I soon discovered the ashes of the third, which meant the human had entered. And he came out of nowhere, charging me. I bolted for my exit, the wrong way, it turned out, leading to another dead end. I could hear his footfalls getting closer. Once he passed an arch I took my chances, sinking my teeth deep into his neck – tasting pretty good, too. We collided against the walls, him wailing in pain and desperation, before he fell to the dirt. Motionless. Another turned. Perhaps a future competitor.
The arena was so quiet I could hear the breeze.
When I exited the elevator, catching sight of the leaderboard, I was taken aback. My nearest rival, Viper, had done well for him- or herself, knocking me down to fourth place, leaving two credits between me and fifth. But I was still in the final – just.
Collapsed on the bed in my cell, after everything that had happened, I was afraid of what was to come. The competition in Arena VII would contain the elite, and the prize had never been so tantalisingly close – for all four of us.
What held me together and drove me on was another letter from Sara. She had prayed every day for my survival, and knowing I was alive meant more to her than freedom. She would also wait for me, no matter how long, in this life or the next. All I wanted was to be with her and Jade, to take care of them. Was that asking too much?
Vincent, a calmer soul now that he was free from the games, caught my attention. He brought out his coin, tossed it to me and said, “Good luck, my friend, you’ve earned it. Now bring it back to me.”
I nodded with gratitude. “And if I win, I will seek your freedom.”
“You will?”
“Yes. Or, if not possible, have you change masters. No promises.”
He looked genuinely surprised. “Thank you, Matias.”
One more battle would determine if I would ever see him or anyone else again. Arena VII forbade any competitor to leave unless as the sole survivor. Death or glory. Ashes or freedom. One way or the other, by the end of tomorrow, I would be out of Ablaze.
7.7.2019
The final had arrived. Fang, Slayer, Viper and myself were scheduled to enter Arena VII at noon. Freedom or no freedom, there was no going back now. All or nothing.
In the pre-ascension foyer I was greeted by the man himself, Emperor Pretorius. He stood within three feet of me, showing signs of old age now. This man, this traitor, was the cause of all my pain and suffering. I held back my instinct to choke him to death.
“Will you fight with honour?” he asked.
“I will,” I said.
“Dignity?”
“I will.”
“And will you put on a show the world will never forget?”
“I will.”
Rising in the elevator, wondering if I’d ever return, I kissed her lock of hair, and I whispered my apology to them both.
It came to a halt. The doors opened. And I entered an arena for the last time.
The surroundings were dark and shiny and lit by white holographic lights. The crowd was loud, being the largest capacity yet. I heard them cheering my name. I also heard them chant for another, the one who had once spared my life.
The crowd erupted with excitement. And I was convinced Slayer was about to manipulate the room I inhabited, the one fitted with marble pillars and slender openings within its walls – certainly not large enough to conceal me. The room rose smoothly, and the first slice of deathlight beamed to the opposite pillar. Another ray followed, adjacent to the last, feet away from catching me. I evaded the third by being flat against the floor, and only just, before finally the light vanished and the room came to a smooth halt.
I got out, surprised to be alive.
There was a stairwell to my left. I descended it and paused before the bend, listening to the footsteps from below. A voice taunted me, tuned with a clarity of confidence I hadn’t heard before, and I knew who he was without him saying.
His lies and manipulation came to me all at once, the one who had made me discount him a potential victor. I continued my descent to find him, to make sure of the truth, but Fang, also known as Vincent, was nowhere to be found.
I sought to change that, except I came up against another instead. Slayer, seen at the end of an avant-garde passage – punctuated by arches and holograms of past victors – didn’t hesitate in firing, and neither did I, both shots wide of target. Distracted by another, he disappeared down the nearest stairwell. I chose to wait and hide for the incoming opponent, listening to their footfalls. Close enough, I made myself known by dispatching a heavy dose directly to her frontal dome. She was up in flames and a pile of ash within ten seconds.
Viper was out. Two to go.
My next encounter with Slayer was discovering his charred remains beneath a shutter of an Activation Zone. Fang, the instigator, was now looking to take out the final obstacle between him and his freedom – as was I.
The passage led me down into the belly of the arena, and there he was waiting for me within a darkly lit circular chamber. We stared at each other to the sound of chanting and the stomping of a thousand-plus feet. Vincent was absent now, as though he only ever existed in my mind. Even I, at this point, was unsure of myself.
