Gabriel woke to the dull grey light spilling through the blinds. His muscles ached faintly, a reminder of last night's training. He had sparred for nearly two hours, testing swings with weighted practice blades. Dinner had been a quick affair—a protein shake, a chicken sandwich—before exhaustion pulled him under.
Saturday. No work. One day before the next trial broadcast. He stretched, rolling his shoulders, feeling the tension loosen. There was always a day between each Trial.
Gabriel's kitchen was compact, functional. He scrambled some eggs, microwaved oatmeal, poured tea. Breakfast was brief. Eyes half-lidded, he mechanically cut, stirred, and drank, already replaying the previous trial in his mind. The monster's gait. The way it lunged over the sand. Timing, distance, momentum. Every detail mattered.
With breakfast finished, Gabriel moved to his training room. The door, reinforced steel, sealed behind him with a soft hiss. Inside, racks held swords of every length, blunt practice spears, and a maul. Each was polished, weighted, tested repeatedly.
But today, he wasn't training. Today, he was creating.
A wooden block sat on the workbench. Gabriel ran his hands over the grain, testing weight, curvature, the balance of potential. His eyes flicked to a small carving knife at the corner—a hobby tool. He liked creating weapons. Wooden ones. He drew the outline of a dagger along the block. The blade had to be perfectly balanced, with a grip that fit snugly in one hand and allowed fluid swings.
He carved slowly, the rasp rasping against the wood, shavings spiralling onto the floor. Mistakes came—slightly uneven bevels, a small chip along the tip—but each error taught him something. Adjusting angle, pressure, wrist rotation, he worked methodically. He imagined the monster from Trial Fourteen: limbs armoured in chitin, claws sharper than any steel, spikes and plates arranged to deflect and crush. Each strike into the wood was a mental rehearsal for a future weapon.
Balance. Weight. Momentum. All had to flow together.
Hours passed unnoticed. Light shifted across the room. By mid-morning, the dagger had taken shape. Smooth curves, unblemished edges, an ergonomic grip. He hefted it experimentally. The stab was acceptable—responsive and natural. A nod of approval.
Gabriel moved to the sparring mat. No opponent awaited. The wooden dagger cut through the air, arcs and stabs repeated, muscles memorising motion. His mind calculated trajectories, counter-angles, imagining the chitin and claws of a future adversary. Even in isolation, he was preparing. Always preparing.
By noon, he paused. Sweat beaded along his forehead, muscles ached, the wooden dagger held firmly. He set it down carefully, wiping his hands. The flat was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of London life outside.
Tomorrow, the broadcast would resume. If Han Jae-Sung and the other trialists failed, another batch of a thousand random souls would be sent in. Gabriel would watch, analyse, catalogue every misstep, every strategy, every weapon.
Gabriel intended to be ready for the day the Trials would no longer be something he watched from the sidelines—whether that day came tomorrow or decades in the future.
The "Trials."
The Trials began four years ago.
When humanity was accused, and then judged.
Judged for its actions upon Earth. The planet was dying, and it was not from accident or ignorance, but from exploitation and greed.
In response, the voice—which many believed to be some kind of god—created the Trials as a means for humanity to prove it deserved to continue on. It was unknown how many Trials existed in total, but the furthest any human had reached was Trial Twenty-Two.
When the Trials began, the first batch was slaughtered almost immediately—completely unprepared, with no understanding of what awaited them. The lucky few barely managed to reach Trial 4. Nowadays most people can reach Trial 5 before the strong leave the weak behind.
As time went on, people realised that the Trials themselves were always the same. Same arena. Same opponent. The pattern allowed later batches to progress further. Advancing on the backs of countless sacrifices.
It would be better for Gabriel if hundreds of other batches went before him, probing deeper into the Trials. But even still, he yearned with every fibre of his being to fight. He wanted nothing more than to prove himself on the greatest stage of all, with billions watching and his life on the line.
Hunger eventually pulled him back to the kitchen.
Gabriel reheated leftovers, ate standing by the counter. Rice, chicken, nothing memorable. Fuel. He barely noticed the taste, attention drifting as it always did.
He finished his food quickly, after washing up he went to the living room and sank into the sofa. The flat felt eerily quiet tonight. He reached for his phone.
No messages, no alerts.
He opened WeTube, a video platform. He scrolled aimlessly until a video caught his eye: a man, somewhere rural, was carving a knife out of an animal's bone.
The man spoke softly, explaining the density, and why leg bones were a better choice than rib bones. How improper carving caused micro-fractures that doomed the weapon the second it was used.
When the video ended, Gabriel turned off his phone and left it in his pocket. Weapons of all shapes and forms lingered in his thoughts as walked back to his room.
Tomorrow, the next Trial would begin. If the final two contestants failed then another thousand people would be picked, and as always, Gabriel would be praying that he'd be one of them.