by Morgan Rice
*
As I stand there, looking down at Shira’s corpse, I don’t feel a sense of pride; rather, I think only of the snakebite, the burning pain in my calf, and I wonder if it’s poisonous. I look down and see that my calf is already red and swollen. Each step I take brings a fresh stab of pain. I am guessing that if it was poisonous I’d already be dead, or at least paralyzed. Still, the pain is incredible, and walking is difficult. I don’t know how I’ll be able to continue fighting like this.
Not to mention the rest of me: my cracked ribs, the wound on my arm from the shrapnel, the new bite wound on my shoulder, my swollen face…. I stand there, clinging to the fence and catching my breath. I really don’t know how I’ll be able to fight one more person. Now I understand why Arena One has no survivors.
I sense motion and look way up high, and see the leader scowling down at me. He does not look pleased. The crowd continues to cheer, and I can’t help wondering if maybe I’ve embarrassed the leader in some way. Clearly, the arena bouts are designed to be quick, meant to be basically a glorified execution. They don’t seem to be meant to last more than one round. Clearly, he had expected me to die sooner.
Making matters worse, I see people trading money furiously in the crowd. I wonder if the leader and his people had placed bets against me—and if my winning has cost the house money. I wonder what the odds were. If I were betting, I’d guess it would be 500 to 1 against me.
His advisors huddle around him, looking flustered, whispering in his ear, as if devising a plan. Slowly, he nods in response.
As he does, the door to the cage opens, and in march two slaverunners. They hurry to Shira’s corpse and drag her dead body across the ring. One of them reaches down and grabs the spear and the limp carcass of the snake, and carries it, too. More blood stains the floor, which is now red and slick. I stand there, taking it all in, still catching my breath, when suddenly I hear a faint rumbling. This is followed by something more distinct, and I feel the ground beneath me tremor, then shake. Soon, it becomes a deafening roar.
The entire crowd jumps to its feet, stomping like crazy as it turns its back on me and faces one of the entrance tunnels. In march a dozen men, holding torches. They clear a path for one obviously very special person. The crowd roars louder and louder, the stomping growing deafening. I don’t like the sound of this. They must know who it is.
After several more seconds, I catch a glimpse of what they’re screaming about. Behind an entourage of a dozen torchbearers, I spot what can only be my new opponent. I gulp at the sight.
He is quite possibly the largest and most muscular man I have ever seen. He towers over the torchbearers by at least a foot, and every square inch of his body is bulging with muscles. He’s easily three times the size of any man I’ve ever seen. He wears a black face mask, ominous and threatening, so I can’t see his face. Maybe I’m better off.
His hands and forearms are each covered in black gauntlets, made of a hard material and covered in spikes. He is naked save for his tight, black shorts and black combat boots. The muscles in his thighs ripple with every step.
As he gets closer to the ring, the crowd goes crazy. Finally, they break into a chant:
“MAL-COLM! MAL-COM! MAL-COLM!”
He seems impervious to the chanting; he just doesn’t seem to care. Surrounded by an entourage of two dozen people, he looks like a caged beast, ready to tear apart anything in his path. I can’t even conceive that this person is coming to fight me. It is a joke. I don’t stand a chance.
I got lucky with Sumo because he was overconfident and careless; I got lucky with Shira, too, but it nearly went the other way. But this man: it is obvious he can overpower me with a single hand. I’m not a pessimist. But as he climbs the ladder, enters the ring, and stands there, twice my size, it is enough to make my knees weak. He’s not a man. He is a monster, something out of a fairytale. I wonder if they save him for special occasions, to sic on people who have defied the games, who have embarrassed the leader. Or if perhaps they save him as a last resort, to make sure that they put someone to death quickly and easily, without taking any more chances.
He holds his arms out wide and throws back his head, and the crowd goes crazy. The roar is so loud, it actually hurts my ears. The brute never takes his eyes off of me, which I can see through the mask. I can feel them piercing me—soulless, black eyes. He slowly lowers his arms, still staring at me. I let go of the cage and stand on my own two feet, facing him. I do my best to stand upright, to appear fearless. I doubt it works.
I don’t know what to do next. In this arena there is no official noise or signal to mark the start of a match. And if there was, I have a feeling that no one would pay attention to it anyway. Matches seem to begin whenever the contestants decide they do. And I’m in no mood to start this match. He is taking his time, too, savoring each moment, trying to intimidate me. It’s working.
My only hope, I realize, is if the leaders decide to throw me down another weapon. And as I look up at their scowling faces, I see no sign of that.
