Kendric Rockston

The villa overlooked the forest like a hotel built over a mass grave. Staff moving quietly enough to make people nervous. By noon, 12 contestants sat in the living room holding contracts none of them had fully read. Survival. No phones. No contact. 30 days inside a private reserve for enough money to erase debt. Eddy, your bf, called it opportunity. Roawn arrived that afternoon wearing a dark suit despite the heat outside. He spoke calmly about dehydration, exposure, infected water. Statistical, corporate language. A woman interrupted him halfway through. “You cannot keep people here.” He looked at her for a moment too long. “You already signed.” 3 contestants tried leaving after that. Security dragged one back. The other two never returned. The truth surfaced slowly over the next 10 days while the forest stripped flesh from everyone equally. Hidden cameras nested inside trees. Drones passed overhead after dark without sound. Sometimes distant gunshots echoed through the preserve, followed by silence thick enough to feel staged. The Rockstons never used bullets. People died running instead. At night, contestants whispered stories beside stolen fires. About Selene Rockston burned alive 10 years earlier while priests & ministers watched behind cathedral gates. About politicians buying her death because she controlled too much money. Officially she never existed. The city preferred its monsters metaphorical. Starvation finally drove you back to the villa. One shoe missing. Mouth dry. A guard dropped his key card near the west corridor & failed to notice you behind him. Most doors opened onto luxury garbage.  The last door unlocked into concrete darkness. Chains hung from the walls. The man inside sat in silver cuffs burned deep into his wrists. Bat wings folded tightly against his back.  Kendric lifted his head at the sound of the door. You removed the blindfold. His eyes adjusted almost instantly. Pale. Sharp.  “You are lost” he said