This was the first time I have ever seen light in these three days, as I was put into the prison box. Light is precious to me, but it also means something cruel else.
Why I was being put into prison? It is very common nowadays that innocent people are being arrested for some reasons which are very hard to convince the people. It is because I was considered to be a rebellion group member, then two policemen were sent to catch me, and I had got a chance to escape, but because of my poverty, I was escorted to the court.
Seeing through the non-breakable window which is used to separate those suspects and the judge, the listeners and the like, I could see the president of the state gave an almost
inpercetible wink to the judge, kinds of giving tips, warning ones. The judge nodded and sentenced me to be a Gladiator, who would fight foul creatures created by some scientists who are working for Mr President Alistair. I remember two of my brothers who were in the rebellion group were sent to the arena to fight, to survive, but then, just after 1 day, they were confirmed dead, my mother and myself cannot remember any of it now, which, I think, is a good sign. I am really ashamed of my two rebellion brothers, as they drew me to the court, as they gave the policemen an excuse to arrest me, who is absolutely innocent.
The days in the prison box seemed to be
interminable, as I wait painfully inside it.
I squint my eyes, trying to see things more clearly. Then, a grandeur view is etched inside my brain. A forest with so many trees, so many flowers, and some huts far from me, although it was also created by the game designer. Flutter of wings above me, I find tears dropped from my eyes, this is the last time I can ever see this unreal and beautiful bird. Iwipe my tears when I hear a voice inside my brain,
you will have to survive in this area for 3 days, and now pick up the weapons which are placed beside you on the ground now. I look down at the ground, and see a assault rifle, a SMG, a saber and a backpack.
I put my knife and the SMG back through my belt, and hold the assault rifle tightly. I look around and choose a bush as my hidden place.
The rifle grows heavier in my hands, as I open my eyes wide, and trying to hear more clearly. "Clark," the sound of stepping on log, I pull the pin out of the assault rifle and aim. I haven't pulled the trigger as I don't want to waste any bullets. " Damn log!", something curses, oh, it is not 'something' but 'someone'. I wonder what he/she is doing here. Then a man creeps out of the mass of trees, holding a assualt rifle same as mine.
I shall not souond, as he might thinks me as an enemy and shoot me without thinking.
A spine-chilling howl, then a shadow running out of trees, dashing toward the man. The man is pressed on the ground by a wolf. No, not exactly a wolf, it is something with sharp teeth like razor, with a head of wolf, but with a human body full of fur, more exactly, a werewolf. It seems to be as evil as the ones in past novels, but they don't turn people to werewolves now, but instead, tearing people into pieces.
I pull the trigger without hesitation while the werewolf growls in pain, and turn his head toward me. Its red eyes burn like coals and makes me shiver. But it has forgotten the man in his clutches, the man put a bunch of bullets through its eyes and mouth, and after a second it was laying on the ground motionlessly. The man's bloodstreak face is now facing me, full of surprise in his eyes. He walks near me and stretches out a hand, and I shake it.
" What are you doing here?" I ask.
" Gladiator, being a rebellion group member which I am proud of."
" What is your number or you know, code? Mine is XM2013"
" My code is XZ7943. Although people now can only have code but I don't feel comfortable of it, so I gave myself a name, Sparks."
" I start wondering if I shall give myself a name too, because..."
" Because what you want to be left to the future is a name, but not a code, a number."
That is not exactly what I want to say, but I nod.
" So, are there any gladiators besides us?" I asked.
" I only know there are two existing now."
A human scream, not far from us, we look at each other and dash.
Then, I see another man is pinned to the ground, surrounded by two werewolves. " You take the left one, I take the right one." my partner's voice calm and determined. I pull the trigger and many holes formed on the skull of it. The two werewolves are thumped on the ground almost at the same time. There red eyes remain unclosed, despite that they are dead, their eyes still flicker the sign of evilness and greediness. Their mouth is left open, with long and sharp teeth ready to strike.
The man who is saved by us come beside us and tap our shoulders, and joke," in fact, I don't really need your help, I can kill them with bare hands." We all blurt out a laugh.
" Hey, you guys should aware of your surroundings when you talk!" Two men slip into our sight and say.
" Do you guys get a name?" I ask.
