Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Nine: Natural Selection

Baggy shorts and a flimsy tank top, thrown onto my skeletal body for hand-to-hand combat. My hair, twined into plaits, easy to grab and rip. They shoved me out into the blistering cold, barefoot in a secluded courtyard between the two nearly windowless concrete units. Ordinarily, I would've been thankful for the taste of fresh air, but all that I tasted on the wind was death. My feet burned with pain, like every snowflake was a needle underfoot. Every gust of wind made me quake and my muscles twinge with reluctance. 

No more darkly lit rooms and padded mats. No more concealing jumpsuits and short hair. No more conceding or getting knocked out. If you lost, it was permanent. By permanent, I mean a quick twist and jerk of the neck. No more mercy. 

They upped their game. And I had to up mine. I hadn't realised the brutality of the new hostile conditions; how the blizzard would throw off my depth perception, how the un-survivable cold temperatures would slow my hand-eye coordination and how being so revealed would shatter my self-esteem.

I wasn't first in the ring, and for that, I was thankful, there were two slightly weaker competitors in my group. And the talentless good for nothing's were pitted against each other. We stood in a semi-circle watching the two girls hold their fighting posture. And with a nod of Vasily Karpov, the fight would be initiated. 

Evades were slicker, kicks were sharper and punches were executed with precision. No longer was avoiding a punch as simple as ducking, contortion provided your only reprieve from fist or foot. I observed diligently, absorbing tactics like a sponge. I watched how they were light on their feet, poised on the front of their feet, springing about like a game of hopscotch. I watched how one offensive move blended into the next without hesitation, how they plotted ahead like a game of chess, preparing for any eventuality. I watched how they reacted, far too many gave away their target with a glance of a nano-second, or stepping before they punched, or hesitated and gave away their move with a twist or a twitch. 

But what was truly unexpected in the messily coordinated sequence of moves, was when one girl snagged the other by her hair and pounded her skull against the floor and wrangled her by the neck. The girl choked whilst her captor stared proudly on at Karpov for permission to react. 

He nodded. 

She twisted and jerked. 

That was the first time I heard the snap of a neck. That crackle, that crunch, that click that echoed between the two parallel concrete building ricocheted in my mind. It looped like a broken record. Taught like an actress to keep my face emotionless, I did. I wasn't to give my competitors the satisfaction of my terror. It terrified me. 

Twenty-seven Black Widows with the red room became twenty-six. 

These tournaments were conducted quarterly, sorting the wheat from the chaff. 

And with this new taste of the outdoors, silhouettes of trees, glades and mountains in the desolate valley beyond, they took to cuffing us to our beds. Each night, the wardens would come around and snap the metal around our wrists, rattle it a little to leave no room for doubt and locked them. Children are born with that spark of curiosity, that natural born instinct to investigate and grow as a person and they tried to kill that spark. They needed to keep us - quite literally - chained to our work. 

Training wasn't indoors anymore, no more circling in a gymnasium, punching sacks repetitively. No. Cross country, scrambling over cargo nets, running ten miles a day, barefoot over the icy blades of grass, prickling our feet until they had become leathery. Jumping crevasses that cracked the valley, crossing the river on the mossy and icy stones, the perfect slabs to split your skull on. There was no excuse for stopping, the brutal conditions wouldn't forgive you. You'd been sent to an icy grave, and no one was going to recover your body.