by Kaden Reed
I brought the arm – my arm – in front of my eyes and gazed in wonder. I traced the blue and red lines that crisscrossed under the skin – yes that is what this is called, skin. I became engrossed in the intricate dance that played along my entire arm as the muscles writhed, each time I touched a fingertip together with another.
The white haze contracted further, and I looked down on my now naked body. Running my hands lightly down my neck and over my chest, a wave of sensation rushed through me and made my consciousness relax into a stupor – pleasure, yes, I remember now.
Feeling the heady rush of such a drug, I laughed involuntarily and then gasped in surprise at the sound. I laughed again and paused to try to hear my own voice. Smiling uncontrollably at such perfection, I shouted in joy into the empty whiteness around me.
Laughing in delight, I looked down and wriggled my toes, then lifted a foot up and moved it forward. Setting it back down, I felt the giddy rush of accomplishment at my burgeoning mastery over this marvelous instrument.
Putting one foot in front of the other, I began moving faster and faster, as I started to jog, then to run. The movement causing the air to rush passed my face, tossing the hair on my head into disarray, with loose strands falling to tickle my cheeks and neck. I quickly lost myself in the steady rhythm of my footsteps upon the ground underneath me and eventually closed my eyes to better hear the melody.
The startling sound of something new in the distance drew me up short and I slipped and fell to the ground. Crying out at the sudden pain in my hand and knee as it skidded on the ground, I rolled onto my side and drew it up to my chest. I whimpered and looked down at the spot that was flaring in agony. The mysterious red abrasion where my skin was scraped had me momentarily transfixed. Running a finger over the injury, I flinched away when the pain redoubled at the touch.
Gasping at the sudden intense sensation, I looked at the offending finger to try to understand why it had caused such pain, when earlier its touch gave me such comfort. The perfect curved lines of my hand were marred by the vibrant red liquid that partially covered its surface. Moving my hand around, I could see a thin red gash that was etched into my palm.
As I held it up to my face, a small red stream of blood – yes that is what this is called, blood – welled out of the cut and ran down my arm where it dripped to the floor. Staring at the red spot marring the perfect milky white surface, a sensation unlike any I have ever experienced overtook me.
My heart thumped quicker and fuller in my chest, the blood in my veins rushed like a torrent from one end of my body to the next. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up, my pupils contracted, and my breathing came in rapid pants – fear, this is fear. I remember now.
The drip, drip, drip, drip of the blood that was running down my arm to splash on the floor, gradually began to puddle as I stared. Feeling a sense of trepidation, I pulled my arm into my chest and hugged it, not wanting anymore blood to escape the confines of my skin.
As the puddle of blood grew larger around me, I began rocking back and forth, my breathing coming in quick gasps. The never ceasing – drip, drip, drip – all I could hear. So focused on the forming lake around me, I called out in shock when something wet and sticky started striking me from above.
I turned my face upwards and watched the roiling black clouds begin to thunder above me. The light drizzle quickly became a torrent. The streams of rain cascading down my face, tasted and smelled faintly metallic. A brilliant flash slashed across the sky and my head rocked back in recognition. Knowledge gushed into my consciousness and I knew I was in the Khanri Trials.
With the sudden keen awareness that I was in a fight for my life, I was barely phased that the blood rain was coursing over my naked flesh. I knew that I had to find a way out of this situation, so I stood up and searched around me for any sign of an exit or shelter from the rain.
My eyes flew open wide in terror as I saw the raging river of red blood in the distance, coming in my direction. Not seeing any other alternative, I turned in the opposite direction and tried to run away, but as soon as I stepped off the small area I was standing on, my feet found no purchase and I plunged into the red abyss below.
Arms flailing in panic, I tried to reach for the faint glimmer of light that was above me before it was swallowed by the darkness. My arms stroking the surrounding blood, I fought against the current that I felt dragging me ever downward.
Pushing myself to swim harder and harder, eventually my strength started leaving me and it took all the effort I could muster to stop myself from gasping for air. Lungs burning from holding my breath, desperately cried for relief.
Eyes stinging from trying to see through the murky liquid, I let them shut when I knew that I had reached the end of my willpower. My entire body shouting for the blessed gift of air, I gave in to the inevitable and breathed in.
Air. Wonderful, blessed, vibrant, pure, air. I gasped and inhaled more air than my lungs could possibly hold, and still they cried for more. Greedily sucking in every lungful of the wonderful sustenance, I eventually tried to open my eyes but found that it took several attempts due to the blood that dried and crusted over, sealing them shut.
Rubbing at the orifices until the gumminess was mostly removed, I was finally able to look around my surroundings. The first thing I noticed was that I was laying on my side in the fetal position. Still breathing heavily, I stretched my legs out and rotated until I was resting on my back. Looking around, I saw that I appeared to be in a large room with several glowing lights set into the ceiling above.
When I was able to muster enough strength to sit up, I shuffled over to a stone pillar nearby and rested my back on it. I found that there were three other pillars that were set in a square pattern in the large room.
