Warning: Possible OOC, AU, Minor swearing
A/N: Hello my lovelies.
This is a oneshot spawned from this lyric phrase from my fic-friend IILesGeMeAuxII
"Violated! So Degraded! The show has just begun! (3!2!1!) Dominated by all you hated! This will make you UltraNumb! (3!2!1!)" (UltraNumb by Blue Stahli)
I then looked up the song and fell in love. Also I've been reading a book of end of the world short stories so my mind is a little muddled by those.
Please Enjoy!
Make sure to Review, Tell your friends, Favorite, Subscribe, Read my other stories, etc,etc
"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper."
- T. S. Elliot
Let me tell you a story…
The Upper Cities, what is left of the previous world, what the plague of reality hasn't touched. Most of the lower level rats wouldn't ever even dream of being in the cities, especially this one. The mother of all Upper Cities, where the last "true pure beings" live, lovingly named Utopae. A dumbass play on the word Utopia, if you were to ask most lower levelers.
It was the bombs, the atomic bombs, but there was something else within them. Germ warfare had taken over the World War, World War IV to be exact. But it wasn't the fourth. Truthfully it was part of World War III, but once the mutations started, it was something else. Not everyone was mutated, only those that were within close range of the bombs. It was meant to just kill them, but that only worked on the already sick. The strong ones, women, men, even some older children, they became the mutants. They were shut off, put away, but it spread. No one could figure out how, the traces in the air were not toxic, all the bombs had stopped.
Then they found it, in their skin. They realized if the mutants touched you, you would be like them. Everyone was in a panic, and that only helped the spread, almost all of North America was taken, most of South America, Europe, Russia, China, India. It spread and spread and spread. Suddenly, all that was left were some of the Island nations and Mid-Eurasia. Then the Upper Cities were built. Those that deemed themselves worthy and pure barricaded themselves off, refusing to accept the facts. -Really, who could blame them for that act? Not even the lower levelers wanted to think of what had become of mankind.- They called themselves pure and good, but were anything but. They were bred to have fair skin, hair and eyes. They marched in straight lines in their beautiful shining cities, ignoring the cries of pain and fear outside the walls. All but the purest of them all.
Utopae.
Those in Utopae didn't ignore the people still left. But they didn't help either. No, they used them as entertainment. They found it amusing to watch them fight over food or simple necessities. They would hire people, better known as poachers, to capture lower levelers and bring them to the stadium to live and fight. Or at least until the Utopians got tired of them, then they would be killed. They were killed in one of two ways, a very dramatic display of blood and gore, the only time inmates –or so the poor souls trapped by the poachers were called-were allowed to kill during a fight, or they were simply taken out and shot like a dog who'd bitten it's master one too many times. Though there was another way which was usually reserved for those who tried to run or refused to kill. Apparently the Utopae scientists had a batch of mutants kept somewhere like a farm. They were kept there for "research" apparently, but that was just said to keep the Utopians that actually cared, and there were very few, quiet. What they really used them for was torture, because wishing the hell of being a mutant on someone was worse than death. It was something you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy, but that apparently didn't apply to lower level trash.
Of course, there was probably more to this, but this was all Ichigo Kurosaki knew of the stadium and it's inner workings. But, as he sat in his cell of a room, he was sure he was going to learn more very soon.
It had happened so quickly, one minute he was laying down to sleep on the bottom floor of the house he had decided to stay in for the night and the next he woke up in a dark van. But of course he didn't know he was awake until the doors had opened, it was so dark he wouldn't had been able to see his hand in front of his face. There were others, he could hear them shuffling around in the dark space they shared. Occasionally the doors would be opened to throw one or two new victims in and, if it was light enough, he would catch a glimpse of their faces. Everyone looked so frightened and weak, but he assumed he looked quite similar. Finally the van stopped and they were all hauled out and put in a straight line, threatened with guns to get quiet and stay that word. The people with the guns were obviously not from the Upper Cities, but by their nourished appearance and new-looking clothing, it was obvious they had worked for the Upper Cities. A long car pulled up soon after and a well groomed man with a leering smile. Finally Kurosaki knew what was happening, poachers, he was being poached. While no one was looking he quickly pulled his hat down, tucking as much of his loudly colored hair into it as he could. He knew somehow that they would look for differences, something to stand out.
