Deep into the night, the underground maximum-security wing finally became quiet. Most of the inmates had fallen asleep, but Axel Vance remained awake on his narrow steel bed with his eyes fixed on the ceiling. The events of the day, especially his encounter with Hannibal Lecter, continued circling through his mind.
Hannibal and the other serial killers in this place were far more dangerous than Axel had expected. Countless possibilities crossed his thoughts as he considered what kind of world he had actually entered. After thinking for several minutes, a completely different concern suddenly appeared.
"Damn it," Axel muttered. "I asked for way too little money."
He now understood why Warden Holden had agreed to the hundred-thousand-dollar reward so quickly. Holden probably knew exactly how abnormal this underground wing was and had still sent Axel down here without revealing everything. Axel could only admit that the old bastard had gotten himself a bargain.
There was no point complaining now. Axel pushed those useless thoughts aside and summoned the translucent system panel with a thought. A familiar line immediately appeared before his eyes.
[Prisoner Fitness Lv. 2 — 714/1000]
At his current training speed, Axel estimated that he would reach Level 3 within another two days. Every level had improved his physique, so the next advancement should make him noticeably stronger again. Considering the things that might exist in this world, physical power was one form of security he could actually rely on.
Axel dismissed the panel and rolled onto his side, preparing to sleep.
Then he heard something.
His eyes opened immediately.
A faint sound drifted through the darkness.
"Hiss... hiss..."
Axel sat up and listened carefully. At first, the noise resembled insects crawling somewhere inside the concrete or perhaps rats scratching between the walls. The longer he listened, however, the stranger it became.
He quietly climbed out of bed and placed his bare feet against the cold concrete floor. Ignoring the sound of his own heartbeat, Axel moved around the cell while trying to identify the direction of the noise. After several seconds, he stopped beside the solid inner wall.
The sound was coming from inside it.
"Did you hear it too, young man?"
Hannibal’s calm voice suddenly came from the cell next door.
Axel stiffened slightly.
"Their activity has become more frequent lately," Hannibal added.
That sentence immediately caught Axel’s attention. From Hannibal’s tone, this clearly was not the first time the strange noise had appeared. More importantly, Hannibal seemed to know something about its origin.
Axel resisted the temptation to ask questions. Hannibal Lecter was not the kind of man who provided useful information out of kindness, and any conversation with him could easily become another psychological game. Axel instead pressed his ear firmly against the wall.
The sound became much clearer.
It was not rats.
It was not insects either.
Voices.
Countless voices seemed to overlap somewhere beyond the concrete, some high and thin while others were deep enough to vibrate through the wall. They repeated the same strange sounds in an irregular rhythm, creating something disturbingly similar to a chant.
Mixed between the voices were other noises.
Growls.
Roars.
Sounds that did not seem entirely human.
Axel felt the hairs along his arms rise.
"What the hell is that...?"
He concentrated harder and tried to separate the individual voices. The words gave him an uncomfortable sense of familiarity, almost as if he had heard them somewhere long ago. Yet no matter how carefully he listened, he could not understand a single phrase.
It felt like trying to remember a nightmare several hours after waking. Axel could sense that something had once been there, but every time he reached for the memory, it slipped away. The harder he tried to understand the chanting, the more confused his thoughts became.
His breathing gradually became heavier.
The overlapping voices seemed to press against his mind.
For one alarming moment, Axel felt his awareness begin to fade.
Then everything stopped.
The chanting vanished instantly.
The animalistic sounds disappeared with it.
The entire underground wing returned to complete silence as though nothing had ever happened.
Axel remained standing beside the wall.
His heart hammered against his chest.
Several seconds passed before he finally moved. Axel raised one hand and wiped his forehead, only then realizing that his skin was covered in cold sweat. Whatever that sound had been, it had affected him far more strongly than he wanted to admit.
He eventually returned to his bed.
Something was deeply wrong with this prison.
Before arranging Axel’s transfer, Holden had shown him the structural plans for the underground section. According to those blueprints, there were only reinforced cells, service corridors, and ventilation ducts behind these walls. No hidden chamber or unexplored space should have existed anywhere near him.
So where were the voices coming from?
Axel stared into the darkness for a long time before exhaustion finally overcame him.
The next morning, he woke to the familiar chaos of the maximum-security wing. Inmates shouted insults, laughed at nothing, and muttered to themselves as if the previous night had never happened. At first glance, everything seemed exactly the same.
Axel knew better.
He deliberately began observing the prisoners around him.
Something had changed.
His attention soon settled on the large inmate directly across the corridor.
The Big Guy still sat on his bed with his knees drawn close to his chest. His body continued rocking back and forth, but the movement had become slower than before. Even his constant murmuring had nearly disappeared.
