@solartied
“This one’s done for the day. take him back to his cell.” It’s the faint echo of a voice so deep and grating he feels it through the iron grip on his arm, haphazardly dragging him through corridors whose lighting is far too bright. His head is throbbing, his side is wet and the scent of copper wafts with each pause his captors take to seek passage to the next line of corridors. Were he conscious enough he might recognize the mapping. It doesn’t matter. He’ll be dead soon enough anyways. He can’t keep fighting like this forever.
“If all Earthlings can fight like that why don’t we have more?”
“Shut up and get moving, we’ve got to clear the bodies for the next fight.” Shiro tries his best to stay awake, to time the retreat of the arena guards in time with the patrol to know what time it is. That regularity is the only thing keeping him from going mad. The hope that one day they’ll screw it up and he’ll have his moment to escape but- That day seems like its farther and farther away. A crushing endless struggle for his life and the knowledge that one day the people he loved and left back on Earth will suffer the same. Maybe not. Maybe it’ll just be him and if that’s true...he’d gladly entertain them for as long as they needed.
The dark closes in around the edges of his vision, dimming the already barely existent ambiance and for the first time in several long nights it looks like he might get his rest. Until the other inmates start their racket again.