Suddenly, he moves. He saunters slowly towards me, as if he has all the time in the world. As if he wants to savor this. I study his physique, looking for any possible weakness. But I find none: he is a wall of solid muscle.
As he gets close I slowly back away, circling along the wall of the cage. I realize this will make me seem weak, and probably embolden him. But I can’t see how he could be more emboldened than he already is, and I still don’t know how to fight this guy. Maybe, if I evade him long enough, I’ll get an idea. Or they’ll throw me a weapon. Or I’ll tire him out. Although these all seem doubtful.
He slowly approaches, and I keep backing away. The crowd gets antsy, hissing and booing, heckling me. They want blood. And I am no longer their favorite.
He walks a bit faster towards me, and I back away just as fast. He sidesteps left and I sidestep right. I can’t keep this up forever: he’s getting closer, and the distance is shortening.
Suddenly, he gets impatient and lunges at me, racing to grab me; at the last second, I sidestep, and run to the side. He grabs the thin air, and I’m already on the other side of him.
The crowd laughs at him. He turns around, and I can see his neck turn a shade of crimson. Now he’s really pissed. He charges me, sprinting with all he has. I have nowhere left to go.
At the last second, I try to sidestep to my right, but this time he sees it coming, and reaches out and grabs hold of my shirt. Without pausing, he turns and with one hand, spins and throws me. I go flying like a ragdoll across the ring, slamming into the metal cage. Luckily, I just miss a protruding spike.
The crowd roars in approval. I lie there, feeling the wind knocked out of me, feeling the throbbing in my calf and shoulder. With a supreme effort, I manage to get to my hands and knees, but as soon as I do, I feel his hands on my back, grabbing my shirt. He throws me again, head first.
I go flying like a cannonball across the other side of the ring. I feel myself airborne, and then smash headfirst into the metal cage. The pain is deafening. I bounce off it, and land on my back, on the floor, and am winded again.
The crowd roars, stomping its feet.
I look up just in time to see a huge foot stomping down, right for my face. At the last second I manage to roll out of the way. I feel the air rush by my ear as his foot slams into the floor just inches away. The crowd ooohs. It was a close call. A split second more, and his foot would have crushed my face to bits.
I roll over and without thinking, sink my teeth into his foot. I feel them pierce his flesh, and taste his salty blood as it trickles down my lips. I hear him grunt in pain and it makes me realize he’s human. I’m surprised by that. It’s a dirty move, but it’s all I can think of.
He snaps his leg away and kicks me hard across the face. I go flying, turning over several times, and slam into the corner of the cage.
He touches his bloody foot and examines his hand and sneers down at me with a newfound hatred. I wonder
if he has just decided to kill me slowly instead of quickly.
I scramble to my feet and face him, and this time, I feel that I need the element of surprise. As crazy as it is, I charge him.
I leap into the air and do a flying front kick, aiming for his groin. I’m hoping that if I can kick him hard, in just the right spot, with my steel-tipped toes, maybe I can make an impact.
But he is too good of a fighter for that. He must spot my telegraphed action a mile away, because without even making an effort, he reaches down and blocks my leg. His metal gauntlet smashes into my calf, right into my wound, before I can make an impact. The pain is numbing. It stops me cold, and I drop to the ground, grabbing my calf in agony.
I try to get up, but he backhands me with his other gauntlet, hard across the face, and the force of it knocks me back, face-down, to the ground. I can feel the taste of blood in my mouth, and look down to see the floor covered in my dark-red blood. The crowd cheers.
I try to get up again, but before I can, I feel his hands on my back, feel him pick me up in the air, wind back, and throw me. He aims high, towards the top of the cage, and I go flying across the ring, right into it. This time, I think quick.
I reach out as I’m flying towards the wall, and as I hit it, I grab hold of the chain-link, clutching it. The wall sways a few times, but I manage to hang on. I’m up high on the metal cage, nearly fifteen feet off the ground, clinging for my life.
The brute looks annoyed. He charges towards me, reaching up to grab me and pull me down. But I scramble up, even higher. He reaches up to grab my leg, but I pull it up in the nick of time. I’m just out of his reach.
He looks perplexed, and I can see the skin on his neck redden with frustration. He hadn’t expected this.
The crowd jumps to its feet, roaring its approval. Clearly, they haven’t seen this tactic before.
But I don’t know how long I can hang on. My muscles are already weak, and as I cling to the cage, suddenly, I feel it swaying. I look down and see that the brute has grabbed the cage wall with both hands, and is shaking it violently. I cling to it like a buoy in a storm-tossed sea. I sway violently, but no matter how much he shakes it, I refuse to let go.
