But a soldier named Hadrian had already reached for the crying child. The moment his fingers touched its cheek, the child’s face split open into a spiral of teeth. Hadrian screamed. The floor drank him in seconds—bone, steel, and all.

She could not see it. But she knew: it was warm. And it was the color of no lie at all.

Iris closed her eyes. She did not need them open.

They say Iris became a myth. A blind girl who walked through hell and closed its doors.

When it was over, Iris stood in a field of wildflowers under a real sun.

They took forms to trap the mind. A crying child. A chest of gold. A lover’s open arms. The other tributes—five soldiers, two thieves, three fools, and one desperate mother—stumbled past her, chasing phantoms.

“Follow the silence,” she says. “The demons are loud. The truth is quiet.”