The man with the smile sauntered unhurriedly down the line of people, pointing out one or two as he went, stopping to look closer and move on. It was all Ichigo could do to not look up as the man stopped in front of him. He stands there inspecting for a minute, and finally was about to step away when suddenly he reaches out and yanks the hat off of his head, making a satisfied "hmmm" sound. The hat is thrown away and he moves on as a large poacher pulls him off with the other ones that had been chosen. The smiling man reaches the end of the line without choosing anyone else, leaving six people standing in the now broken up line. The four that had been chosen were escorted, or rather thrown, back into the dark van which was soon started up and driving away, in a new direction. As they drove away Ichigo could distinctly hear six gunshots.
The van had parked very close to a tall building and Ichigo had been practically dragged in and up flights and flights of stairs, then thrown into a cell. That was where he had been sitting for hours. Time seemed to drag on and on as people in cells all over made calls and threats, though some were just sitting there also. Many were bloodied and had fresh-looking injuries to nurse. But soon he had gotten tired of looking so he pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in between.
Finally, after what seems like more hours melting into each other, the door on the cell is thrown open and he is grabbed roughly and dragged out and into the hall then quickly led down too many turns to count. His current captor was a skinny woman about four inches shorter than him, he probably would have been able to take her, if it wasn't for the ominous looking gun in her other hand. And boy did she hold it like she knew how to use it. After a time of turns and silence from the woman with a bony fingered grip on his arm, he found himself in a waiting room of sorts, yet they were the only ones there. It was a large room with chairs along the walls and a single table in the center with a pile of white clothing folded neatly on it. On the wall facing Ichigo, next to a large door, was a TV screen and on the screen was what looked like the floor of a roman coliseum. Oh Fuck.
There was no one in that shot but it soon flickered to another angle, and another, like some kind of director of a live show was checking to make sure all the cameras worked. Which was probably what was happening. That meant that on hundreds, maybe thousands of TVs in Utopae were about t show someone fighting. And the oranget was willing to bet it was going to be him. Suddenly he feels his shirt being ripped off soon followed by his pants, he stares in surprise at the woman in front of him now holding his clothes. She hands him the pile of pure white clothing with a simple explanation of "The blood shows up better." Her voice sounding like she had smoked one too many cigarettes in her day.
As Ichigo puts on the clothing she begins to talk. "Now I'm only going to say this once so listen up. Ya' listening?" He nods his head after pulling his head through the shirt's hole. "Good, now you are goin' out there to kill. Most a' the time ya' won' but this time ya' are. It's how them people in charge test ya' abilities. Yeah? Make a real good show a' it and maybe they gonna let you stay. Show some shame, yeah? Them Utopian's eat that shit up. Now no one cares if you love it or hate it. Got it? Not a one. It don' matter to us 'cause all ya' inmates are the same here, it wouldn't damper my day to kill you, not a bit. Maybe if ya' get really famous, they be lettin ya' get a special room. So, go and kill, yeah? Or I'll kill ya'…" She finishes and he nods quickly, now standing in his white clothes. He has to kill, okay, he can do that…
Suddenly he wonders, though, why is he just accepting all of this? This feeling of... numbness, yeah numbness, has taken over him and his body is just moving on his own. He's only been here for a few hours, a day at the most, and he's already become a puppet for these people he despise. Anger boils up within him and an animalistic need for violence make his fingers twitch. He will kill, to show these people his strength and they will not underestimate him. Unfortunately he is just playing right into their hands.
She gives one short nod and turns around, opening the door to reveal a long dark hallway and yells down it "We got some new flesh!" Then motions for him to go in with a wolfish grin. Ichigo steps in and as soon as he does the door is shut and locked. He walks, and walks, and walks, not sure where he's going but sure that he won't like it. But it's not like he can go back, so he walks until finally he sees a light, another open door. He walks up to the door and shields his eyes, stepping out into the coliseum. His bare feet feeling the damp ground, looking down he sees the soil is soaked with blood.
This begins a new fight.
"Oh world beware of clever sheep. They are the truly dangerous ones, for they understand the stupidity of the flock and know just how easy it is to lead the people to the slaughter."