Behind us, a ray of vertical golden deathlight circled the outer ring. Based on the floor pattern, the circle was set to contract. And it did. Only a dozen or so left. I estimated two minutes.
I stepped towards the centre, where a plinth exhibited an interactive hologram of movable squares, an image to create, I figured, and a means to extinguish the light.
“Was anything true?” I asked.
He smiled. “My master’s daughter is beautiful.”
I nodded, impressed. “Why do it?”
Fang threw down his weapon, followed by his helmet. “I trust no one, remember?”
I played his game, dropping both of mine, and prepared to counter his charging run, which he read, his momentum taking me off balance. I stumbled to land within inches of breaking that circle, my cheek achingly close to charring. I managed to backflip inwards and locked hands with him for a test of strength, which he matched, to my surprise. His body was toned, lean, and he gave as good as he got.
Another plan was called for.
I head-butted him off his feet, grabbed his ankle, spun on my heels and launched him. He was a foot away from igniting. I was all set to finish the job, before I was interrupted by a bright flash and rise in temperature. The circle of light had contracted, leaving my opponent decapitated.
I didn’t waste any time. I sought the holographic imagery, piecing together what I thought was a depiction of a god, when the deathlight contracted. Seconds later, it did again, and again, speeding up. I used both hands to move the imagery, succeeding to match some, failing to match others. Until finally, the face of Pretorius stared back at me.
When the light vanished, within ten feet of ending my victory, I stood still, my mental state and body a reimaging of myself, but at least in a world in which I was set to be free – freer than most of my kind, anyway.
I withdrew Vincent’s coin from my pocket and studied it for a moment, before flipping it back to the corpse. It rolled on the floor and settled in its owner’s ashes. I thanked him – again.
8.7.2019
Winning the 189th Ablaze was surreal. I had killed dozens of my kind to achieve this feat. And was it all worth it? To have won my freedom, and to free those I love, I was never in doubt.
Did that make me a monster?
The train took me away from Ablaze and its participants, but a part of me would always be there, like a ghost in the arena, forever on the run to stay in the hunt. I wanted to be cleansed of it all. Except I feared being consigned to a future of recurring dreams and flashbacks of screams and hollers and burned flesh – and Vincent.
Humans and my kind shared a heinous past, evolving side by side, killing each other day by day. Progress had been made for both species; cultural, political, but segregation was futile. The loss of life on both sides was too great to ever atone
and make peace, the notion even frowned upon by many – myself included.
The one human, the only one who had ever mattered to me, came to my thoughts on the train. I recalled her tears and expression of anguish the night I met her. I had often wondered if I shouldn’t have turned that human girl, but Sara always told me that I hadn’t turned her, I had freed her from the neglect and abuse of her parents. And now I was due to free her again, and to give a baby girl a chance to live a life she deserved.
The idea of being with my family, a future I could actually attain, pushed me to tears. The train guard found that amusing. And I believe I know why, making his reaction worse than any verbal abuse, threats and discrimination. His reaction told me everything I knew about him and his kind: that he, travelling on this particular train, was the more fitting passenger.
When I was told, I held Jade’s lock of hair tighter than ever. My beautiful girls, taken from me and the world. Slaughtered and burned by human crusaders, out to make earth blood sucker free. A possibility becoming stronger each day.
I may not be a slave to a master, but I will be incarcerated and monitored like all the other victors. Except everything changed the moment I knew Sara and Jade were gone, that I would never see them again, talk to them or hold them.
My purpose now is to avenge my family, and I will not stop there. The day will come when my kind will rise, not to the surface for their mirth, but to power. And vengeance is only the beginning. I seek to become a god, walk into the deathlight for the first time, immune to the sun’s rays. And I vow to make Pretorius pay.
Then, and only then, will they know a true monster.
AUTHOR
MATTHEW THOMPSON was born in England in 1983 and is the creator of Domino Galaxy, a book series set in an afterworld 3 billion light years away. He has previously worked in the video games industry as a game and level designer.
EDITOR
Katie Barnett
COVER ARTIST
Kit Wai Lai
BETA READERS
J Nicolette Stephens
Alexandria Frater
Lilaia Moreli
Nidhi Upadhyaya
More books by Matthew Thompson
http://dominogalaxy.crevado.com/
Ablaze In Mirth Page 3