9 Penny
I was laying on my cot staring up at the ceiling.
It was moss covered stone like the inside of a cave.
The air was a little humid, but it was sort of like being in the tropics, which I’d always loved.
I assumed they took note of what Earth looked like and doctored a cell for me to match.
Although, Earth wasn’t exactly a sprawling landscape of green anymore, which meant their records were out of date.
There was a mild sense of peace being in a room made to look like my once lush planet.
I noticed a trio of shadows passing my cell and craned my head to see who was walking by. I spotted two spike-headed guards and between them walked Thilar wearing nothing but a thin wrap of fabric around his hips and metal wrist cuffs that matched mine.
Down his back, he was covered in an array of those faint, scripture-like markings.
Now that he was moving under a different kind of light, I could see that every way he shifted made them present a slightly different color like the inside of an abalone shell.
But, as pretty as they were, it was the long, vertical scar running down his left shoulder that really caught my eye.
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought the man had been cut in half and welded back together.
I sat up, a little defensive, after the guards closed Thilar back into his cell and walked back past mine.
I sank into the shadows to avoid attracting attention and then my eyes were immediately back on Thilar’s enclosure.
I could see him. Not well since I was two rooms down, but I still had a mediocre view.
He was changing. How he could be in such a cold environment without clothes was beyond me, but he didn’t seem to be in any hurry.
He lingered for a bit in view, and I imagined he was washing himself.
I could see his hip and a hint of his taut backside.
Heat flamed through my cheeks and I quickly looked away until I heard him shaking out a pair of pants to slide into.
For a moment, I found myself wondering where he’d gone. Some of the worst thoughts came to mind and I took a deep breath to center myself. I knew we were both there against our will. It would stand to reason that he was forced to do things he didn’t want to, just like I was forced into the game.
When Thilar was finally dressed, he sat back on his bed and leaned against the cold metal wall behind him, closing his eyes.
I wanted to say something, but even if I did, he wouldn’t understand me.
Why was I drawn to him at all? My focus should have been on getting off that port. Instead, I was fixating on the man who…
I didn’t want to say it. I felt my stomach tighten at the thought, but really, Thilar hadn’t been the one to take my will from me. It was the one on the other side of the glass. The one who seemed to take pleasure in hurting us so that we’d cooperate and give him a show. The creep with the remote.
My eyes wandered the floor of my cell, which was covered in something resembling grass, but the color was off. It was a darker green than I was used to. Almost black. It felt the same, though.
Thilar had his head back against the wall and one arm perched on his raised knee. His eyes shifted toward me and I tensed.
I slid back on my cot so I was sitting against the wall in the same manner that he was, my head rested on the glass.
If I could say sorry, I would have, because I saw something in him then.
A need to get out. A desperate reluctance that mirrored my own.
I wasn’t even sure how long he’d been there. Likely much longer than me.
I wanted out, too.
Unable to communicate, we both sat there, aware of each other’s presence, but not engaging. I lost myself in thoughts for what seemed like hours, knowing that he was watching me the whole time. It was oddly comforting.
Deep down, I knew none of it made sense. He was the last person I should have been drawn to and yet there I was, in a situation I’d never been in and feeling impulses I’d never felt.
I heard a voice nearby and caught a glimpse of Thilar’s eyes roaming.
Then he answered back to something in an obviously different, alien language.
I realized it was the valerian woman’s voice.
Her cell must have been adjacent to mine because Thilar was looking right into the one beside me.
The two exchanged a few casual words and then the woman snorted.
“What are you saying?” I asked softly.
“There are games soon,” the valerian said. “You are a little curse, human.”
“What?”
“It is because of you that Pek-Tol creates events so close together. Everyone wants to see human. They want to see monrian, too. And more than that, everyone wants to see human get fucked by monrian.”
I swallowed hard, finding it hard to catch a good breath.
“Fucked, huh? That’s an oddly specific word for you to know.”
