I woke up to the sounds of cheers and laughter from a roaring crowd. They are all sick and twisted. Being able to laugh while watching the helpless slaughter of people.

I was raised in a poor family. My father was a fisherman. Two weeks ago I was out fishing with my father. Once we got back to land we went to the market to sell our catch of the day. One of the guards came to us and stole one of our fish. My father spoke up about it. The guards beat him nearly to death. Then they grabbed me and took me for what they call the “trials.” In reality these trials mean being thrown into the arena to fight for my life against gladiators who have trained most of their lives for this.

I’ve been in and out of consciousness the last two weeks. While I have been imprisoned, constantly being beat doesn’t really give me a clear head. I’ve been held in a stone hut behind a wooden gate. The prison cell they’ve kept me in hasn’t been the greatest of living conditions. The walls are damp and covered in mold and I’m forced to sleep on some hay that I found scattered on the floor. It’s the only way to not sleep on the cold wet ground. Well at least the guards have given me a waste bucket.

Then the guards came in yesterday. I was having trouble standing from the lack of food they gave me. Apparently they thought that kicking me in the side was going to make it easier. I managed to stand back up, even though my ribs felt as if they had been broken and they then threw me into the back of a carriage full of other prisoners. There was nothing worse than the smell of this small enclosed area. It smelt like rotten eggs mixed in with onions then got left in the sun for a week. After a few minutes the cart stopped and we all got moved into a type of dungeon. It was really a small 10 yard by 10 yard stone room with chains on the walls. Every prisoner got chained up then the guards left. No one spoke. We all knew this was most likely the last of our moments. I was so exhausted that I actually managed to fall asleep.

I woke up and realized I was the only person left in the room. I could hear cheers and laughter coming from outside the gate. A hefty looking guard came in and gave me a little bit of oatmeal and a hard biscuit. I shoveled it down my throat so fast I nearly choked. I sat for a few minutes just at the little light that shined in from the gate. The same guard who gave me the food came in again and took off my shackles, moved me towards the gate and then handed me a sword. The sword was in terrible shape, it was bent in the middle so it was about halfway between being straight and looking like the letter L. The guard wouldn’t make eye contact and then walked away. I heard a bell ring then the gate in front of me opened.
I walked out the gate into the arena. It was the first sunlight I’ve seen in what seems like forever. My eyes struggled to make out my surroundings. The arena was a huge circle of light brown dirt with a tint of red, stained from the blood of all the gladiators. It was around 50 yards in diameter with huge 20 feet tall walls surrounding it. At the top of the walls were the seats which sat the audience, mostly highborn people who wanted “entertainment,” as they called it. The crowd booed my entrance. It seemed everyone came here to see me die. A horn blew, and from the opposite side of the arena, a gate opened and a man walked out. He was huge. Wearing a bronze chest plate and holding a standard sword and shield, with a spear strapped to his back. All I had was this small misshapen sword. The crowd roared with cheers as soon as they saw their champion. He was smiling and waving to the crowd. I was in this arena to fight for my life. He was in it for glory and gold.

I then heard a bell, and before I could even think the gladiator quickly grabbed his spear and threw it at me. I managed to side step it at the last moment. That near death experience really made me start to focus. The gladiator started charging me. It scared the hell out of me so I started running away. The crowd was constantly booing. I had done a whole lap around the arena and the man was catching up to me. Screw it, I thought, if it’s a fight he wants it’s a fight he will get. I turned and charged at him flailing my sword around. Once I got within range of him he lifted his foot up and kicked me right in the chest. I flew back around three feet and slammed my head on the ground, giving me an earsplitting headache. I kept trying to stand up only to fall back down in a wave of dizziness. I looked up to see the man walking around me looking at the crowd with his hands in the air. He’s making a joke out of killing me. That pissed me off an incredible amount. As soon as I could see straight again, I got up on one knee and swung my sword horizontally trying to cut his leg off. It would have worked if my sword wasn’t so bent. All that I managed to actual do was barely cut his calf. The gladiator turned around with an angry glare in his eyes. I instantly got up to see him swing his sword at me in an overhead arc. I threw up my sword blocking the attack. My hand felt the vibrations making me nearly drop the sword. The man kept swinging over and over again. I grabbed my sword with both hands and blocked all the blows to the best of my ability. Sparks were constantly flying towards my face from the contact of the two metals, nearly blinding me. I was getting pushed back towards my own gate. The man took his sword back and thrust it at me, I was quick thinking enough to know I couldn’t block it with my sword so I jumped back. When I landed my foot hit a small hole in the ground making me twist my ankle and fall on my back, throwing my sword back a few yards. The man stood over me with his sword raised. I looked around for anything that could save me. And then I saw it. My one and only chance. I rolled to the right just as the gladiator thrust his sword into the ground I had currently been laying on. I reached out and grabbed the spear that had been stuck in the ground from when the gladiator had thrown it at me. I quickly lifted myself up on my left side with the spear in my right hand, and thrust it right in his armpit, the one place his chest plate did not cover. He tumbled in front of me, lying dead on the ground. His eyes wide open looking right at me. Within a span of 3 seconds, the crowd changed from loud and excited to small whispers.

Guards quickly flooded the arena. Around eight of them surrounded me, each holding a spear pointed at my mid-section. The crowd was still silent. Then the bell rung, three different times. The next thing I knew, I was face first in the dirt losing consciousness quickly.

