3 Penny
I was beyond panicked. Even my breathing exercises weren’t doing much to calm my nerves.
I stepped out onto the dirt with my bare soles.
It was warm and fine, thank God. The wind blew my dress about, making it stick to my legs and breasts.
To my left was a tall, slender figure. A valerian by the looks of her.
I had never seen one without their helmet in person, but I knew their figure well and I’d seen a picture or two.
I wasn’t sure why I was relieved to see one there, but I was.
Behind her was a species I didn’t recognize.
Of course, outside of humans and valerians, I didn’t even know what else existed in the galaxy.
Humans had only ever associated with one species of aliens.
On my right was a thick, tall figure with muscular digitigrade legs and olive-green skin.
I had no way of telling if it was male or female except that the face was slightly feminine.
Three tendrils of fleshy extensions grew off her scalp and reached just past her shoulders with off-green markings down the length.
She was rolling her broad shoulders like she was preparing for a wrestling match and for all I knew, that was why I was there.
When she looked at me, my whole body was tense and on guard.
Gek’tal. That’s what she had to be. We knew nothing about them except that they were formidable and came in pretty much every shade of green.
On the other side of her was another one of those spike-headed creatures, lanky and fragile by the looks of it, but I already knew how deceiving that appearance was by how harshly the others handled me.
Twelve, I counted. Twelve figures stood in a row paying very little attention to each other. They were all extremely focused, staring out into the desert landscape like they were about to race to the other side.
I thought perhaps that was all it was. A race. But why we all had a crude knife was beyond me. Somewhere in that desert valley, the sound of a massive crowd cheering reached my ears. Hundreds, maybe thousands of voices were hollering somewhere nearby, but I couldn’t see them.
What the hell was going on?
Over the static noise of voices came a loud announcement that spoke above the others as if amplified by something. Still, I could see nothing.
I turned to the valerian with her beautiful swooping crown and silky black hair.
They were an ethereal race. Their skin could change with their mood and their eyes were like colorful nebulas.
Or so I’d heard. Now, seeing one in the flesh, I knew the rumors were true.
They really were gorgeous in an otherworldly sense.
But this woman had a fierceness about her that sharpened her enchanting appearance.
Every valerian had a “crown,”—three bone-like protrusions that extended from their face and arched over their scalp in dull points. Hers was marked by a long, diagonal scar that extended across her left side to the corner of her eye.
“You’re valerian,” I said. “Do you understand me?”
Her brows furrowed and she regarded me like my voice was a nuisance.
“You are human,” she said in a thick accent, wrinkling her nose. “Why so far from your home?”
Her response was an instant relief. The fact that someone—anyone—could understand me did wonders for my nerves. But I didn’t have time to linger on it.
“I was brought here. My ship was attacked. Can you tell me what’s happening? Please.”
“Does not matter what is happening,” she scoffed. “You get caught no matter what. Is designed that way.”
“What’s designed that way?”
“The game,” she cocked her head and her eyes darted down my body.
“Has never been a human in the dome. They will go for you first. That is why the special entrance.” The corner of her mouth quirked.
“Better for the rest of us. I hope you are very good with knife. And if you are not, I pray you are loose. Less painful that way.”
Her words hit me like bullets. “Wha—”
Before I could finish, the booming alien voice shouted over us. I looked up to see silver orbs floating slowly by us, high in the sky, carrying his voice like a loudspeaker.
So, I was in a dome. An arena, of sorts. What the competition entailed was beyond me, but it made me clutch my knife even tighter. The crowds outside the dome were going crazy with excitement. 3D renderings of all our faces were displayed above for everyone to see.
I was a rat in a twisted, sadistic maze.
I clenched my jaw, reverting to parts of my life I hadn’t had to tap into in years.
Parts I didn’t like. Parts that literally got me killed.
I had to, though. I had no idea what was coming, but I would fight with every ounce of my being to get through it.
No one else was going to fight for me. If life taught me anything, that was it.
And then a storm of loud buzzers blared around us and the heavy, creaking sound of old metal echoed through the desert. I stared across the valley from where all of us women stood to see a row of thick metal barricades lifting, revealing dark passages beyond.
“Here they come,” the valerian said.
“Who? Who’s coming?”
“The males.” She sighed. “No worry about Gorrak. He go for Igra. He always does. Thraxxen is the pale one. He does not go for females. He only enjoys fighting and killing. Mostly nozun.”
As she spoke, a slew of figures began to appear from the darkness of their confines and stepped into the orange light of the dome, but they were too small to see.
Glancing up at the dome’s ceiling, magnified images of the males appeared, close-up and terrifying.
I panned my eyes down the line of strange bodies to see the one she was talking about.
He was big… really big. By his shape, he was like the green female.
I deduced that he had to be gek’tal, but his color was ghostly white, almost translucent, and he was marked by more scars than any of the others.
From each passage came something inhuman.
Dangerous. A tall, green gek with three thick appendages on his head in place of hair emerged, dressed in black leathers with a feral look on his face.
A valerian male the color of lava, his hues pulsing in patterns I never knew valerians could have.
Although I was coming to find I didn’t know much about anything.
His crown was cracked on two points and a jagged scar bisected the features of his face from one side to the other.
I saw something on two short legs, but it dropped onto all fours once it was in the arena, walking on its front knuckles like some hairless, giant ape like the one I’d seen outside my pod.
On the far side was something tall and lean with spikes growing out of its bony head just like the guards.
From the next gate down emerged a man wearing something resembling black military fatigues and boots and nothing else, which left his silver-gray chest bare.
Corded muscle covered every inch of him and down the middle of his head was what looked like black-silver braids all coiled into a long queue that hung to his hips.
The hairless sides of his head were covered in onyx tattoos.
He wielded two blades, both shaped into strange, organic silhouettes like they’d been crudely chipped off a sheet of metal.
The others each wielded weapons of their own from axes to spears to fist blades.
I glanced down at my own pathetic knife and quickly understood what the valerian woman was saying about it being designed that way.
We weren’t meant to win. We weren’t even meant to have a chance.
“Avoid the nozun at any cost. He will not leave you alive,” the valerian said, pulling a thick dagger from the thin belt around her waist. “Good luck, human.”
“Luck won’t do me any good against those weapons,” I shuddered.
“Those weapons not to fight us,” she snorted. “They for fighting each other.”
I swallowed hard, not wanting to imagine what that would look like.
No matter what the point of the game was, I had to fight.
If I couldn’t fight with a dull knife against things twice my size, I had to use whatever else I had in my arsenal.
Which was running. I was good at that. Climbing.
I was good at that, too. I was a little weak compared to the woman I used to be, but I could do it. I could push.
Rolling my head from side to side to relieve some tension, I bent and started slicing my dress with my knife. I tore it right up to the top of my thigh in case I had to scale a tree or kick something.
No matter what, you fight. Always fight. Never lie down and take it, my own voice echoed in my head.
Of course, I was talking about a few middle school bullies who were bothering Natascha at the time, but that wisdom could be used in my current situation, too.
The crowds went absolutely wild again and the valerian woman beside me chuckled.
“They announced you. The crowd is eager to see how long you last.
“Perfect,” I said under my breath.
It felt like the voice in the speaker talked on for ages.
My palms were sweating, and my skin was crawling.
I skimmed over the males standing across from us, a line of hungry beasts.
My brain still couldn’t wrap around the idea that they were alien men.
Aliens. And beside me stood alien women.
The point of the game I’d just been thrown into without an ounce of instruction or preparation was still a puzzle, but I was starting to suspect the worst. The worst, as in the men were there to fight over us and then screw our unwilling brains out in front of a sick, perverted crowd.