Songbird

Chapter 1 ~ Songbird

Three figures stood outside along the dark street, drawing their hoodies tighter against their bodies as the cold wind grew suddenly stronger. A single car was in front of them, the driver waiting for something.

"Hurry up and pay the man, Devin!" said one of the guys standing there, his shaggy blonde hair falling around his face in waves.

The one who just spoke shot an annoyed look at the one named Devin, who fumbled with his wallet and said in his nervous higher-pitched voice, "Sorry, sorry!"

"Lay off him, would ya," spoke up the third. His head was down against the cold, but he was not shivering like the others. His body was still, calm, preparing for what was to come. Under his hood, the young man's dark eyes glanced up and down the streets, making sure nothing was out of place.

The one named Devin finally paid the Uber driver, who sped off in a rush. "I couldn't find my quarter! I was trying to give him exact change," Devin tried to explain to the eye rolls of the one who had impatiently told him to hurry.

The third was already briskly walking in the direction of a nearby pub. The other two realized this a few steps too late, and they hurried to catch up.

Instead of heading to the small pub, the third turned into the alley next to it. He went straight to a ladder that went under the street and climbed down as if he did this every day. The other two followed.

The hole opened to an underground subway with dim blue lights flickering along the cold metal ceiling, the wind not reaching these depths but the cold seeming oddly more chilling. The three young men walked along the tracks for a bit before crossing (after looking out first for a subway, of course) to the landing on the other side. They got to a heavy steel door with a closed slit near the top.

The third one who had been leading the other two all this time tapped twice on the door. The slit opened after a second. The sound of shouting and cheering echoed from inside.

"What's the pass– Oh, is that you, Songbird?"

"Who else?"

"Right–"

The slit closed, and the door opened. Light and noise greeted the three as they entered.

It was quite a large room, and it was full of people. Concrete, with pipes running along the ceiling and occasionally dripping water, the room was cold and wet. A sign that read "The Pit" was hanging on the back wall. People crowded around three makeshift arenas, each made of metal crowd-control barricades that formed a rough octagon shape. There were two men in each of the three octagons, and they were all fighting and punching and wrestling each other. A line of tables along the left side of the room was attracting a crowd, too. A sign above them read "Bets."

It was a fight club.

The third man made his way through the crowd like he knew where he was going.

Because he did.

Head down, hood up, eyes sweeping the room. He got to a door at the very back of the room and went through, shutting it behind his friends once they too had entered the smaller room. Inside were a few benches, some lockers, and clothes strewn about. It smelled like a mix of mold and sweat, and it was even colder in here than outside. There were some red stains on the ground in places; probably blood. Who knows.

The man had on a black mask that covered his mouth and nose so that only his dark eyes were showing. He put down his hood, ran his hands through his dark brown hair a few times, and then raised his hood again.

"How do I look?" he asked, spreading out his arms and pretending to pose like a ballerina.

"Menacing," said his blonde friend with another eye roll, while his friend Devin laughed.