I woke up in an actual bed. I hazily lifted my head and looked around. I was in a small luxurious room. Red curtains hung across every wall, with a magnificent multicolored bed right in the middle, taking up most of the room. This seemed like heaven compared to all that I’ve been in the past few weeks. After laying there for what seems like hours, I heard footsteps coming up to my door. The door opened. I didn’t know what to expect, so I acted like I was still asleep.


“Ah, there is no reason to act asleep,” a man told me in a soft tone with an accent that I have never heard of.

I looked over at him. He was a short muscular man. He was bald, had a very thick black beard that was around an inch or two long. He also had scars all over his arms and one going diagonally across his whole face. He was wearing quite expensive looking clothes.

“Who… who are you?” I asked him.

“My name is Lucius Druses. I understand you have a lot of questions, and I am sure that over time they will be answered. As of now, all you need to know is that I saw your so called trial and I threw in some favors and had you brought to me after I saw you beat a seasoned gladiator. It definitely wasn’t pretty, but a win is still a win,” He chuckled.

“So, you’re here to make me a gladiator?” I asked

“Indeed I am,” Lucius explained, “but for now you should get some fuel into your system. The cook just served breakfast. There is a lot of food on the table for you to enjoy.”

Lucius turned around and walked out the door. I threw the blankets off of me and tried to sit up. My vision instantly got extremely blurry, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the lack of food or from the blow that I received to the back of my head. I tossed my legs over the side of the bed and stood up, realizing my body was so much sorer then it should have been. I was still in the same clothes I had on from when I was taken to the arena. I could smell food coming from the hallway and followed it out.

I walked down the stone hallway and into the dining area. The first sight in this room was incredible. The dining table was about 30 feet long and had tons of different food covering the whole thing. Lucius and another man were sitting in the middle talking over the table to each other. The man was huge, well over six feet tall and built like a mountain. He only wore tight shorts, exposing all of his muscles which were covered in scars. I grabbed a plate and started piling food onto it then went to go sit by them.

“This is Felix, he is my current champion in the arena,” Lucius explained to me as soon as I sat down.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you,” I said to him.

“Oh so you are the little prisoner who actually survived a trial?” Felix chuckled loudly. “I saw your match, and I would say it was just luck that kept you alive.”

I looked down at my food. “Yeah I think so too,” I said shyly.

“Well then it’s a good thing Lucius is here to train you then!” Felix boomed. “He could make a cold blooded killer out of a house cat! Tonight I have my last match before I retire, come watch and maybe you could learn a thing or two.

“He will certainly be there,” Lucius told Felix.

“Good!” Felix boomed. Felix then grabbed a sausage and threw the whole thing into his mouth. He chewed only twice then swallowed. Apparently something went wrong because his hand immediately flew to his throat. His eyes bulged wide open and he started gagging.

“Oh god he is choking!” I exclaimed. Lucius rushed behind Felix and kept smacking him as hard as possible on the back. It wasn’t helping, Felix was suffocating and there was nothing we could do to save him. He fell back out of his chair and onto the ground, struggled for about 5 seconds, then laid there motionless with a blank expression on his face. Lucius stood above him looking stunned.

“Damn it!” Lucius screamed. “Now what the hell am I going to do?” He obviously didn’t actually care for Felix as a person, just as a weapon for him to use in the arena. He then looked directly at me. “Well it seems like I won’t be training you at all. You’re going into the arena tomorrow in place of Felix. Eat up, it will most likely be your last meal.” He then walked out of the dining area. I stood there staring at Felix. This wasn’t at all what I had expected. How could things turn so poorly so quickly? I looked to my plate of food but wasn’t feeling at all hungry anymore.

I went back to the room I awoke in and laid down on the bed. There is no way I can do this, I thought. If I go into that arena tomorrow I will die for sure. I started coming up with a plan to get out nearly immediately. I thought the best chance was to try the front door. I got out of bed and tried to leave the room. When I turned the door handle I found out that it was locked. I looked around for something to break the door down but there was nothing that I could see. I realized that the legs on the bed were made of wood that wasn’t very thick. I don’t think I could use it to break down the door but I could definitely use it as a weapon. I put my foot up about a foot on the wood. I sat on my butt, reached down and gripped the leg really tight. I then used the strength my incredibly sore body could muster and snapped the leg off. All I had to do now was find a way to get the door open.

A thought pop into my head. I stood up and just started slamming the wood against the door trying to make as much noise as possible. I heard heavy footsteps running down the hall.

“Shut up! Before I shut you up myself!” Lucius screamed from outside the door. I didn’t stop and wasn’t planning on it. I then heard a key enter the lock so I took a step right beside the door and got my small wood stick ready. As soon as the door opened up I swung with all my might and smashed Lucius right in the face. He fell and I climbed on top of him. I kept swinging over and over. He must have been dead by the fifth swing but just in case I swung fifty more. I ran down the hall and went out the front door. I looked around and realized I was only about a mile away from my home. I ran the whole distance. Once I got close I saw my father cleaning the boat by our hut. I yelled his name as loud as I could. He looked up and saw me then he instantly bursted into tears. It was strange to see my father so emotional. I ran into his arms and hugged him. I quickly told him about what had all happened and explained to him that we had to leave.

“Do not worry son, you did what had to be done,” my father told me. We then both boarded our small boat and cast off into sea to try and find a distant city to survive in.