“Humans use that word a lot, yes?”
“I suppose.”
The valerian chuckled. “Humans are modest. Cannot afford to be modest. Out here? There is no safety. Survive. Don’t survive. Up to you.”
Her words had nothing comforting to offer. Survive. That was her advice and I wasn’t entirely surprised nor did I have plans to do anything else. My world was so small until that point. No one cared about my discomfort. My past. My wellbeing. It was all up to me.
As usual.
I was used to bearing the weight of things on my own shoulders. I was used to bearing too much, most said. I could do it again. I had to.
I didn’t have anything to ask after that. All I had was my nerves to deal with. I laid myself down and stared up at the ceiling again, my whole body hot with stress. Never in my wildest nightmares did I see this being my future and yet it was my reality.
All I could do was mentally prepare for what was to come.
“My advice?” the valerian continued, her voice lowering an octave. “Thilar not like other males. He fight men, not hurt females. His rarity has been enough until now. Enough to keep him around even if he not do what he is supposed to. But he will protect you.”
“How is that advice?”
“Because, protecting you make him vulnerable. The longer he fight Pek-Tol to protect you, more danger he in. More danger you in. Games only entertainment. The real danger be in the game behind the game. Always a game behind the game.”
I didn’t have to ask who Pek-Tol was. I knew by the way she talked about him. He was the boss. The owner of the whole operation. The man with his finger on the remote.
“So, what do I do about that?”
“Give a show, human. Stay valuable. Do what Pek-Tol wants. Thilar protect you. You protect Thilar.”
“I’m too weak to protect Thilar.”
“Hmf. I not talk about protecting with a blade. Small female like you? You protect different.”
I let the valerian’s words stew in my mind for hours until the discomfort of it all lulled me into a restless sleep.
I wasn’t sure how long the alien “rotations” were compared to Earth days, but they seemed comparable.
Perhaps a little longer, but that could have been chalked up to boredom.
Either way, it was game day. The muffled ruckus of a sizeable crowd echoed in the bowels of the prison we were in beneath the arena.
I was given yet another set of fragile rags to wear.
They were practically built to fall apart.
I was offered a large meal an hour or so before the game, but I hated the food just the same.
It was bland, like eating too many unseasoned scrambled eggs.
Eventually, scrambled eggs tasted like shit and so did whatever crap they were giving me, but it was calories.
I ate it up and started pacing my cell, waiting for the moment I was thrust into an arena.
Oddly, Thilar was taken hours before the game, leaving behind a brief slew of parting words for the valerian woman.
I watched him pass my cell, but he didn’t so much as grace me with a glance.
Eventually, the other men were escorted out as well.
Finally, the guards came to retrieve the women.
Every female contestant was escorted to the little elevators first and transferred to the game grounds, a place I definitely didn’t miss.
I didn’t exactly get the best look at all the other women last time, but I got enough to know there were new faces that day.
The light from outside was blinding, but even through the brightness I could see the endless ocean of onlookers vaguely through the light flares peppering my vision.
But not for long. Soon, the dome turned to a purple sky.
It was artificial, of course, and perhaps better than seeing how many were sitting in the audience waiting for a pornographic bloodbath.
Around us, I noticed the biome had changed. No longer was it a hot, sandy desert. Now it was a lush, living forest, though I wasn’t sure if it would be any easier to navigate.
The crowd was allowed to get a good look at us for a while before the males started filtering into the arena across from us, just like last time.
I scanned them all, seeing most of the same ones from the last game, and as the enlarged images appeared on the dome above, I searched for Thilar, but the cameras took ages to focus on him. First, I got an eyeful of the others.
A few of the males were new. There was another gray ape with a giant scar across his chest, one with a whisp of thin hair tied in a ponytail, and a valerian with a muted complexion.
The silver of his hair almost made me doubt what he was, but that unmistakable crown gave him away.
Perhaps he was older. Perhaps he was some kind of sub-species.