The Final End

Children and Gladiators

Sparrow lays Jack on his back and cleans the wounds, and, after much inspection, finaly deems his job well done and wraps the cuts. The rest of us, who have all been sitting in a line on jasons bed, are watching sparrows every move quizitively. "there" sparrow cleans off his and then sits on the foot of Jacks bed. "you're all going to hear this sometime... so I guess now is as good as ever. Since the war started..." Sparrow seems hesitant to tell us about whatever it was that had hurt jack so badly. "since it started... the government has been focused on that. Theres almost no regular police, so crimes go unnoticed. A binch of men... well, they established a type of gladiator fighting in the basement of some old government building. That's when two men are given wepons and they have to fight to the death. About two hundred of us were taken prisoner. Fifty of us were trained to fight. The others were trained to be medics or just kept around for the times when no opponents could be found to fight the trained men. Jack was really good and, well, I suppose that's how he made it to twenty. Anyways that's what the scars are from. Most of them would have healed faster, but the only thing that they gave us ruteenly was water. No food."

Sparrow stares at the floor when hs finished talking.

"oh sparrow..." charis is the first to speak. " that's sick. Really truly sick. " she stares him in the eye and he smiles a little. "Yeah. Him and I are the only two ever to make it to twenty in the system. The ones who weren't killed in combat, well, they usually starved." The look in Sparrows eyes whenever he talks about food scares me. Theres some memory there, an unpleasant one, but I decide not to ask him abut it in front of the others.

Jack makes a noise and Sparrow turns his attention back to him. He sets some damp clothes on jacks forhead, then turns back to us. The next part, I don't really expect. Charis starts talking. At first I think shes telling some sort of story, but then I relize its her story. Her life.

"when I first came to the shelter, I was nine. The first night there, Im not sure. I got sperated from my parents in the darkenss, and I assume that they were taken for the army and died in battle. The next year I spent wandering around the shelter. I didn't go above ground and I only ate what people gave me. Then..." her voice trails off, but Maloney picks up the story.

"then I found her" Maloney picks up "we were ten when I found her. She seemed...in need of some help, so, I took her outside, then got her a bedroll next to mine, and we were like sisters ever since " Maloney smiled, but looked even more tired than she had before. It must have been hard on her, taking care of someone her own age. For ten years, no less. I think I respect Maloney even more now than I had before. Everyone turned to me. Guess its story time.

"well..." I think about where to begin. "my father was taken a few years after the war started. He died. My mother, though, was aloud to stay with my brother and I for a long, long time after that. We had her up until last year. Shes still in the army. I don't know where, though. My brother, Peter, hes ten, and hes all alone now. I managed to get him a decent supply of food to start out with. Oh, yeah, and my mother left this with peter to give to me when I turned twenty."

I held up the hold ring. Everyone, except for jack who was asleep, gasped at the ring. Them, like me, had never seen gold brfore.

After my story, we all turned to Jason. He looked down in shame. "whats to tell? I never left my yard."