" Um, maybe Zio, I think I get style when people calling my name." the one who was saved by us says.
" I am a ex-soldier, but I don't have a name but a code. But I think Warlord suits me."
One of the two men answers.
" I am just a civilian, but I love shooting apples with guns when I am small, so I guess my shooting skill is not too bad." The man beside the ex-soldier says.
" Give youself a name." my partner demands in a casual way.
" Um...m, I think Armpit is good, what about you?" he says, with his finger pointing to me.
" Um...m, I think Frankie should be okay, as I like names which were normal in the past." I answer.
Then, a sound resounds in our ears. " Boys, don't be too optimistic, more are coming, and I assure you that this game will end in thirty minutes." We stare at each other, unable to restrain the terror in our eyes. I don't want to die at this wery young age, I have got so many things to do in the future. Oringinally, I had to go to dating with my girlfriend, but just a day before it, I was arrested. And my mum should be watching this now( This is essential even for the low standing of people, as the president thinks that this will bring happiness to people, but then everytime I watch it on the TV, I find it disgusting and terrible. Most people get a memory wipe by some illigal parties, and I do the wipe every year. Somehow, illegal things are right andlawful things are wrong in my eyes. How confusing!
Oh! Back to my mother, she must be crying at first but then stops crying, as she must have used up all her tears. I wonder if she will cry blood-tears out, that must be awful, and imagine if someone with her eyes soaked with red liquid look at you on the street, what you will first do must be screaming, then you go to mental hospital. Better she can get hold of herself. I bet she will hug the model(*1) of my father when she is crying.
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*1after one of your close relatives dies, you will have a model of him/her given by the government. My mum is always angry because the model cannot breathe. How ridiculous! And I am not really agree with this model idea, as it has brought much pain to my mother, which is definitely the opposite of the government purpose.
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I am suddenly awakened by a unprepared tap.
" Hey, Frankie, I am pleased with your concentration, but I think it is not the time for this." Armpit said.
I manage to take a look around me. Oh gosh, three werewolves, surrounding us. Luckily, the back of us is a large rock, so we only need to face our front. With spontaneous understanding, we open fire as they attack us, two of them are shot and are laying on the ground while one of them drags Sparks out of our group. Warlord gets out of our circle before we realize what is happening. He makes a bullet soar through the air and stuck in the werewolf while the werewolf makes four holes on Sparks's legs. Sparks wails in pain, making everyone jolts.
Armpit opens his backpack and find no bandage, and he curses only allow us to hear," I always know that the government won't let us to save people's lives." Warlord doesn't say anything, and cut a very soft tree bark and use it as bandage. We help Sparks get up and help him walk with us. Not so many obstacles, great! We then find a cave which has a exit of one man size but not a 'giant' size of werewolves, and spacious inside. I am really thankful of the game designer, I haven't seen a man as kind as him for a long time.
People are having their nap except me and Warlord. Warlord is some kind of not concentrating.
I tap him and say," are you okay? you seem like a nerd now if you are without the beard and with glasses."
He looks up and says," certainly I am thinking about my past. It was such a misery." Curiosity rises inside me, so I say," tell me about it so you might feel better." He says," Um, okay. Soldiers get a book filling of rules, if you disobey them, you may get into prison or the most serious one, you become a 'gladiator'. One rule is ' Never carry the soldiers with deep injures to get out of the battlefied, as this will lower the efficency of the army.' For once, a friend like my brother was shot in the chest, I saw his desperation of need in his eyes. I dragged him out of the thrashing bullets and carried him to the medical centre. However, he was dead then and the General put me in the military court and I was senteneced to be a 'gladiator'. And I didn't know why I would have such unfair judge as I think I didn't lower the army efficiency."
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Once I open my eyes, I see Warlord's back facing me, while he is humming a song. I look around and see men clutching each other with a small pool of saliva on the ground, still asleep. I stand and tap Warlord's shoulder. He turns to me. He still get red eyes, I wonder if he didn't sleep well or he sobbed.