Looking down at my body, I could barely make out any skin underneath the dried and flaking blood. Grimacing at the sight, I tried to rub at my face in an effort to wipe off some of the sticky gunk that was caked around my mouth. After a thorough scrubbing, I considered the progress I had made a success when I eventually could open my mouth wide and not taste any of the flakes that fell off to rest on my tongue.
Muttering to myself, “now I know why no one ever talks about the Trials. First, they murder you. Then they drown you in blood. This is disgusting.”
After regaining a portion of my strength back, I lurched to my feet but continued to hold onto the pillar I had been resting against for support. Rotating slowly, I found that the large room was circular with two sets of doors set into opposite sides. When I turned to look behind me, I saw a rack of what looked like weapons set against the wall.
A niggling thought that I should recognize this place, started tickling the back of my mind. As I coaxed my tired and bruised body to shamble over to the rack of weapons, I knew that no matter what happened next, I had to survive these Trials.
Walking along the line of weapons, I saw several different styles of swords, maces, bows, spears and even a couple of flails and other, more exotic looking weapons that I didn’t recognize. I stopped in front of a normal looking sword that appeared to be about as long as my arm. Even though swords were the most common weapons I have seen being wielded by Khanri, I have never held a sword in my life. Thinking that I would receive all the training I would need from the Khanri, I never considered that oversight would be something that I needed to rectify before the Trials.
I reached out my hand, intending to pick up the plain sword and do some practice swings, but hesitated just before grabbing it. Figuring that since weapons were involved, this next Trial was likely a matter of life and death, I decided that if I didn’t find any weapon that I was better suited for, I would come back and grab this.
Walking down the line I skipped over the flails, after my imagination planted the thought of me twirling it around and bashing my own face in. I stopped in front of the bows though. Being able to hit whatever I had to fight at a distance, before they had a chance to poke me full of holes, was a ve
ry appealing thought. However, as a shopkeeper’s son, I never learned how to use a bow either.
Now that I was faced with this scenario in my Trials, I was beginning to realize how complacent I had been with my nearly non-existent training when I decided that I wanted to be a Khanri, “how come this couldn’t be a written exam,” I muttered to myself while I continued to search along the line of weapons, “want to know the history of the heroes from the Age of Monsters? I got you covered, no problem, but this…” my voice trailed off in dismay as I kept plodding along the racks of weapons.
I almost passed the selection of maces by until it dawned on me that they were really just fancy sticks with weights on the end. I had spent most of my young life running through the forest playing Khanri and monsters with Marty and other kids from the village. It was a fun game, but whenever my mom found out we were playing it she used to get so mad at us, yelling that, “it was just an excuse we used to hit each other with sticks over and over,” which was, of course, absolutely correct. That was the fun part.
Out of all the weapons so far, maces were definitely at the top of the list of what I was most comfortable with. I don’t think any of the advanced instructions for the other weapons would get much easier than keep smashing them with it until they stop twitching.
Not wanting to just settle though, I kept moving down until my eyes landed on an ornate spear that was about a head taller than I was. I don’t even remember crossing the intervening distance, but I found myself standing in front of it, gazing in wonder. The haft was made of a dark wood that was polished to the point that it shone in the lights overhead. The top couple of feet of the spear was encased in gleaming metal that flared out wide and then extended to a sharp point. Strange flowing designs seemed to spiral up the haft and join with the blocky script etched into the metal of the spear tip. I never thought that something so beautifully elegant could exist. I was so entranced by the dark reddish gleam of the wood that I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and running my fingers along the haft.
As soon as my hand touched the weapon, the pillars behind me erupted in blue light, casting my shadow across the wall in front of me. Startled by the development, I turned around in surprise and stood frozen in place as the pillars continued to flare blue four more times. Holding my breath, hoping that I would be wrong, the pillars then flared green.
When the light faded enough for me to see, I saw that the double doors on the opposite side of the arena had swung open and a girl about a foot shorter than me, carrying a sword and shield, was walking out.
I turned around and looked for the maces that I decided I would use, but the rack with all the weapons was gone. Muttering to myself about my stupidity, I frantically searched the area for any signs of a weapon, even a dagger. As I fell to my knees and was running my hands along the floor, in the vain hope that I might be overlooking something. My heart rate steadily climbed higher and higher, as I heard the clatter of the weapons the warrior behind me was carrying.
I had just begun to hyperventilate when the sound of something wooden striking the ground next to me caught me by surprise. My first thought was that the lady behind me must have had a bow and was firing arrows at me. The thought that quickly followed the first was a thoroughly disparaging remark about how much it would suck to be shot in my bare ass by a girl.
When my gaze landed on the spear that I had been admiring earlier laying on the floor near me, I nearly whooped with joy at the sight. Lunging, I snatched it up and hopped to my feet and turned around in time to see the young woman less than ten feet from me, still advancing with a steady gait.
