Round Two

[CHAPTER 10]- THE BATTLE

TW: MENTIONS OF SELF HARM

There were only fifteen minutes left until we would be forced to fight. Payne stood between Theodor and me. She held a shield that seemed far to heavy for her small arms to hold she healed a dagger at her waist, gripping it tightly.
I could tell she was terrified. I was too. Everyone would be relying on me to protect them.

"Contestants!" The masked man yelled to us. We all looked up to the screen. There had been all twelve gods/godesses named on it. Next to each name was a number.

"The gods and goddesses of Olympus have bet on each team. Look to the screen for better understanding." I looked for the number seven. I squinted my eyes in hopes it would make my eyesight better.

"Athena." Nikki mumbled. She looked to me with the widest smile ever.

"Who?" Payne questioned.

"The goddess of battle strategy herself bet on us. I can't tell if I should feel lucky."

"That's a lot of pressure." Matthew said. I nodded. I didn't really learn a lot about Greek mythology mainly because I would always skip that lesson. At the time I just thought that they were myths.

I looked up to the sky in hopes seeing some clouds would distract me a bit from the fact I was going to die in a few minutes.

Sadly, there were no clouds, the sky was perfectly clear. Before the game started I probably would have been excited at the perfect day.

I sighed and looked back to all of the empty seats of the arena, then to the screen where a timer for five minutes was going off.

I looked around to all the other contestants. There were people practicing swinging their swords.
I noticed a young woman around the age of twenty helping out a little girl around the age of nine climb onto her back.

The girl giggled as the woman spun around trying to lift the mood of the girl. My attention was brought back to my group when Theodor began tapping my shoulder a bit agressivly. I looked at his face trying to see what he was trying to hint at. He looked to me with a loss of words then looked up the the large screen. I copied his movements. The timer was down to fifteen seconds.

Where did all the time go?!

"Ten. Nine. Eight." The masked man began counting down. The air was tense. People began moving towards the walls of the arena.

"Seven, Six, Five." I closed my eyes shut and gripped Payne's hand. I took a deep breath.

"Four." I felt Payne squeeze my hand. She was nervous.

"Three."

"Two." Before the man even said one people began running.

"One."

I squeezed Payne's hand and looked her in the eyes. People began running. Nikki had run off somewhere but Theodor had stayed close to me.

I gripped my sword. I looked around then back to Payne.

I opened my mouth to speak before a sharp pain shocked through my left arm as a body crashed into mine.

I fell to the ground crashing into the sand of the arena.  I was laying on my stomach while someone straddled my back, gripping my hair.

Payne and Theodor had run off.

I struggled against their grip, reaching for my sword. They yanked at my hair. A scream pushed from my throat. I gripped at my hair, trying to pull it back and away from the stranger.

After struggling a while I finally reached up and grabbed at their hands, pulling them away from my hair and using them to spin around and pin the person below me. I held their hand tighter before punching the right in the nose.