Stadia of the Damned

The first time I stood in one of these places, I could still hear the echoes. Not real sounds, not anymore—just ghosts. The roar of a hundred thousand voices, the chant of a tribe, the kind of noise that made the ground tremble beneath your feet. Once, these places were temples. People worshipped here—not gods, but glory. Victory. The illusion that any of it ever mattered.

Now? Now they’re just another tomb.

I walk through the ruins, past rows of shattered seats, their colors faded, their purpose long since erased. The tunnels smell of piss, burnt plastic, and old rot. The sky glares down through holes in the roof where fire and time have done their work. A banner still hangs, half-charred, a relic of the old world. The name of some forgotten team, its crest stained by rain and smoke.

There was a time when men paid fortunes to sit here. To watch. To feel like they belonged to something greater than themselves. And now, these same seats are filled with the broken, the lost, the hungry.

The Stadia became compounds. Shelters. Prisons.

Some say they were the last stand of the old world. When the sickness came, when the riots turned cities into graveyards, the rich fled behind these walls. Armored gates, private guards, floodlights that cut through the night like swords of the divine. They thought they could outlast the end.

They were wrong.

A stadium’s a fortress, sure—but it’s also a cage. And when the power failed, when the food ran out, the walls only kept the misery in. People turned on each other. The lucky ones died fast. The rest—well. You can still see their bones in the upper tiers, curled around each other like burnt-out candles.

Now, these places belong to the scavengers. The warlords. The ones who trade in desperation.

I step over a body—not fresh, but not old enough either. His coat’s been stripped, his pockets turned out. A bloodstain arcs across the concrete like some brutal calligraphy.

At the center of the field, where a lush green pitch once stretched, there’s nothing but a barren dustbowl. A few skeletal goalposts remain, their nets long since rotted away. And beyond them, the stalls of the market—if you can call it that.

This is where hope goes to die.

Men with hollow eyes huddle over makeshift tables, selling what little they have. Bottles of filthy water. Strips of dried meat that might be rat, might be worse. A woman sits cross-legged, arranging pills into neat little rows—stimulants, painkillers, anything to help you forget.

And then there’s the auction block.

A raised platform where the unlucky stand, wrists bound, waiting to be claimed. Slaves, fighters, debtors—whatever word makes it easier to swallow. I don’t look too long. I know the rules here. You watch too close, and someone decides you’re bidding. Or worse, selling.

I pull my coat tighter, keep my head down. I didn’t come here to linger.

Somewhere in this rotting coliseum, there’s a man who owes me. He’s got something I need. And in a place like this, debts are paid in blood, in bullets, or in silence.

I glance once more at the ruins, at the place where champions were made, where legends were born.

No more cheers. No more glory. Just another graveyard in a world full of them.

And I keep walking.

In the ruins of the old world, where giants once roared,
Now these concrete coliseums hold souls scarred and floored.
Billions were poured to light the night with hope and flame,
But biofuel’s bitter price turned promise into shame.
Coca leaves and opium dreams turned currency to dust,
In these haunted arenas, trust and hope decay to rust.

Oil empires crumbled beneath the weight of desperate need,
Stadiums became compounds—a final, futile creed.
Echoes of cheers have long since faded into cries,
Under shattered arches, despair wears no disguise.
Here the poor trade secrets with memories of better days,
While darkness settles heavy on the remnants of old ways.

Welcome to the Stadium of the Damned,
Where hope’s a currency easily banned,
And every stone tells a tale of dreams mislaid,
In a realm where the lost and damned have stayed.
Here the future’s bought and sold in whispers cold,
Under skies of ash and stories untold.

Beneath the neon flicker of a dying past,
Every echo is a reminder that nothing lasts.
Yet in these ruins, even sorrow finds its art—
A grim, defiant beauty beating in every heart.