Radioactive

Part 3: My Power

        I duck under her arms and run. She hisses in frustration and grabs at my feet. I jump eight or nine feet off the ground. I kick off the wall, hoping to land far away from her. I see where I'm about to land just as Razor does. How far away I was landing doesn't matter; she zips towards my landing spot. I aim myself feet down, knowing that I won't be able to surprise her, but I might be able to startle or distract her just for long enough that I can evade her. I know that I'm going to have to face her eventually, but I want to be prepared to fight her when I do.

        My feet smash into her face, sending me flying through the air. I curl into a ball in hopes of gaining speed, since I don't want to have to repeat what I just did. It didn't work, but it's made Razor miss me twice. Unfortunately, in watching Razor grabbing for me, a fierce determination in her eyes and posture, I'm not paying attention to where I'm going.

         I slam into the wall, my head hitting it with a loud crack and I fall. I look at the stars, admire how pretty they are, and my gaze slides over to the wall. There is a red smear on the wall. I laugh weakly and murmur "It needed painting, and I love red, it's the color of..." My smile disappears as I snap out of my daze. "Blood," I whimper. I turn my head and see five blurry Razors running at me, and blink again to see only one Razor, barely a foot away. I stagger to my feet.

         Razor grabs my right foot with those suction cup-things on her hands, and I can't even move it. I rake my claws across her hands, her face, and her arms, the blood splattering us and making us look like living corpses. It must be painful, but she still holds on. I have made a bad mistake, since from the look in her eyes it seems I've made her angrier. Her whitish grey-eyes are filled with ideas of a torturous end for me. She holds me down with one hand, and decides on how she'll make me wish I was dead. I shake, imagining her slowly ripping my body in half. But no, she has far worse ideas in mind, I realize just as she slowly starts to place her hand on my arm. I wriggle, desperately trying to move away. It's no use, I'm not as strong as those hands.

        She pulls her hand away from my arm, taking giant chunks of skin with her. I wail in pain, eyes tearing up. I look at the red, bloody mess of veins, arteries, muscle, and bone that is my arm. I watch and sob as she moves her hand toward my left leg now. With a little popping noise, her hand attaches to my leg, and with a loud tearing, ripping sound, she pulls off most of the skin on my leg. She smiles as my blood pours onto the cold, cruel metal floor, sizzling like bacon in a pan, and staining it red.

        I watch my blood spread out, all over the pit. It doesn't want me to be forgotten, I think, it wants to be the thing new Fours point at as they see the pit for the first time. "What happened here?" They will ask, gaping at the red stains all over the floor.

        The response to that, I assume would be "A bloody fight between a Four and a Five. Obviously, the Four lost," they would laugh, shaking their heads. My breath is shallowing as she reaches for my bleeding head. I can feel my heartbeat slowing. Thump...Thump.......Thump..........Thump. She touches my head and I wait to wake up as a Three.

      What?! As her fingers touch my head, an intense burning starts in my heart. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! My heart beats, threatening to finish me off. Although, I guess I'd rather have a heart attack or whatever this is then stay alive and see how Razor is going to kill me. I close my eyes, waiting. A startled, frightened scream breaks the darkness. I open my eyes to see my blood mixing with Razor's, and Razor's mouth a giant hole as she gapes at the black tar-like stuff coating her skin. It covers her body, and she crumples to the ground. The ground, which is covered in craters whereever my blood touched it. She's dead, that I'm quite sure of.

        People whisper above the pit, and I barely here the end of a  fervently whispered conversation between the leader of the Tattoos and his Tattoo members. "I'm not too sure, but I think that's what it is. Get her now. This could be a waste of an excellent potential Five if she dies," he says.

        "But..." whimpers another Tattoo, glancing at me with shaking hands.

        "Get her now, " he orders. The Tattoo still hesitates. "Get her, or I'll have the next fight be all of my Fives versus you," threatens the leader, eyes showing that  this is no bluff. The Tattoo gulps and disappears from sight quickly. The same Tattoo member shakes as he grabs my arm, and yelps when a drop of my blood touches his hand and a black lump ruptures from his skin. The Tattoo member curses.

        "Did you hear anything of what I just said? Go down into the lab and get the suits." The Tattoo members are walking out of the pit when I hear him say "Wait, one more thing; whatever you do, DON'T touch her blood. Or you'll end up like him." He points at the Tattoo holding his arm and screaming.

        My vision starts to cloud, and I can't tell if it's seconds or minutes later when the Tattoo come back. Their yellow boots thump against the metal floor, and they narrowly avoid the craters as much as possible. They look like giant yellow birds in their baggy yellow suits with black screening their faces. One grabs my uninjured leg (Razor didn't even rip my other leg in her panic) and the other lifts me under the armpits. The motion is so sudden that my vision swims and I barf. They drop me immediately and I slam against the floor. 'Ow' doesn't even describe the feeling of being half-dead, puking, and being dropped on hard metal floor.

        The man that my blood got on screeches "What ARE you?" as his arm is completely erupting in black tar-like stuff. As the Tattoo drag me out of the pit, through a locked steel door, down a hallway of bright white lights, and finally into a giant white room full of plain white beds,strange machines,chairs, and walls, I wonder the same thing as they are.What am I? What just happened? What will they do to me now?