Page 4 of Adtovar
My hair.
Without product on this arid planet, there was nothing for it other than to corral the long, loose spiral curls to the best of my ability. I pulled another piece of scavenged cloth from thesmall bag hanging by the sink and tied it around my forehead, forming a knot at the nape of my neck. In the pit, function was more important than form.
I grabbed the battered leather satchel hanging behind the door, settling the strap on my shoulder. Last night was prize night, which meant there would be cuts, bruises, and God knew what else to tend to. My degrees in biotechnology and environmental health didn’t exactly prepare me to be a medic, but I was the best the females on this god-forsaken planet had. The only one they had.
My door swung open with a protesting creak, nearly falling from the hinges. The pit owner didn’t bother locking my door anymore, a fact that made me crack a smug smile as my steps kicked up the small gray pebbles littering the floor.
The layout of the arena underground was simple. A long hallway stretched the length of the space, with a central dining area occupying one large room in the middle. To the north lay a row of cells that housed the gladiators. To the south, a similar row of sparse rooms housing the females. They kept us apart... until they didn’t. Rough stone lined the walls, dimly lit by flickering dark yellow lights that did little to combat the gloom.
Hearing the chatter of female laughter as I approached the dining hall lifted my spirits. The morning after the last prize night, there had been tears—a lot of tears. No one laughed when they got hurt.
The dining hall was a dimly lit cavern with uneven tables hewn from rough wood. The only air circulating in the underground came from vents overhead, drawn straight from the arena, which meant the scents of stale sweat and blood remained constant.
Food for us females consisted of nothing more than protein bars and a watery gruel that smelled like ass and tasted like cardboard. The bars, as well as dining implements, gotpassed through a small serving window on the far wall. Our water supply came from an underground spring collected in a small stone trough in the center of the room. I wasn’t too sure how clean the water was, but at least it wasn’t brown.
Gladiators sat at most of the tables, shoveling down their meager meals as fast as they could. Almost every day saw punches thrown because someone tried to steal another’s rations. Most of the males sported cuts and bruises from the previous days’ battle, with a few cradling arms and other limbs twisted in unnatural angles. The arena had its own medic, if you could call him that. He was a short, squat, pale green alien with eight fingers on each hand and three eyes lined across his forehead. I couldn’t attest to his medical prowess. I only ever saw him passed out drunk in one spot or another.
Huddled in a dark, shadowy corner of the room sat the females. Other than myself, six females called this place home. Prizes, they were called. Objects to be won by victorious gladiators. I grew up in New Orleans. Being around a whore house didn’t bother me, but this was another level of depravity… a bordello from hell. There used to be seven prizes, but the pit owner Bozzo gave Iiayla to some grizzly bear-looking motherfucker a week ago, and she never returned.
I grabbed my morning ration of protein bar and water and joined them.
“So, how was it?”
“Not so bad.” Meeka, a slender figure with skin like delicate lavender petals and hair that resembled multicolored twisted wire, sported three party-hat shaped breasts protruding from her chest. A dark bruise shadowed one of her eyes, contrasting sharply with her fair skin. “I got Roxxan this time. He didn’t hit me,” she insisted with a giggle. “I fell off the bed.”
“It was alright.” Teenalia, tall and slender with yellow scales and teal-colored curls, bled thick green drops from a splitlip. “Darikja only hit me once last night,” she said, as though we should celebrate the gladiator’s restraint that he only hit her once.
The rest of them didn’t seem too worse for wear. Sureeta, tall and muscled enough to be a gladiator herself, with deep red skin, purple eyes, and long purple hair that she wore in a mohawk, almost never got hurt. Most gladiators feared Sureeta too much to challenge her. Yet someone had hurt her… badly. The skin over her shoulder blades held hideous scars where once magnificent wings existed.
Kysia’s left cheek held a slight bruise, which she removed by shifting her scales from light yellow to dark green.
Emmiait was too beautiful to hurt. Tall, regal with light teal skin, deep purple eyes, and curls, her features were so human one could almost call her Romanesque. Of course, her face was the only thing remotely human. Emmiait had six breasts that she proudly wore uncovered. Rumor had it she had two vaginas, but I’d never had occasion to check.
I pulled the pitiful cobbled together and scavenged medical supplies from my bag, doing what I could for each of them. Even Kysia, who thought it was funny to keep shifting the color of her scales to impede my rubbing salve on her bruise.
“I heard Ronco couldn’t get it up again last night,” Meeka commented to Emmiait as I dabbed at her black eye with a wet cloth to abate the swelling.
“Ronco can never get it up,” Emmiait laughed, rubbing a hand along her jawline. “I sucked him off half the night and nothing.”
“Darikja had issues, too,” Teenalia giggled, glancing at the other table where the gladiator in question gobbled down food like a pig in a trough.
“Keeliatt had no trouble.” Sureeta let her gaze wander over one of the finer specimens of maleness. “He fucks good.”
“So does Leibit,” Kysia touched her cheek. “He just gets a little rough.”
I feigned attention to their lighthearted chatter. But deep down, the weight of reality sat heavy on my heart. I couldn’t imagine going through what these females endured as a prize. And although I sympathized with them, there was also a sense of relief that I didn’t suffer their fate. In all my time here, I’d never made it to the prize pool. Of course, that didn’t mean I had it easy. At first, the pit owner, Bozzo, felt he had to break me. I hadn’t been the most compliant of creatures—I tended to bite. I spent weeks in a cell, starved, smacked around, and forced to clean up messes I couldn’t even recall without a wave of nausea. Then I figured out that the small gray rocks littered over the dirt floor of the slave quarters possessed some interesting properties. After that, Bozzo and I came to a begrudging understanding. He would never let me go, but at least I spent my time here cleaning and looking after the other females and not on my back.
“I wonder how it went with Melakor,” Emmiait whispered, her question drawing a blanket of silence over the table.
Slowly, and with my head lowered so hopefully no one would notice, I let my gaze travel across the room toward the newest arrival.
Melakor was massive, with bulging muscles that would make The Rock jealous and dirt-colored leathery skin. Two massive wings sprouted from his back, shredded and worthless for flight from his time in the arena. His eyes were black, and so were his lips, which framed yellow tusks jutting from his lower jaw. There wasn’t an inch of this male that spoke of gentleness or kindness.
I started to ask who he chose for the night, but realized with a sickening lurch to my stomach that I already knew.
“Where’s Lafalia?”
Gasps arose around the table as the others came to the same conclusion, but I was already rushing down the corridor.
