Stella

1

Screaming. That's all I heard as five more slaves were brought out of their cells to fight for him. Five females. None of them will make it. Humans don't stand a chance in the arena. When Nex Umbra, our master, chooses five people, five humans to fight for him, no one wins. The other races do. Usually the elves. The only known human to make it to the final round lost his fight when Dryadalis, the elf king, killed him so his son could win.

Each race chooses their best warriors to go in the arena, and Nex chooses five slaves he doesn't need anymore.

"Lastly, I choose her" he said, his voice like nails on a chalkboard. Two guards opened my cell and put my hands in hand cuffs. I gave Nex a look that said I was going to kill him, while I hid my fear.

I was taken to a large room with the four others. There were weapons, armour sets, and beds with wool bedding.

"So uh, why are we here?" said one girl, the youngest. The two others who are old enough to know what's happening lookes at me with sympathy in their eyes.

"Because we are going to die" said the other youngest.

"No we're not Ruo!!! You can't tell me that or I will cry!!!" said the other youngest.

"Ok wait. What are your names again?" I asked.

"I am Angelonia, this is Holly, and the two youngest are Boo and Ruo" said Angelonia.

"NAMES ARE NOT IMPORTANT!!! Ruo said we will die, but I don't want to!!!" cried Boo.

As she finished her sentence, a demon fairy walked in.

"All right!!! Choose your amrour and weapon!!! You go in the arena in one hour!!!" he said.

I walked over to the armour and chose boots and a vest. I walked over to the weapons and chose a knife.

"Seriously? You'll die within the first five minutes" said Holly.

"Well it's a good thing I'm not here to win then" I said. I started walking to the huge door at the end of the room.

"Wait!!! You never told us your name!!!" called Holly.

I turned back and said "Stella."

***

An hour passed by and me and the others walked into the arena when the door opened, waiting for the instructions.

"LISTEN UP!!!" shouted the announcer. "This months rules are different. There are 10 rounds. Not all of them will be fighting, but there still will be a chance to kill the other team members. This first round is simple. Fight to the death. The moment one full team is all dead, is when the round will end. You need only one team member to progress onto the next round."

I looked at the other teams. Five fairies, considered royalty, ruling over all. Their appearance suggests they are very cocky. Five mermaids. No tails, but that's because they can survive out of water by changing their tails into legs. Very inexperienced, which means they will probably die off first. Five elves, warriors with bows. Win every time. They're like evil spies. They know what you're going to do before you do it. Five dwarves. Their height helps them get usually to the second last round. Five trolls. Nothing much to say about them except their a bunch of airheads. Five giants. Their huge feet can be uses to smash our skulls, yet they never make it that far. Five centaurs. My personal favourite. Five demon fairies. That's weird. I thought we were fighting for Nex Umbra. Oh well. Five ogres. Disgusting. And lastly, us five humans who don't and will never stand a chance.

"As you all know, there is only one rule. Don't kill your own team members. And with that...... BEGIN!!!" shouted the anouncer.

The elves immediately went into action. They took out their bows and started shooting arrows everywhere. Right off the bat, two mermaids and three dwarves died. Giants were stepping all over the place, killing centaurs right and left. One centaur excaped and is now fighting the fairies. Their ability to fly is not working out for him though. Someone grabbed my hand.

"Come on. That elf over their is going to shoot us if we don't move!!!" said Holly. Sure enough, an elf shot an arrow just in time for us to move out of the way.

"Where are the others?" I asked.

"They teamed up with the remaining mermaids to fight a giant" said Holly.

"Is teaming up with another team even allowed?" I asked.

"There is only one rule. And last I checked, it isn't 'you must not team up'" she said. I looked at the centaur. He managed to kill a fairy.

"Would you pay attention?!?" said Holly as she killed a dwarf. "You might want to die but that doesn't mean you can just let the rest of us be killed." A dwarf flung itself onto me, clawing at my face. I took my knife and stabbed it's side, and pushed it off of me. With my knife in his side, he lunged at my feet. As if I was in slow motion, I grabbed the dwarf's head, threw him up in the air,rabbed my knife out of his side, and cut off his head. A bell rung and every one stopped fighting.

"CONGRATULATIONS!!! All dwarves are gone which means this round is over!!!" shouted the anouncer. I looked at the severed head, lying at my feet. Blood was oozing out onto the floor. I looked at all the other teams. The other humans and mermaids were able to kill a giant. The elves looked angry, even though there were still five of them left. The mermaids were crying tears of joy. My teammates ran up to Holly and me.

"All remaining teams please go back into your doors so we can prepare for the next round" said the anouncer. We went back through our door, into the room.

"THAT WAS AWESOME!!!" shouted Ruo. "STELLA JUST TOTALLY SLICED OFF THE HEAD OF THAT DWARF!!!"

"Would you stop yelling!!!" complained Boo.

Holly walked up to me. "Hey I guess that was pretty cool. But so much for you wanting to die" she said.

"Survival instinct. Hey, did you notice how their were demon fairies fighting this year?" I asked.

"Did you notice they weren't doing anything? He probably couldn't get away with not entering his own race this year. Either that or they were there to make sure we don't die. But I'm betting on the first option" she explained.

She's right. Nex Umbra probably just put them in there so he wouldn't be disobeying the law. But if they don't do anything, they die. But if they do something, Nex will kill them himself. Really there's no win for them. I kind of feel bad for them, in a way. Maybe I can protect them in the next round. If that will work.

"Hey, Stella?" asked Holly.

"What" I said.

"Maybe in the next round we could team up again" she suggested. I looked at her and nodded. I don't think I should tell her I am going to protect the demon fairies. That would make her mad, and she seems like that kind of person to break the rules and kill her own teammates.

I walked over to the beds and layed down. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.