The Colosseum

Revelations

Kova

I don't quite know what I expected to feel as I drove my knife deep into the depths of Josephine's reptilian eye. In the frenzied moment, I know I was just...angry. All I could see were shades of red, with my stomach burning a white-hot hole big enough to swallow my shaking heart. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that was I was doing was low and cowardly – attacking someone in their sleep. But experiences in how I lived my life before have taught me that anything done for survival is neither good nor bad; just a primal instinct. Still, when I felt the tip of Ten's pocketknife puncture her most vulnerable spot, I almost felt happy. The surge of dopamine-induced adrenaline startled me more than my actions, and I felt the door to a dark path open in my mind.

Josephine hissed and bucked in her bed, clawing at the blade that I pushed further and further into her socket before she finally let out a shriek. Alerting the entire dorm hall with that agonizing wail, I realize now would be an ideal time to split. I don't know why, exactly. I didn't commit a crime, and it isn't like Josephine had a gang of followers who would loathe me for this. Perhaps it's because it doesn't matter if they liked or despised Josephine – anything done this way would upset any fighter living beneath the arena.

Ripping my the stout knife out of her face, Josephine writhes and clutches her damaged socket, which pours blood out like a hose. Disoriented, she rolls off her bed, landing on the floor with an echoing thud. Running away with a dragging leg, I make it to the doorframe when the lights are flipped on. Already, hordes of women crowd around Josephine, surveying the damage before popping their heads up to locate the violator.

Hurrying my pace, I shuffle into the hallway, where Ten is already up and wide-eyed. "What's going on?" he urges at my appearance. I'm sure of how I look: wild, untamed, manic. His silvery eyes scan over my body, stopping at the bloodied knife and hand. "What did you do?" Ten, who takes anything as it comes, grows very grim and serious, as if he won't take this. "Kova..."

Hellishly, Josephine lets out a roar. "You son of a bitch! Where are you?" Stumbling into the hall, crimson blood spewing between the fingers that attempt to disguise her injury, Josephine emerges.

Ten and I glance at her, then meet each other's eyes. Revile and revulsion pulsate beneath his irises. He looks at me as if I'm someone else, and if we're being honest, I feel like someone else. Or, perhaps, have I been this person all along and I never had the chance to discover it? "You stabbed her eye?" He screeches the obvious, shame plastered all over the sharp angles of his face. "Who would do that to someone?" Ten grips me by my shoulders, shaking me like a ragdoll. "What's wrong with you? That's someone's eye! That's they're vision!"

"What about my knee? That's my mobility!" I shout back, slapping his arms off mine.

"It doesn't matter Ez-!" he fumbles, the wrong name slipping from his lips. Ez...Ezra? For someone who claims to have never met the redhaired king, he sure knows some personal information. "You stooped too low this time."

I want to scream in his face, asking him why it matters so much to him. Of all the lives he's taken in the arena, plus the fight where he nearly killed Ajax on Gladiator Hill, he shouldn't be one to point fingers. But cutting me short is the advance of Josephine. Wildly, she swings at me, but her depth-perception is off and she misses by a mile. Hobbling away – as one cripple escaping another – I stomp against the open hall and trip through the cafeteria. Staring me down like I'm actively turning into an alien, the cooks gawk as I make my way into the tunnels.

Behind me, pained screams of rage and suffering reverberate against the metallic walls. Josephine is getting closer. Raggedly breathing, I continue. I don't know how much longer my body has to scrape against rock bottom until I can finally take a breath. I'm surprised I haven't just collapsed into dust and bones yet.