Throughout my life, I have always wanted to make a name for myself in the fighting circuit. I wanted my name to be cheered by the thousands for my skills, but not like this. The voices of a dozen men are almost as loud as that little boy’s, each of them battling for the number one spot for the worst.
“Please stop,” I cry out loud, pressing my hands against my ears, hoping for a moment of silence in my brain. Repeating themantra three hundred times finally granted my wish. The noise in my head stopped because the door crashing into the wall replaced it.
Heavy, booted footsteps pound into the room. Two sets of them come to my side. When I peek my head up, I notice two more waiting by the open door, rifles held across their chests. When I try to ask what’s going on, the muscles in my throat fail me, leaving me puffing my questions like air.
Weak, with aching bones, they pull me from my steel enclosure, once again pinning my chest to the edge when standing. Once my hands are bound behind my back, I’m led out of the door. The path is similar to the one I took last time, bringing back memories in painful flashes. Before they can become one long, continuous image, we turn down a different corridor, spiking my anxiety differently.
“Where are we going?” This time, the question does come out. It’s a hoarse whisper, but at least it’s heard.
“You’re needed in the arena.”
Arena? “For what?”
“Shut the fuck up!” A guard in front snaps, whipping his head around back to eye us. The men holding me cower beneath his glare, but I remain defiant, carrying my head high enough to meet his stare despite my exhaustion.
The mustached man in front turns back before I drop my eyes, so I consider myself the winner—until the elevator comes into view. My feet shuffle then, and I dig my heels into the concrete, doing anything to slow us down.
“I don’t want to go in there,” I mumble, more to myself than the others.
Still, one responds, “No one gives a shit what you want. Now shut the fuck up.” He ends his demand by throwing me inside, where the other guards wait on each corner. The mustached man is the last to enter, keeping his back to me while inputting aseries of numbers into a keypad. When I attempted to look, the man holding my reins punched me in the back of my skull.
“Eyes down, fucker.” With his free hand, he forcefully keeps my head down until a ding separates the elevator doors. When everybody filters out, my head is yanked upwards, and I’m thrown out of the opening.
The mustached man catches me by the back of the neck and squeezes, pinching my corded muscles until I’m sinking in pain. “Don’t try anything with me, boy. I won’t hesitate to shove this gun down your throat and blow your fucking guts out if your teeth come anywhere near me.”
Through gritted teeth, I hiss, “Glad to see I scare you, fucker.”
Tightening his hold on my neck, my muscles begin to pop and scream. “You don’t do shit to me but keep running your mouth, and I’ll show you all I can doto you.”And with that, our walk continues. His grasp on me never lessens, but eventually, I become used to the pain.
Somehow, wherever that elevator took us is creepier than the dark room I’m held in. There, only my imagined shadows and steel cell exist, but here, someone polished the walls and cleaned the floors. Down this corridor, there’s only one door—a metal one at the very end.
With his fingers digging into my flesh, I’m unable to look up when another series of numbers is entered into a keypad. None of that matters, though, not when the shouts and cheers and roars seep beneath my skin.
Similar to before, I’m exposed to a room full of men, but instead of there being only twelve, there has to be more than a hundred. And instead of there being a dozen boys on their knees, there’s a cage in the center—empty, covered in freshly spilled blood. If I had any sense, I would have done everything in my power to get out of the mustached man’s hold, but I think, for the first time, I truly understand the hell I’ve been brought to.
And there, the devil sits on his throne, savoring the fear in my eyes.
High on his platform, Marone eyes me through the chain links, a smile edging over his crystal glass. At his feet, a blonde girl kneels. As the guards bring me closer to the ring, I take in her greasy strands and the blood crusted on her scalp. There are a ton of girls like that sprinkled over the laps of dirty, disgusting men. Some sit idle, waiting submissively at their feet. Others?—
Vomit crawls up my throat when I see their tear-streaked, bloodied, and swollen faces as they take men into their bodies. Every hole is filled. Their desperate sounds of begging, unable to escape. The ones closest look me in the eye, but there’s no life there. They’re empty, broken vessels—dolls to be played with.
As I walk along the narrow path, the cage looms closer, near enough for me to choke on the acrid aroma of iron. There are two more guards positioned at the entrance of the arena, who open the door as we approach. The muscles in my legs remember their function and resist again. With my arms being essentially useless, I flail my legs, kicking, digging, and shuffling until I’m right before the entrance.
“I would save my energy, boy. You’re going to need it.” And with that, the bindings holding my arms together are severed, and I’m thrown face-first onto the sticky floor. The crowd’s laughter rises when I get up and face the horror that covers me.
My clothes… my hands. I lift my fingers to my face, touching the residue on my lips. Vomit doesn’t crawl anymore, but like a hydrant, it sprays out of my throat, dousing the gore on the mats with everything left in my body. The crowd doesn’t laugh then, but Marone does, a booming sound that echoes over everyone’s horror. It goes on until I stand to my feet and charge in his direction. The links are the only thing that saves him, and he knows it when I snarl, “I’m going to fucking kill you! You sick fucking bastard! I’m going to fucking kill you!”
“Let me see you make it out of there first.” As he says it, the cage doors open again for a fighter covered in blood.
Head to toe, a man, maybe nineteen, two years older than me, a fuck-ton of a lot taller than me, stalks toward me, a red-coated blade dangling by his side.
The roar of the crowd thundered through the arena, each cheer a violent and needy wave crashing against the bloodied octagon. Inside, the other fighter and I stand, his bruised, swollen eyes narrowing with breaths sharp and uncontrolled. The light above our heads glints off his sweat-slick, marred skin, highlighting every contusion as he sizes me up.
“Hammer!”
“Hammer!”
“Hammer!” The mob roars, riling up the other fighter. Unlike the little boy, this one doesn’t allow me to say stop. Fists clenched, posture low and predatory, the man they call Hammer charges for me, running and then flying, swinging his fist high above his head to fall right on top of mine.