His lips still moved.
Very little sound came out.
His eyes looked empty.
Not calm.
Empty.
Almost like a doll.
"Notice something?"
Hannibal’s voice came through the wall beside Axel.
Axel kept watching the opposite cell. "The Big Guy looks worse."
"Of course he does."
Hannibal sounded completely unsurprised.
"He’s fragile."
Axel frowned.
"He couldn’t endure the pressure."
There was something disturbingly clinical about the way Hannibal spoke. He discussed the man’s deterioration as though describing the symptoms of an interesting patient rather than another inmate slowly losing his mind. That calmness made Axel listen even more carefully.
"These sounds began several months ago," Hannibal continued. "No obvious cause. No predictable schedule."
Axel remained silent.
"The men down here were already psychologically unstable before they arrived. Many have deteriorated considerably since the noises began."
Hannibal paused briefly.
"And those who could not tolerate it eventually died."
Axel’s expression hardened.
That was it.
The mysterious deaths.
The chanting inside the walls was somehow connected.
Perhaps the sound itself was killing them, or perhaps whatever created the chanting was doing something Axel did not yet understand. Either way, he had finally found the strongest lead since beginning the investigation.
Unfortunately, the discovery created another problem.
What exactly was he supposed to tell Holden?
There are invisible people chanting inside the concrete and the singing is killing serial killers?
Even Axel would have laughed at that explanation a few days ago.
He needed evidence.
Something undeniable.
The only practical choice was to wait for another inmate to die. Once that happened, Axel could use the death as justification to demand a complete inspection of the underground structure. Walls, ventilation shafts, utility spaces, everything would need to be opened and examined.
Until then, there was only one useful thing he could do.
Train.
Another day passed.
Time became difficult to measure underground. There were no windows, no sunlight, and almost nothing to distinguish morning from night besides meal schedules and guard rotations. Even the unstable inmates had begun noticing the growing tension.
The entire wing felt oppressive.
Every sound seemed too loud.
Every period of silence seemed worse.
Axel leaned near the reinforced glass and watched the cell opposite him.
The Big Guy had deteriorated again.
He no longer rocked himself like a frightened child.
He no longer whispered for his mother.
He simply sat on the edge of his bed with his head hanging forward and his jaw slightly open. His arms rested limply beside him, and his eyes had completely lost their previous awareness.
Axel suspected someone could walk into the cell and beat the man without receiving any resistance.
At this rate, the Big Guy probably did not have much time left.
And after he died...
Who would be next?
Axel stepped away from the glass.
Thinking about possibilities would not make him stronger.
He removed the upper half of his prison uniform and began exercising.
A few inmates immediately reacted.
"Heh! Look, the new guy’s doing his little workout again!"
Another voice laughed from farther down the corridor.
"Look at that pretty skin. Bet it tastes good."
Several prisoners joined in with crude laughter and obscene comments. Their voices carried more nervousness than confidence, and Axel could tell the oppressive atmosphere had made everyone restless. Any small disturbance gave them an excuse to make noise.
Axel ignored them completely.
The taunting gradually faded.
He dropped into another set of push-ups.
[Prisoner Fitness: EXP +3]
He moved into squats.
[Prisoner Fitness: EXP +3]
Then came pull-ups.
His muscles burned.
Sweat ran down his chest.
"Young man."
Hannibal spoke again.
"Are you afraid?"
Axel continued exercising.
Hannibal’s voice carried mild curiosity. "Physical exhaustion is an effective method of suppressing intrusive thoughts. If you exhaust the body sufficiently, the mind often becomes easier to silence."
Axel did not answer.
"You’re frightened by what you heard."
Still nothing.
Axel simply increased his pace.
He understood exactly what Hannibal was doing.
The man was observing him.
Testing reactions.
Searching for emotional weaknesses.
Hannibal Lecter had spent years studying human behavior professionally before becoming known for something far darker. A careless sentence, a hesitation, even a change in breathing could give someone like him far more information than Axel wanted him to have.
Silence was safer.
Axel continued until his arms began trembling.
One more pull-up.
Then another.
His muscles screamed in protest.
He forced himself upward again.
Finally, Axel completed the last repetition and reached his physical limit.
At that exact moment, something changed.
A warm current suddenly erupted deep inside his body.
Axel’s eyes widened.
The sensation spread through his chest, arms, legs, and spine in an instant. The fatigue accumulated over the past several days faded rapidly, and even the lingering chill left by the chanting disappeared. His muscles felt as though new strength was being poured directly into them.
Then the notification he had been waiting for finally appeared.
[Prisoner Fitness has reached Lv. 3.]
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