The crowd screams its approval, and laughs at him. I glance down and see his skin turn a darkening shade of red. He looks humiliated.
He reaches out, grabs the metal, and begins to pull himself up. But he is slow, awkward. He is far too heavy to be agile, and this cage is not meant to hold someone of his bulk. He climbs towards me, but now I have the advantage. He uses both hands to pull himself up, and as he gets close, I swing back one leg and kick him hard in the face, connecting on the corner of his temple, right at the corner of his facemask, with my steel-tipped toe.
It is a solid kick, one he does not expect—and to my surprise, it works. He falls back off the fence, a good ten feet, and lands hard, flat on his back, on the ground. He lands with such force, the entire ring shakes. It sounds as if a tree trunk has been dropped from the sky. The crowd roars, screaming its approval.
As I look down, I see that my kick has dislodged his facemask, which goes flying across the floor. He gets to his feet and scowls up at me, and for the first time, I can see his face.
I wish that I hadn’t.
It is a hideous, grotesque face, and barely even looks human. Now I understand why he wears the mask. His face is entirely burnt and charred, with huge lumps all over it. He is a Biovictim, and the worst I’ve ever seen. He’s missing a nose, and has slits for eyes. He looks more like a beast than a man.
He snarls and roars up at me, and if I wasn’t afraid before, my heart pounds with fear now. I feel as if I’m fighting something out of a nightmare.
But for now, at least, I am safe. I have outsmarted him. There is nothing he can do except stand down there and look up at me. We are at a stalemate.
That is, until suddenly, everything changes.
Stupidly, I am looking down, over my shoulder, at the ring below me. I never bother to look in front of me, never imagined there could be any danger from that direction. But one of the slaverunners, outside the ring, has managed to sneak up on me, with a huge pole, and shock me with it, right in the chest. I feel an electric jolt run through my entire body. It must be some sort of cattle prod; they probably reserve it for situations like this.
The electric shock sends me flying back, off the cage, falling through the air, and landing flat on my back on the floor. The force of it knocks the wind out of me again, and my body is still shaking from being electrified. The crowd roars in delight as I’m back down on the floor of the ring, helpless.
I can barely breathe, or feel my fingertips. But I have no time to reflect. The brute charges right for me, and looks madder than ever. He leaps into the air and raises his knees high, preparing to bring both feet down on my face, to stomp me to oblivion.
Somehow, at the last second, I manage to roll out of the way. I feel the wind of his kick rush past my ear, and then the thunderous stomp. It is enough to shake the floor, and I go bouncing off it like a plaything. I roll away, get to my hands and knees, then run to the far side of the ring.
Something suddenly drops from the sky, lands on the floor in the center of the ring. I look down and am surprised to see it is a medieval mace, with a short wooden handle and a foot-long chain, at the end of which is a spiked, metal ball. I’ve seen these before, in pictures of knights in armor: it was a deadly weapon used in the Middle Ages.
I run for, reach down and grab it before he can. Not that he even shows any interest in grabbing it. He doesn’t even go for it, clearly feeling he doesn’t need it. I don’t blame him.
I grab hold of the shaft and swing it, filled with a newfound confidence. If I can just connect, with just one blow, maybe I can actually win. It is a weapon of beauty, and the spiked metal ball swings around and around at the end of the chain, establishing a perimeter before me, keeping him at bay. I swing it again and again, like a helicopter, and it manages to keep him off guard, wary.
But he still slowly approaches, and as he does, I back up. As I take another step back, though, I suddenly slip on a pool of blood: my feet go out from under me, and I fall flat on my back. As I do, I lose my grip on the mace, and it goes flying across the cage. It actually by chance flies right at his head; but he is more agile than I suspect and ducks it easily. It goes over his head and smashes into the wall of the cage. The crowd ooohs at the close call.
I’m flat on my back, and before I can get up, he’s standing over me and reaches down, grabs my shirt and picks me up by my chest with both hands. He lifts me up high, way over his head, like a wrestler, then parades me across the ring, before the thousands of revelers. They eat it up, going wild.
“MAL-COLM! MAL-COLM! MAL-COLM!”
Maybe this is his trademark move, before he finishes people off for good. As I dangle there in the air, so high above his head, helpless, I squirm, but it is futile. I know that there is nothing I can do. I am at his disposal. And I feel that any second will be my last.
He slowly walks me around the ring, again and again, savoring the adulation, the victory. The noise of the crowd grows to a deafening pitch. He lifts me, even higher, preparing to hurl me, and the last thing I think, before I go flying, is that I’m glad that Bree isn’t here to see my death.
N I N E T E E N