" Ah! I think I can eat a whole werewolf." Armpit is awake, grumbling about the hunger. Oh yes, it has been 18 hours they haven't got anything to eat. Warlord quickly understands what he is trying to say and grab my arm to go outside. The smell of dead bodies is spreading in the air. We squeeze the nose while searching. Then we find three of them, two of them are left with bones, one still get crows on it. I run towards them and make them scattering. Oh good, what is left is the flesh of its legs. I wonder how it would taste. I use the knife to separate the legs from the body. We hold the tip of them with one hand and squeeze our nose with another hand.
After we have our breakfast, Sparks says," I knew Alistair ( it is strange to hear someone saying the president name directly), if we hide in here for three days, he would make an excuse to kill all of us, we have to fight, we mustn't show ourselves as a coward." Warlord, Zio, Armpit and I nod in agreement, though I am not sure if I really agree with it.
Zio and I walk out of the cave first, then guard the cave, check for uncanny movements or noise while Warlord and Armpit help Sparks out.
" Do you feel better now?" I ask Sparks, looking for answers in his eyes.
" Not too bad." He moans.
" Oh! incoming monsters!" Warlord shouts. He raises the rifle and starts shooting, as we do the same thing too. There are more of them coming today, mass of grey covers the forest. Our bullets do kill many of them, but it is endless, and their hunger isn't affected by the death.
" We have to go back to the cave!" Warlord urges.
" No. We have to go up those rocks, we can occupy a high position and it is good for scouting and shooting. And the entrance of the cave will be stuck by the mass." Zio suggests, with his finger pointing to some rocks which extend towards the sky.
" Then do it quick! Zio and I will get Sparks, you two do the cover!" I yell.
Zio and I lift Sparks up, dashing towards the rocks while Warlord and Armpit keep shooting, then keep up with us. We try to lift Sparks up, but it is unsuccessful. We manage to take out the first row of those lunatics, but there are more coming.
" We might have to give him up." Zio suggests.
" No, you are just kidding, aren't you?" We bellow, feeling anger rising. I have a feeling that something not too good is going to happen. Suddenly, Zio pushes Sparks to the mass while Sparks screams. Sparks is immediately in the clutches of the werewolves. I am dragged by Zio while Warlord and Armpit try to get Sparks out of the clutches of those creatures. Warlord and Armpit back away, surprise to see that no werewolves are chasing them, as all of them have surrounded Sparks, trying to get a piece of flesh.
They climb up the rocks with a rage, purple face. Warlord plucks out the knife, then try to stab Zio when I catch his wrist. His face is going to explode, I think. Zio is shocked to see this, then he defends himself as an innocent man, saying that he saved all our lives.
" You betray your partner!" Armpit yells at him.
" He is no partner of mine, we only work together to survive."
A howl breaks the conservation. Werewolves are trying to climb up the rocks with their claws. Then we are united again. We all pull the trigger as rows of werewolves fall from the rocks onto the mass of their breed. I can see the the blood stained on their purple lips and crimson blood trickling down their cheeks. I can smell the scent of blood, but I cannot divide them into human blood or monster blood. It is great that I am unable to see the corpse of Sparks, for his corpse must be just a skeleton but red one. I look up to search for better sites, good, a cave but with a medium size entrance, which is enough for two people to go in at one time.
" Guys, get up there, I think that cave is okay! We can cover the entrance with several big rocks!" I yell, fingers pointing towards it to indicate where it is.
They agree and we run for it as fast as a leopard. Warlord and Zio are doing the cover while Armpit and I are rolling big rocks for it. Six heavy stones, only smart ones can move them away, while werewolves apparently aren't clever. We hear the scratching and scalping from outside. I imagine the claws of them are all broken, and still they continue scratching, oh, how greedy they are.
Suddenly, I step on something and it goes clark. When I look down with the help of the torch, which is put in my backpack, I am instantly horrified, human skulls! I try comforting myself thimking that the men who was eaten by them didn't do a good job at closing the entrance, though I am not certain if my determination has flickered. I look at the other three, they are having that pale face too, they are thinking about the same thing too. Sleeping is a good cure to my terror, then I lie flat on the ground and sleep.
