Benjamin Wray: Acid Reign: Genesis

“My name is Cornelius,” the bookie said with a smile.

“Lilly,” she replied, thinking of how silly his name sounded.

Cornelius the bookie narrowed his eyes at her for a moment. Not out of disbelief that her name was actually Lilly, but rather as if he were looking into her soul.

“Madam Bean has brought the hope of fortune and much needed entertainment to many people here in Nucrea. You are fortunate to have her favor, Miss Lilly.”

Lilly was now completely convinced he could read her thoughts, and felt bad about how she viewed Bean. She realized that she was too quick to judge her and for the first time realized how selfless she was.

He smiled at this and just as she was about to ask him how he could read her mind, he bowed and disappeared into the crowd.

Lilly made her way over to pit three and saw Bean just as she grabbed a bottle off a small table, chugged half of it, and put it back. Although the people sitting at the table saw what Bean did, they said nothing and surprisingly didn’t even seem to mind. Between the bookie and watching this, Lilly considered the possibility that she really did have Bean figured all wrong.

An uproar of approval filled the metal shanties as the crowd made way for two muscular men that carried metal boxes covered in holes to the pit. Bean jumped up and down and laughed a loud short choppy laugh.

“They’re here! It’s starting Lilly!” Bean yelled. “C’mon,” she added, waving Lilly over.

The two men carrying the boxes went to opposite sides of the fenced off pit. The boxes were placed in slots, one was opened, and a tall, sinewy, shorthair cat frantically clawed its way out. Lilly realized why they called him Scratches. There were scars from cuts and gashes all over its body. It cowered into a corner as the other box opened.

Scratches nervously looked around for a way out as a strong pointy-eared cat, twice the size of Scratches, sauntered out of the other box.

“Nowhere to go!” someone yelled, followed by laughter.

Lilly looked over at Bean who was standing motionless and white knuckled. She felt that Bean loved being in this environment, this was her home, her happiness. Lilly realized she wasn’t any different than Bean. This was Bean’s world just as Lilly’s world was out in the Fringe, and outside of their respective worlds, they didn’t belong. Lilly smiled and accepted the parallel.

The crowd yelled as both cats began to circle each other. Lilly looked closer and realized it was really the bigger cat chasing a terrified Scratches back and forth around the cage. The larger cat landed a well-placed claw that sent Scratches tumbling across the ring. Scratches let out an eerily humanlike scream. The crowd cheered as Scratches went on the offensive. Bean held a silent stare, focused and determined not to miss a single moment.

Lilly heard a notification on her Pigeon, but ignored it because of the fight.

Both cats separated again and continued their dance around the cage. All of a sudden, the bigger cat pounced on Scratches and bit hard on his neck. Somehow, Scratches was able to get free and claw back. Blood oozed from the bigger cat’s forehead, spilling into its eyes. The cat tried to rub the blood away but the bleeding didn’t stop.

A second notification forced her to check her Pigeon. Still paying attention to the fight, she pulled back her sleeve and glanced at her screen. Time slowed and the fight, along with the Pits entirely, disappeared as she read the message on the display. There below her ranking box in dark red, was a big, - 2 .

Her chest closed and knots pulled tight in her stomach. The “building up of rage” look Bean had shown earlier was mild compared to Lilly’s expression.

Her breathing deepened as she scrolled through messages.

Sucker Punch , Lost Score to Puck , Not a Ripp, thats 4 shore.

She stared at the comments on her feed, oblivious to the explosion in the crowd around her as Scratches had gone on the offensive and was ripping the bigger, blinded cat to shreds.

“Bull shit!” Lilly blurted out. She looked at Bean who was now frantically screaming in support of Scratches.

“I can’t be here right now,” Lilly said to herself as she scrolled through more comments. “This isn’t happening.”

She slowly pulled her sleeve over the Pigeon as if it were physically painful, and stared blankly at the fight as Scratches relentlessly tore at the other cat’s flesh.

She knew the only way to prove them wrong was to get back out into the Fringe.

She looked around and heard people laughing nearby, and knew they were laughing at her. She spun around and felt as though everyone in the pits was laughing at her and her failure in the Fringe. No, the whole city was laughing at her. Her mind raced as the walls and crowds spun around her.

In the midst of everything spinning out of control, directly under a light, staring at her was the Bookie. The bright colors of his garb, slashed through the murk of the pits and pulled her out of her downward spiral.

An overwhelming feeling that she wasn’t where she needed to be, and that there was so much more for her in this world, filled every part of her body.

She looked at a jumping screaming Bean, then looked back at the smiling Bookie who was still looking right at her, reading her thoughts again.

Lilly wondered if he knew what she was about to do. She waited to see if he would say something or give her any kind of look letting her know it wasn’t a good idea, but his smile grew even bigger as he disappeared into the crowd.

The crowd at pit number three stopped cheering. Then there was the familiar silence that accompanied a loss in the pits. This let her know that there wasn’t much time before Bean would notice she was gone.

Lilly checked to make sure Bean wasn’t watching, then headed for the side exit door.

“Gus won, Gus won!”

She heard Bean yelling to everyone within sight. Even the patrons that lost their bets tolerated her genuine happiness for someone else winning. She did have Bean figured all wrong, but she couldn’t stay with her.

Bean smiled the biggest smile she could as she turned to where Lilly had been, but Lilly wasn’t there. She scanned the pits and saw the Bookie looking her way. His look said everything she needed to know. Lilly was gone.

“Oh my,” Bean said in a small, quiet, completely uncharacteristic whisper.

Asmall square-shaped transport jostled along a broken road in the middle of the night. The headlights barely shed enough light for the driver to see the road just in front of him.

A crooked and long-faded stop sign appeared and let the man know he was close. He let the transport crawl to a stop. The headlights, no longer illuminating the shattered road, now pointed into a giant black hole. Bodies in all stages of decomposition were piled at the bottom.

He got out and walked around the back of the transport, opened the back door, and pulled a body wrapped tightly in plastic to the ground. He gripped the leg and with some difficulty dragged the body over broken road and brick to the edge of the abyss, took a deep breath, and rolled the body into the darkness.

The sounds of the body rolling and coming to a sudden stop eerily echoed all around him. The man turned to get back into the transport but froze as a moaning sound crept out of the dark. He stood motionless, listening for anything else, but there was nothing. With a shaky hand, he grabbed a flashlight from a compartment in the door, walked back to the edge of the abyss, and listened.

Nothing.

He hesitated for a moment, but, gathering courage, turned the flashlight on and slowly aimed it down the slope of the crater. The man stood out in the pile of bodies. Mostly because of the plastic he was wrapped in, but also because the other bodies had settled into one another. The man’s mind was simply playing tricks on him. He focused the beam on the upper half of the body where one arm had come free from the plastic. He waited for the man to start coughing, screaming, something, but there was no movement, nothing. Only a dragon tattoo.