THE VENOMSWORN

CHAPTER 10: TITUS! (II)

The Crucible was engineered to break you down, not just with impossible physical feats, but with relentless, gnawing hunger. Every meal was the same tasteless, lukewarm protein paste. They wanted us hollowed out, easier to fill with their dogma.

​But Titus was the only one who fought the hunger with laughter.

​“Look at that slop, Nox,” he’d grumble, kicking his boots in the dirt. “If I fed this to a stray dog back home, my mother would whip me.”

​Titus came from the wealthy Anvil clan; I came from the Silurix alleys, raised by the back of the palms of my aunt and uncle. Yet, the hunger made us equals. And the Instructors’ Mess Hall, forever wafting the rich, forbidden scent of spiced meat and dark sugar, became our common enemy.

​"We need a distraction," he whispered that night in the barracks, the hunger making his voice tight. "They’re too paranoid to let anyone near that kitchen. They guard against strength, but they don't anticipate cunning."

​The mess hall ran on a main methane line—tapped, of course, from the facility's massive, foul-smelling waste unit. I explained the idea to Titus: he'd set a fire to draw the main patrol, and I'd rig the external pressure valve for a secondary, controlled detonation—a loud pop—to pull the junior guard.

​"I get to blow something up?" Titus's eyes, warm and amber, glowed with genuine, childlike excitement. "Kaelen, I love your brain." ​Twenty minutes before the final patrol check, we moved. Titus, built like a fortress, was surprisingly silent as he lit the pile of dried marsh grass I'd hidden near the main barracks. The fire ignited with a fierce hiss, and the alarm siren, high-pitched and frantic, began to shriek.

​"Go, go!" I shoved him toward the main building.

​While the guards sprinted toward the smoke, I darted toward the external valve. My heart was pounding so hard it felt like a fist trying to escape my ribs. I didn’t use tools—that would leave evidence. Instead, I scraped at the seal on the valve with the sharpened edge of my mess knife, relying on the meticulous memory I’d built during the engineering lecture. Just enough to compromise the threads.

​A soft, rotten-egg hiss of methane escaped, and I twisted the valve wide open. Then I sprinted, flattening myself against the cold granite wall opposite the mess hall, praying. ​The junior guard returned, oblivious to my work. He turned the valve as instructed. The gas, escaping from the compromised seal, ignited in a sharp, blinding WOOMPH! not a full explosion, but loud enough to rattle the windows and scorch the granite. The guard screamed like a dying animal. The returning patrols immediately changed course, rushing back to investigate the new, more immediate threat.

​That was our window.

​Titus materialized beside me, grinning wildly, his face smudged with soot. "Did you hear that? I felt that in my teeth!"

​"Shut up and move," I whispered, pulling him toward the back door. The blast had warped the lock. Titus didn't hesitate; he drove his massive shoulder into the weak point. The lock gave way with a muffled CRUNCH.

​The air inside the hall hit me like a physical drug. It smelled like paradise—cinnamon, yeast, and the sweet, dizzying promise of disobedience.

​We didn't hesitate. Titus stuffed soft, spiced bread and dried salted meat into the lining of his tunic. I went straight for the small, chilled locker beneath the head instructor's table—the legendary Crimson Spice Cake, rumored to be baked with real, smuggled sugar.

​I was stuffing the dense, dark block into my bag when the shouting started right at the main entrance.

​"Find them! The lock's been shattered!" JD Blaxskn's voice, cold and lethal, sliced through the air.

​"Kaelen!" Titus hissed, already scrambling toward a narrow service chute.

​We scrambled, shoving each other up the chute, our fear a sharp, icy burst of energy. The shouts of JD and the clank of armor echoed just beneath our heels. We burst out onto the roof and tumbled into the shadows, panting, the taste of illicit spice and pure adrenaline on our tongues.

​We spent the rest of the night huddled under a forgotten canvas tarp near the cistern. We tore into the Crimson Spice Cake. The sugar was an intense, glorious burst of flavor—a physical reminder of the world we'd left behind, a world full of color and joy. We ate until we were sick with pleasure, sharing the dense sweetness and the sheer, absurd terror of our near-capture.

​That night was reckless, beautiful, and deeply human. As Titus grinned at me, his face smeared with crimson crumbs, I knew that this feeling, this warm, reckless loyalty, was the only real thing I had left to hold onto.

****

​I took the first step, then the second, heading not toward my friend's death, but toward the faint light of the marker.

Then another memory flashed.

****

The Endurance Gauntlet was designed to find our limits and then shatter them. We were on a fifty-hour rotation—two straight days of running, hauling impossible weights, and holding low stances until our muscles screamed and JD Blaxskn was watching, waiting for a single failure to justify immediate expulsion.

​Titus, built for brute force, not sustained agony, was dying on his feet. Dehydrated and trembling, his eyes rolled to the back. If he fell, his entire future was over. ​I couldn't let it happen. I ran beside him, whispering for him to focus on my breath, but he was too far gone. We approached a patch of thorny brush, and I made a split-second decision. I misaligned his balance just enough to send him crashing into the thicket, making his collapse look like a severe accident.

​When JD arrived, demanding a report, I didn't hesitate. I ripped off my protective gauntlet and used my knife to make a shallow, gushing cut across my own forearm. I claimed the brush had torn through his gear, and Titus, barely conscious, sold the shock. JD's focus immediately shifted from Titus's weakness to the injury.

​JD ordered Titus removed for aid. I had chosen to bleed for him, and in that camp, I learned, blood given through choice created the strongest tie of all.

****

Each step was a pact made with the darkness, a promise to be ruthless. I walked toward the sigil, my ears ringing with Titus’s dying sounds, and knew I had won the trial, but lost everything else.

​I had become the thing the Liberated Liions wanted. And the victory felt hollowed out, cold, and utterly empty.