365

jun.8.22

His skin ached. He didn't want to move. If it were possible, he would want to become one with the earth, laying in a field of grass and letting the moss and wildflowers take over his body.

But that was not an option.

He felt violent hands on either side of his face, tilting it from side to side with force. The hands moved to his eyes, fingers pressing them open against their will. He was met with blurry, orange light, and a shadow leaning over him.

"He seems to be coming out of it," an overly professional voice stated, just as the fingers forcing his eyes open let go and found themselves at his wrist.

"Don't you fucken touch me," he heard his voice say; it came out venomous, as he'd hoped, but there was too much gravel to it. His throat felt dry.

He heard a chuckle, and groaned at it: The Warden was here. "Glad to see you've made it through, Mister Kaulder Ocean."

The man, Kaulder Ocean, forced his tired eyes open, blinking slowly. As his surroundings became clearer, he deduced he was in the drab grey infirmary. As he went to sit up, leather cuffs around his wrists and ankles restricted him to the bed he laid on. Instinctively, and as anger flooded through him, he pulled at his wrists to no avail.

"Get me put of these fucken things," he spat; his eyes scanned around him. The Warden stood at the foot of his bed, arms folded across his expensive suit jacket. Two armed guards stood on either side of him. A nurse was at the bedside. A blond man laid in a bed to his right, cuffed to his own headboard with metal handcuffs; the man was awake, and had various bandages over his body. To Kaulder's left was a sleeping figure, straps securing them to their bed. The figure appeared feminine, but had a head of brown messy cropped hair.

"Kaulder Ocean. Don't like the situation?" The Warden asked.

"Your fuckers drugged me, you bastard," Kaulder spat, rage boring into The Warden. "Ambushed me, held me down, shoved those fucken needles into me. You tried to kill me, you fucken–"

"–In the contrary," The Warden interrupted. "We were not trying to kill you. We were testing you. And you passed."

Kaulder clenched his jaw. He hated the unknown. "Out with it, fuckhead. Tell me everything."

The Warden raised an eyebrow at Kaulder's language, but didn't address it. He spoke quite a bit, and Kaulder deduced his elaborate facade down to a sinple fact: drive a car, win a dangerous tournament and possibly leave with your life, or die immediately.

"The reason we injected you was to test you," The Warden continued. "Making sure you were strong, and you are." His eyes turned to the blond man, cuffed to his bed. "This is Griffin Steel. He's one of your teammates. He's also a strong man."

Kaulder turned to Griffin, who simply shrugged. Kaulder couldn't blame him; he was probably also put up to it against his will, just as Kaulder had been.

"This here, is AK," The Warden said then, turning to the sleeping figure to Kaulder's left. "She hasn't woken yet, and if she does, she'll be your third teammate. But, if not, we'll find somebody else." The Warden exhaled then, in an attempt to shift the conversation. "So. Both of you: rest up, and we'll keep you posted." The Warden turned toward the door and left, with the two armed guards and the nurse in tow.

Kaulder turned to the sleeping figure. Their eyes were closed, and their breathing was slow. Their skin looked pale, their cheeks sunken in. They didn't look good. They were small, and they looked frail as ever.

"I don't know what they did to that one," Griffin Steel said then, watching Kaulder. "But I heard them say they weren't expecting much out of it."

Kaulder turned to Griffin. "What did they do to you?"

Griffin's free hand touched a bandage at the base of his neck. "They held me down and cut me, to see if I could take it."

"Jesus Christ," Kaulder muttered.

"They injected you?" Griffin asked.

"Yeah. Jumped me when I was heading to the showers." Kaulder exhaled, as images ran through his mind – things he never wanted to see again. "Must have been some hallucinagen or something."

"I heard them talking before, and they said something about Nightmare Gas," Griffin added. "Can't imagine that's good."

"It wasn't." Kaulder exhaled. "Goddamn, I had to get put in this prison, huh?"

"If it wasn't this one, it would've been another one, competing in this fucken tournament, " Griffin pointed out. "What you get canned for?"

Kaulder laid his head back against his pillow, his eyes on the ceiling; his stomach was beginning to turn inside out. "Killed a man in self defense. You?"

"Killed bad men for a living. Mostly politicians and shit."

"Had to get caught, huh?"

"Guess so."

Kaulder looked again at the sleeping figure. "What did they do to this one?"

"Don't know. They were very specific about not saying much about it."

"Well, whatever the fuck they did, I hope they didn't kill 'em."

"Agreed." He was quiet for a long moment. "Look, I know we don't know what we're even getting ourselves into, with this fucken tournament to the death thing, but can we promise something?"

"What's that?"

"That we take this shit down, make them pay for the shit they've done, and that we make it out alive?"

"Sounds good to me."