She paused when she saw that I was armed and was brandishing a spear in her direction. I was momentarily confused that she wasn’t naked and covered in dried blood like I was. Behind her upraised shield, I saw that she had on a green blouse, black cloth pants and brown leather boots. A flash of recognition sparked in my mind when I realized that she was the girl that had called out to Eli before we were all massacred.
“Hey, I remember you,” I tentatively called to her while taking a couple of steps backwards, trying to gain some distance.
“Cool,” she sounded pretty nonchalant, “yeah I recognize you too.”
Feeling a little more confident now that I had a weapon and we were talking, “what happened to you before you got here?”
“Nothing happened to me before I got here,” a puzzled look crossed her face, “well unless you are talking about how I got killed in the room we were all in.”
“This is your first memory here?” I asked in confusion.
“Yeah,” she was starting to sound a little annoyed at my questions, “I died and then I woke up on the floor in the little room through those doors. I found these weapons and waited around until the doors opened. Now I’m here.”
“Huh, I guess Akashi has something different for each of us then,” I told her about my experience of being born again, the blood rain and drowning in the lake of blood. Then I told her about how I ended up laying on the floor, near to where she was standing.
“That’s pretty weird,” she sounded somewhat intrigued, “it also explains why you are butt naked and covered in goo, but hey, enough chit-chat, let’s just get this over with, shall we?” She hefted the shield strapped to her arm, raised her sword into a fighting stance, and began advancing on me again.
Alarmed with the sudden attitude shift, I began backing up to keep some distance between us, “I really don’t think we need to fight. I think that our Trials are a test with no right or wrong answer. Since both of us have had different experiences, it seems that they are just problems we were put in to see what we would do,” I gestured behind her with my chin, “the door you came in through is still open. I’m not sure, but I think we could choose to resolve this peacefully and walk through those doors to end this Trial.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, “haven’t you noticed? This is an arena. What do you think Akashi wants us to do here? Make out with each other?” She scoffed at the thought, “I think it’s obvious that we are supposed to fight.”
My face turned bright red and I glanced away when she talked about making out. Although, I doubt she could tell that I was blushing under all the blood on my body. I looked her up and down surreptitiously, she was definitely my type for sure. She had all the right curves, in all the right places. The tousled mop of red curls that hung past her shoulders framed a narrow face. For the first time I noticed why she wore the green blouse, it matched the color of her eyes.
“Down blood boy or maybe I should just call you Crusty,” she smirked at me, “don’t get any ideas. I wasn’t offering.”
I was caught completely by surprise at her words. How could she have known that I was admiring her? I used the tried and true ‘only stare using your peripheral vision, so a girl won’t know you are checking her out’ method! Then I looked down and remembered that I was completely naked.
As a young man, we collectively have never been accused of being great at controlling our ability to be aroused when in the presence of an extremely attractive female. She also had me at a distinct disadvantage in the ‘regulating my libido’ department because she mentioned making out with me, directly to my face. The fact that it was as part of a joke was beside the point. My imagination doesn’t know the difference, so it plowed through all the feeble mental roadblocks and was going ahead at full steam. By the time her second dismissive comment registered, in the small portion of my brain that was still mildly aware of my surroundings, we had already been going steady for a year in my fantasy world and I was beginning to think about marriage.
The realization that little Afton had betrayed me and was letting our interest be known, in the most obvious of ways, bypassed all of the different levels of embarrassment and sent me right into full-on mortified ‘seriously start considering moving to the other side of the world’ mode. I dropped one hand and covered the treacherous member. The thought that it might seem manlier if I used two hands briefly
crossed my mind but was quickly discarded, “by the Dungeons! I am so sorry! Really, really sorry! I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
She started laughing at me, “don’t worry about it Crusty. You’re kinda cute but I’m guessing you’ve never had a girlfriend?”
Blushing furiously at her attention, “my name is Afton, not Crusty. How could you tell I haven’t had a girlfriend? Is it really that obvious?”
“Totally obvious, Crusty,” she sounded even more amused now, “tell you what, you can call me Niko.”
Glancing up I met her eyes and blushed even more before I had to look away again. Sighing at her continued use of Crusty, “I guess I’ll never live that one down. Nice to meet you Niko.”
“Well before you sweep me off my feet with your ravishing good looks,” she sighed theatrically before her face turned serious, “we should probably finish this.”
“I still don’t think we have to fight,” I nervously shifted my weight.
“Like I said, this is an arena, so I hope you know how to handle that long... hard… spear… in your hands,” she raised an eyebrow at me and pointed at my spear with her sword.
Gulping at my suddenly dry mouth, is she really doing puns at a time like this? By the Dungeons, she is perfect in every way. I hefted my spear, the larger one, umm I mean the long wooden pole in my hands – totally frazzled by this point by the conversation in my head, “I really don’t want to hurt you.” Which was totally true, the last thing I was thinking about was hurting this girl. Well, unless she liked that…shaking my head to try to clear my thoughts, “seriously though, I have a gut feeling that there are multiple choices in these Trials. I think we are scored on a curve by our actions. I really do think we could just walk out of this arena together and be just fine.”