Requiem Run

Chapter 2

I was still drowsy when I came to, and it took me a moment to open my eyes. As soon as I did, I struggled to my feet and looked around, then down at my hands when I realized they were tied together.

"Hey, what the hell?!" I said, or tried to, since no matter how hard I tried, my numb throat couldn't form any sound no matter how hard I tried.

"Hey, they shut you up, didn't they?"

I looked up at the girl in front of me, and realized several things at once; I was in a cage, and I wasn't alone in the cage, since the girl in front of me was with three other girls, all crying against the bars of the cage silently, since apparently, they couldn't talk either.

"Mine wore off a while ago," said the girl, "My name's Katie. Can you mouth your name out to me?"

I did my best to mouth out "Riley."

"Riley?" Katie said to confirm. I nodded, and allowed her to help me to my feet. I noticed a thick purple bracelet made out of twine on her left wrist that looked super unique and original.

"Nice to meet you, Riley," said Katie, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, if you know what I mean. Check it out."

Katie led me to the bars of the cage, and I was shocked at what I was looking at. The cage we were all trapped in was in the middle of a gladiatorial arena, or at least it looked similar to one. Across from the cage, in front of a big metal gate, was a big wooden stage. There wasn't anyone in the stands, but that didn't change the fact that I had gone from a college in Connecticut to a gladiatorial arena in the middle of who-knows-where. I just wanted to wake up and realize that this was all just a bad pre-finals dream.

"Hey, check it out," said Katie, bringing me out of my stupor, "Look at those guys in cloaks."

I looked in the direction Katie was pointing. Sure enough, three men were walking into the arena through a small doorway, heading straight for the cage. The other girls started crawling away from the cloaked figures, but Katie and I got closer.

The cloaks covering the men looked similar to the cloaks that covered the men who had abducted me, but they were different colors; one of the cloaks was brown, one was pink, and one was blood red. The cloaked men stopped in front of the cage and stood there, their heads down enough that we couldn't see their faces through the hoods.

Katie and I stared at the men in cloaks for about five minutes before Katie spoke up and said, "Hey, you gonna stare at us forever, or are we gonna find out where we are anytime soon?"

The men seemed to flinch a little; my guess was that they didn't expect Katie to be able to talk. The brown-cloaked man started walking over to the cage, causing the other mute girls to scramble behind Katie and I. I tried to comfort the girls while Katie glared at the cloaked man.

Just as the girls started to calm down, the cloaked man banged on the cage, causing another set of breakdowns from the girls and rendering them inconsolable. I stood back up and glared at the man as well.

The man stared back at us for a minute, then pulled his cloak back. I gasped, and even Katie looked shocked for a second. The man's hair was pure white and he looked kind of pale, but what really shocked me was the wolf-like ears sticking out of his head and his eyes that were golden yellow, a color I didn't even know eyes could be.

"Seeing the reactions is always the funniest part," the man said in a deep growling voice, "Hey Kydro! Killian! Show the maidens your face, that's one of the best reactions!"

The man in the pink cloak and the man in the red cloak started walking over to us. Katie and I were giving the most hateful glares we could muster up, but the man with wolf ears had no response but a cocky grin that made me want to punch him in the face.