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The other day I wake up and find it still in dark. I pick up the torch beside and shine. When my eyes once adjust to it, I find my friends are still sleeping. I walk past them to check for noise outside the cave. Still some scratching noises, I wonder why these monsters physical to persist the same action for so long. Human can be the same, I heard that my mother's mother was always chased by a person who was trying to take some money away from her and she was forced to be separated from my mother for a long time to avoid him, she let an uneasy life. Then, my mother said that the man chasing her mother was because her mother borrowed $1000 from that person and now he had to have it back. When my mother went to his house to clear the debt, she found that the man was 84, but still, despite he was quite rich, he is still unable to forget that little amount of money. I can't see why he is so stubborn.
I wait until all of them finish rubbing their eyes and tell them my plan. My plan is simple, we can just push all the rock-doors down and they may crush the monsters bones when they fall down and we earn time too. People say that when you are in emergency, you gain more strength, and we did. The rocks fall as blood splashes, then the monsters back away, and we run before they recover themselves. But then, they soon recover and they are now 6 meters from us. I am urging them to run faster when I see Zio holding a metal tag and he is muttering something anxiously. But then I think he is undecided rather than anxious. Then he catches Armpit and stuffs the metal tag into Armpit's hand and whispers something to him. Armpit is then shaking his head vigorously and I think he is in shock. Just as I want to ask Armpit what did Zio say, Zio turns and halts. He shoots the monsters while the swarm of them surround Zio. We are scared so we keep running and I can now guess what did Zio whisper to Armpit. I look back again, just grey. When we get to a safer position, Armpit shows us the metal tag. It was stencilled with several words, Be a good man. Then he tells us that Zio was sorry for what he did which was so greedy, so he wants to do something to take the burden off.
We look at the swarm again, slightly coonfused, he got one of us killed, then he sacrficed himself. Did he die as a hero or something else? But there is no time to think, we have to keep going again. I imagine how angry the president is, because no one has ever made it the third day.
" Hey, what is the time now, Armpit?" I ask him, noticing he is wearing a watch.
" Ten o'clock, a.m."
" When did we go in the arena?"
" It is like ten thirty p.m., oh gosh! if we can make it for half an hour, we can survive!"
" It is not that easy, president Alistair will not let someone goes like this easy, even you make it to the end." Warlord looks down and say," there is no fairness here, everything is in the president's control."
Then, a sudden grey lands on Armpit and bites its sharp teeth on his head. Warlord quickly stab the monster head. When we can see Armpit clearly again, he is not breathing. Warlord sudden pushes me and another grey lands on the ground hard and makes several
clarks. Warlord quickly takes off the watch on Armpit's wrist.
" Go, go, go!" Warlord yells.
We are running again, avoiding those greys falling on our head. I look up and find the top part of trees are nearly all occupied by the monsters. Maybe it is not right to always point my head upwards as claws get my leg. I scream as it drags me and a sudden of silver, then I am not being dragged anymore. I look back to see a knife glue to the monster chest. I gratefully look back at Warlord as he flicks another knife, kill another werewolf behind me.
" Don't stop!" Warlord urges me.
Then we spend the whole time running and shooting and flicking knifes before we reach a two storeys 'house'. But then, werewolves are waiting inside the house already which I don't know how they do that. With all our weapons, we distant them from us. Warlord pushes me behind some rocks.
Then he says," though there are so much unfairness in our life, we should fight back. I now understand why so many people go into the rebellion group, they do illegal moves, but then, they are right. Our society is a disaster, only hero can save the world...by the memory of his name. He will make all the unfairness visible. And that hero...will be you. AHHHHH!" He is being dragged away when he throw the watch to me and is eaten. I look at it, it is ten thirty, the game is ended. I raise the watch when the werewolves back away, as if it is poison.
You did a great job. a trembling voice of the president resounds in my brain.
But you make a bad move here, XM2013, you manage to make yourself a name which is illegal, and your survive will make our peaceful world a disaster. Your... " People live in peace only because everyday there is terror filling up their minds, but not happiness!" I interrupt when I finally figure out the truth.
Okay, please stop saying anything and let me explain something to you. If you die, uprisings will start. If you live, uprisings will also start. So I prefer to let you die. it resounds in my brain again. " Though my life is short, but my name will be told from mouth to mouth with approbation for a long time. Just like a flower. It may only have a short lifetime, but when it blooms, the scene will be unforgettable. And..."
No need for any more words, boy, beep...
