Morgan Rice - Arena Two

At once we all run together, trying madly to get out of the way as it comes flying down at us like a missile. I grab Bree’s hand as I run, and we all manage to run just hard enough to get out of its way. It misses us by feet. It flies by, stirring up a cloud of dust, and then crashes into the far wall of the canyon like a nuclear bomb. The ground shakes, and it raises an even bigger cloud of dust and debris.

The crowd cheers wildly. The leader steps forward.

“That was only one boulder. We have dozens of others. If you don’t fight each other, you will be killed by us within minutes. Now stand and fight!”

The crowd cheers, and Flo slowly turns to me.

“We have to fight,” she says. “If we don’t, they’ll kill us all.”

“I don’t want to fight you,” I say. “There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t,” she says. “If not for our sake, then do it for the sake of the others. You and I have to fight.”

I look up and spot another boulder, perched high up, and I realize she’s right. If we don’t do something soon, those boulders will kill us all.

“No, I don’t want you to fight!” Charlie screams.

“Neither do I!” Bree screams.

I turn and look at them, feeling their pain.

“It will be okay,” I say. “Don’t worry.”

Flo turns and walks out slowly into the center of the canyon floor. As she does, the crowd goes wild. As I watch her, I feel I have no choice. I have to do it. If this is what she wants, this is how it will be.

I walk out, too, following her, and the crowd rises to a frenzy. The two of us stand in the center, facing each other.

As I am standing there, wondering if she will really fight, the crowd screaming, suddenly Flo rushes towards me, sneering, raising her sword high. She brings it down, right for my head, and I raise my sword and block her blow at the last second. Her blow is strong, one meant to actually kill. I am shocked. I can hardly believe it. She is not posturing: she really wants to kill me.

The crowd cheers like mad.

As I stand there, blocking her blow with my sword, the strength of her swing is making my hands shake. I’m shocked at the strength in her shoulders. I know that I can’t hold her back for long, so at the last second, I step to the side, and her sword goes flying down, to my side. Her momentum carries her flying past me, and as she goes, I wheel around and hit her in the back of the head with the flat of my sword, sending her stumbling forward.

The crowd cheers, and Flo turns and scowls back at me. She charges again, sword high, and slashes down; I stand to the side, and she just misses. I slash back at her, and she blocks my blow. We go blow for blow, swinging and parrying, pushing each other back and forth across the floor.

One of her slashes is slightly quicker than mine and she manages to slice my bicep. I scream out in pain, as blood squirts out. It is my first wound of the day.

The crowd screams like crazy. I reach over and cup my wound and see my hand is red, stained with blood.

She stares back coldly, unapologetic. I can hardly believe it.

She charges again, and we go blow for blow. She is strong, and fast, and I’m getting tired quickly. She is a machine. My shoulders are aching and burning, and I realize I can’t sustain this much longer.

For some reason, I think of dad. His words ring through my head, as I think of everything he taught me. All those lessons about fighting. About being tough. About hanging in there. About not fighting on the other guy’s terms, and I realize that’s what I’ve been doing: fighting on her terms. I realize I don’t need to. I know other ways of fighting. Who said this needs to be a sword fight? I decide instead to make it a hand fight – what I am best at.

As she slashes again, this time I step aside, and instead of slashing, lean back and kick her hard in the ribs.

It works. She wasn’t expecting it, and she keels over. The crowd goes wild.

Without giving her a chance to recover, I reach over and grab her by the back of the hair and knee her hard in the face.

She drops her sword as she falls back, landing on her butt, then on her back, her nose broken. She lies there, dazed and confused. She hadn’t expected me to turn this into a fist fight.

The crowd screams like crazy, standing on its feet.

I take a step forward, and hold my sword at the tip of her throat. I have her beat. I can kill her easily now if I want to.

“Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!” the crowd chants.

As I stand there, the wound in my arm hurting, a part of me feels betrayed, and wants to kill her. After all, if this were me down there, wouldn’t she kill me?

But I see her staring back at me, and I think of Charlie, without a sister, and a part of me just can’t bring myself to do it.

“Do it,” she smiles. In that moment I realize that she wants me to. She’s had enough: she wants to die.

The crowd quiets, and I look up and see the leader step forward.

“If you kill her,” he screams down to me, “I will spare you. All of you. All you have to do is kill her. And then you will all be set free.”

The crowd cheers. I look down at Flo and see her breathing hard, scowling up at me.

“Please,” she says. “Do it.”

I see that she is genuine – she really wants to die.

“NO!” Charlie screams. “Please don’t kill her!”

I think of the leader’s words. If I kill Flo it will spare Bree. And Charlie. And Ben. And Logan. And myself. All for someone who wants to die anyway. For someone who would have gladly killed me.

I know I should do it.

But as I look down at her, a part of me just can’t do it. Besides, I want to defy the leader.

So instead, I drop my sword. It lands on the dusty canyon floor with a clang.

The crowd jeers and boos and screams down at me. But I don’t care.

Flo slowly shakes her head in disgust. “Stupid,” she says.

There is a tremendous rumbling noise, and at first I think it’s another boulder; but then I look up and see no rocks coming down, and realize it’s something else. The entire ground is shaking beneath me, like an earthquake, and I realize that whatever it is, it’s much more ominous.

Suddenly, large steel traps open on the ground and walls all around us, and water comes gushing in. It comes gushing in like a river, like a dam breaking, from every side, a huge tidal wave coming right for us. I look over at Charlie, Ben, Logan and Flo, and see them all looking wide-eyed at the water.

Bree holds out her hands and runs for me. I go to pick her up.

But it is a lost cause.

Suddenly, we’re slammed by water from every direction. My world turns upside down as I go head over heels, tumbling beneath the waves. The gushing water picks me up and smashes me down again, and I go tumbling, end over end, water shooting up my nose. I whirl and whirl, trying to make my way to the top of the water, trying to hold my breath.

After about thirty seconds of complete chaos, I manage to surface. The water is swirling all around me, and I can hear the crowd cheering like crazy. I look for signs of the others, and in the distance, I spot Bree and Charlie, their heads bobbing just above water. Further away, I can see Flo, alive, and Ben, flailing. But I look everywhere, and don’t see Logan.

Then I spot him: his head bobs up, just feet away from me. He looks in utter agony, and I manage to swim over to him, fighting the current.

“Brooke!” he cries out.

He holds out one hand and I swim for it.

Our hands just touch when I see something in the water beneath us. It is a whirlpool, sucking down everything in its path. Our fingertips graze each other, and then he gets sucked away, the whirlpool pulling him down.