Alternate Realities

Bloodied Sands

Friday feats bring a little bit of the battlefield home for the civilians in the cities. I think the silvers would saunter up to the lush boxes to make bets and socialize regardless of the royal decree. It's the reds that are forced to attend. The all looked the same to me the first couple months: beaten down, tired. But when the nerves that come with doing something new calmed down, I started to see there were really two types of reds. For the reds that have avoided conscription, they are amused. Some even seem excited to see silver blood on the sand. Reds that have been to battle, or those that are destined to go, well, you can see the contempt, the disgust, sometimes the memories.

Fighting one on one, silver against silver, is an amplified example of what happens on the daily in the Choke. But it's nothing like the choke, reds neither fight as viciously nor last as long. Which makes it a cruel caricature poking fun at their weaknesses.

Friday feats aren't my idea of a good time. I didn't grow up to mock the masses. Some of the fighters volunteer, feeding a carnal blood-thirst, but I stay the hell away from them. I have to be here. It's King ordered punishment for coming up short on our harvests. One year of fights for me and my two brothers. One year of being torn up, burned, frozen close to death. One year of torture and training and entering the ring week after week in a different city to put on a show. And the show requires blood. It requires pain. It requires suffering. Fifty-two fights for one bad season of grain.

Before I go out, I search the stands. I look face to face and ask each of them to hold my eye. The beaten ones never look. The scared ones never hold. But somewhere in that crow there is a face that will stare back and refuse to blink. And that one person, that one red blooded person is the closest thing to freedom I'll see for forty more weeks.