — and that she can eat it.

There is only one problem. Nothing in the pit is afraid of a chained

sixteen-year-old girl. So before she can feed, she has to make something

afraid. Every fight, from the floor, with broken ribs and four steps of chain.

But the arena is not a prison. It is a farm. The crowd is the crop, the fear is

the harvest, and something at the top of the light shaft is being handed a

number at the end of every bout.

Vesper is going to find out whose desk that number lands on.

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A dark progression fantasy about a girl who wins by out-thinking the room,

and pays for every victory with somebody else's life.

⚠ Contains graphic violence and body horror.