101 Ways to Skin a Hoodie

Chapter 3

"Sammy?"

"BEN?" I shoot up like a rocket. My face stops inches away from Aruetta's. She starts back. We're frozen there for a moment, then I scoot back a bit.

"Don't call me that again." I wipe my eyes, brushing sleep among other things away, "Please."

"...Ok. It's meal time. Thought I'd let you know." Aruetta stands up, backing away from me.

"Thanks. Sorry." I get up as well, and once my eyes fully adjust to the light again, I can see that a ladder has descended from the ceiling, which has opened up again. Ah. I was wondering how that would work.

I cross to it, and start climbing behind Aruetta. Once she's up she pulls me up the rest of the way. The once featureless hallway is now full of holes in its floor, and other inmates are climbing out of them as the guards from earlier patrol up and down the hall. Some of the prisoners are looking at me, and I swear I see another one mouth "fresh meat."

I gulp.

"Just stick with me. No one here really likes the aliens, but since they make us fight anyway not many of them are too keen on making friends." Aruetta spouts another helpful tip, before turning away from the emerging convicts and marching through what once was the end of the hall. Now it's opened up into another room. The shifting architecture in this place is kind of frustrating to get used to.

Speaking of architecture, the room I step into is massive. The ceiling is several stories up and it's lined with platforms that look like spectator seats. To back up this theory there are already some aliens perched on a few of them. Looking down, the right half of the room is the cafeteria. Pretty standard stuff. There's a food line that the inmates systematically fall into, and tables near the center of the room.

The left side is where things get interesting. This is where the fighting ring is. The ring is about the size of an average boxing ring, but squared, and instead of having rope boundaries it has chain link fences to separate the combatants from the human spectators.

Aruetta grabs my hand, pulling me into the lunch line. She chastises me to not hold up the crowd by standing around stupidly, as it's likely to get me beat. We shuffle along, and the lunch lady grunts at me, which I guess is an indication for me to order.

The choices are bountiful, by which I mean there are a number of perplexing sludges, all with different viscosities and colors. Not having a clue what's actually in the stuff, I point at the one that Aruetta had gotten, and some is slopped onto a tray in front of my face. It makes a gloop sound as it hits the plastic. I gag and take the tray before locating Aruetta, who had already taken a seat.

"What the hell is this stuff?" I ask, letting a spoonful of it ooze back onto the tray.

"Beef stew."

...

"Right."

I'm too hungry to not indulge, so I take another spoonful and put it in my mouth this time. It... doesn't really taste like anything, good or bad. There's some hints off beef here and there, but nothing that would actually qualify as beef stew. If anything it's actually the texture that makes me nauseous, but I'll leave that up to your imagination.

We awkwardly eat in silence for a while, and then I decided to pop another question, as it seems like that's the only way we have good conversation; "So, how do they decide who fights?"

"It's usually random. But don't be surprised if you're up first today. Whenever we get a new inmate they usually put them against a decent fighter, it's kind of a hazing ritual. Oh, and you don't have to kill them if you don't want to, but they'll most likely be trying to kill you. Same as up top, if you help provide food, then you get rewarded. For example, the guards are some of the top fighters here, and they only got that position when it was determined that no one else here could beat them. Luckily for them they were before my time."