Chapter Four
Piper pulled me out of my cage, with the same great force around my throat as she had earlier. I tried to go as long as I could without breathing, but found that before long I had to gasp for air again.
We entered a room that was close the the shack. All I saw was that it was a long, white room before she shoved her feather over my eyes, holding that death grip with her other. I could only see small strips of light through my pure black eyes.
She guided me to sit up on a table. I saw a quick flash of the room as she removed her hand, but a bandanna was quickly tied over my eyes. I had no idea what was hidden behind the cloth, and wasn't sure I wanted to know.
Nothing happened for a while. I figured Piper was investigating me, searching for a weak point. She finally spoke, pushing my body back so I was now laying. "You a lefty or a righty?" she casually said. I could hear her feet tapping against the floor, walking away.
"Righty," I lied all too quickly.
"Ah, so we've got a strange one here. Lefty," I could hear her pull out a drawer and shuffle through it.
"You're gonna cut off my left arm?" I gasped.
The drawer closed, and she walked towards me. "No, that would take too much healing time." I jumped, feeling a sudden pain in my left arm. Not until she spoke again: "Nah, just make it so you can't use it. Could you call it crippling? I dunno. I dropped out of school for this," did I realize it was an injection. It was just a quick sting, but still shocking to get out of nowhere. She dabbed it with something; water, probably, and wrapped bandage around the injection.
She removed the bandanna, once again using her wing, but not holding me by the neck. I tried to swing a fist at her, but doing it with my right arm, only felt pain. I didn't realize the chemical would work so fast; and even if I did, I probably would have made the same mistake, being so used to it. I quickly tried again to throw my left arm towards her, but no longer off-guard, she quickly caught it. I felt the light turn dim as we entered the Shack, and her wing dropper, although she held a firm grip on my arm. She opened my cage door, pushing me in with one swift movement, and slamming the door behind me.
Prince's anxious look spoke for him. "My arm's...messed up," I decided to say.
Prince nodded. "Yeah, they do that with random parts of the body. You should be glad it wasn't you--" he quickly stopped himself, remembering how the last 'You should be glad went.'
"What's in that room?" I asked, ignoring his comment.
He shrugged. "She didn't let me see. Covered my eyes on the way in," he sighed, "and didn't need to on the way out."
Not knowing how to reply, I simply nodded. Remembering his fate, I mumbled "Yeah..."
Night fell over us, and I decided that while Prince decided not to talk would be a good time to think about what had happened at the Colosseum today; it wasn't my favorite subject, but I had to do it.
I just couldn't convince myself it wasn't my fault. He killed himself; for me. I didn't try to stop him until after it was too late. I could have done so much more.
About an hour after I woke up the next morning, the same dream of the Colosseum playing again and again finally over, I heard the number I had already memorized and hated. "59540 will be against 6252 in just a moment."