Wraith : 9
"What happens when the games find you?"
Thomas glanced over at me sideways as we walked down the empty street. He had to keep his pace a little slower to compensate for my limp.
"A lot of people are scared of hybrids." He kicked a loose rock out of his path. "They think we're evil monsters out to kill humanity. They don't want us roaming the world freely."
"Freely?"
"Yeah." He shoved his hands into his pockets and studied the ground. "Did no one ever tell you this?"
"No." I muttered. "Dad hates hybrids too, but he never told me why."
"It's illegal for hybrids to be 'free'." He raised his hands and put air quotes around the word. "When you're a kid, like us, your parents are your legal guardians. But when you turn 18, you belong to the government, and you're sent to one of three places…" He rounded the same corner as before, taking the road that led to the massive stadium.
I stayed quiet, allowing him to collect his thoughts.
"The Race Rings, WICKED, or the Venom Trade." He counted them off on his fingers.
I blinked and stopped walking to stare at him.
"What are you talking about?"
Thomas stopped too. "Hybrids are always under the control of someone."
I was destined to always be controlled by someone?
"What if I don't want to do that?" I looked up at Thomas. He was watching me with a blank expression, as if the question didn't matter.
He looked back towards the stadium at the end of the road. Cheers and screams faintly reached us in the quiet space. "But if I had to pick one, I'd pick the Race Rings."
"Is that the games?" An icy trickle of fear had begun creeping down my back. Dad's words echoed in my head.
'I hope the games find you.'
"It's the biggest sport in the world. Hybrids fight each other and see who is the strongest." Thomas grinned back at me. "Come on, I can show you."
The stadium loomed large overhead. Bright light glowed from the open top, casting a deep shadow over the arched entrance. Thomas calmly walked through. I followed close behind him, keeping my head down. Several guards stood with guns, but they didn't bat an eye as we passed.
Was this a bad idea? If dad wanted the games to find me, walking straight into the stadium might not be the best plan.
Thomas, we should go back.
You're fine, Newt.
The inside of the stadium was brightly lit with huge, overhead LED's. I had to blink several times to get my eyes adjusted from outside. Polished concrete floors and walls formed a large open space. Two escalators on either side curved upwards and out of sight into a second floor. Thomas walked straight towards the right one.
The cheering and screams were immensely loud. Waves of energy bombarded me. Excitement, anger, and fear washed through me from hundreds of people. But as Thomas and I walked off the escalator, pain stabbed through my heart like an icepick. Burning hot, electric shocks of icy, wicked pain. My breath caught and I had to lean against the wall for support.
"It's normal," Thomas' voice sounded far away and muffled. "It's not your pain." His gentle hands rested on my shoulders. "Just breathe, put up a mental block. Imagine a fire. Now put it out with water."
The fire was raging and threatened to overcome me. It licked away at the corners of my very being, white and red and green. Black smoke choked the breath from my chest with a vice-like grip.
"Put the fire out, Newt."
A waterfall surged over the edge of my subconscious. Cool and soothing, powerful and heavy, it flooded my mind with frothy relief. The fire drowned, and the pain ebbed away with the gentle waves.
I opened my eyes and realized I was sitting on the ground with my back against the wall. My breath came in heavy gasps and sweat stuck my hair to my forehead. Thomas crouched in front of me, a huge smile on his face.
"There you go. Sorry, I should have warned you about that. It's kind of a shock the first time." He patted my shoulder and took my hand, hoisting me up.
"What happened?" I breathed, allowing him to guide me. We were on the second floor and moving towards a sloped section straight ahead. As we got closer, I realized they were seats. Hundreds of them all arranged in a large half circle. They sloped downwards and ended with a transparent wall. Deep gouges and scratches peppered the wall at random, cracks spider webbed out from the left side, and a streak of bright red seeped into them.
Beyond the damaged wall was a large, open space with thick wooden beams jutting out from the sides. They spanned the space and connected to the other wall like ladder rungs, but unevenly spaced apart. Some only reached partway into the space, looking like wooden spears.
"Just watch." Thomas led me to a couple of empty seats in the middle. Movement caught my eye at the very bottom of the arena.
Bright, viridian wings opened and a creature soared into the center of the arena. Its feathers glinted blue iridescent in the light before shifting back to their natural green. It landed gracefully on one of the wooden beams, clinging to the wood with razor sharp, black claws, limbs rippling with muscle. A long, forked tail swished through the air as it adjusted its balance. It had a long neck and a rectangular face with strong jaws. Green feathers on the back and sides faded into black along the belly, legs, and face. With wings outstretched, it arched its neck and roared fiercely towards the stadium, exposing a dark chocolate underside. Jagged rows of teeth with viciously long canines barred in a low snarl.
"Her name is Arwys." Thomas whispered into my ear, leaning in close to be heard. I stared at the creature in awe. Her wingspan was probably close to 30 feet, her sleek body 20 feet, and the dual daggers at the end of her tail were the same color as mine. "She's the toughest Wraith in the games."
"That's a Wraith?" I blinked in surprise as I absorbed every detail about her. She was beautiful.
"A wild caught Wraith." Thomas nodded and leaned back in his seat. "Now you see him? It's his job to try and kill her." He pointed up to the left hand side of the arena. I followed his hand and spotted a teenage boy, no older than 16, crouching on a wooden beam about 20 feet above Arwys.
He looked just like me. White wings folded tight against his back, a long white tail held still against the beam, and light brown hair tousled with sweat and grime. He wore tattered cargo shorts, a blood stained white T-shirt, and was barefoot. His green eyes studied Arwys carefully.
"Kill her?" I looked back towards the Wraith as she scanned the stadium seats. "Why?"
"That's the game, Newt. His name is-"
Before Thomas could finish, the boy dropped off the beam, falling straight toward Arwys. Just before impact, Arwys jumped off her beam and unfurled her wings with an angry screech. The boy clipped her right wing, dragging a knife across her beautiful feathers. Blood poured from the angry slash, spraying into the air as she flapped hard to escape. Her long neck whipped around and her jaws snapped shut a hair's breadth from the boy's leg. He scrambled to hold onto the beam, wings open wide for balance, but Arwys was flying along the perimeter of the arena now, blood dripping down the tip of her wing.
The boy jumped into the air just as Arwys came about. They collided in mid air, Arwys snarling and roaring, claws slashing. She clamped her jaws around the boy's left shoulder, teeth slicing through muscle and sinew, shaking mercilessly. He screamed in pain and thrust his long tail around, both serrated spikes plunging into her right shoulder like daggers. He yanked them out and stabbed again, driving them deep into her upper back. With the ground rushing up fast, Arwys disengaged and kicked the boy away, opening her wings and gliding away. The boy smashed into the ground with a loud thud.
An involuntary shudder racked my frame and I looked away, my heart fluttering like a dying butterfly. Only now did the cheers and screams of the stadium register. The entire place was in an uproar. Even Thomas was excited, standing and cheering along with everyone else. Arwys coasted around the arena one more time, then dipped her still bleeding wing, landing in front of a door built into the back wall. It opened like a trap door and she walked through and out of sight.
"She's undefeated." Thomas sat back down next to me.
"She killed him." I couldn't take my eyes off the crumpled body of the boy laying on his back on the ground. His white feathers were splashed with red, his shoulder mangled and nearly detached from his body. His once green eyes were now a dull brown, open and staring up at nothing. No one even cared to know what his name was.
He hadn't stood a chance against her. How was this a game? How could anyone expect to win against such a creature? I looked over at Thomas.
"It happens. But just you wait. I'm going to be the one to kill her."