Chapter 1: The Nursery
The air in the nursery is thick with tension. The walls around me are grey and cement. A pale white light flickers on the ceiling above, drawing in insects. The floor is also cement and is hard and dirt. The only door to the room is metal, and it is locked.
I sit in the nursery with five others my age, but by no means are we infants. We’re just not old enough; not old enough to enter the ring.
I was brought to this place shortly after my birth. A product of a pair of respectable Fighters, I never had the opportunity to get to know my mother and father. If they aren’t graduated from fighting by now, they’re likely dead. My caregiver, along with the many others in this room, is a dainty woman with an hourglass figure and curly brown hair. Each lock of hair looks like a corkscrew that ends at her chin and stacks on top of another just like it. It causes her hair to poof outward like a great, brown bush. She has a heart-shaped face with hazel eyes and a pixy-like nose. Her lips are full and always smiling, but she smiles in the way that makes men’s skin crawl. I have never known her true name, but I’ve always called her B.
I don’t have a name. I am female, I know that much, and I also know that my time in the nursery is almost over. I am one of the oldest; one of six. My hair is long and tangled, because it has never been brushed or cut. My skin is pale, because it has never seen a single ray of the sun. The nails on my hands are uneven from being shortened by scraping them against the cement walls and floors of the nursery. I’ve worn the same outfit—a white t-shirt and denim shorts—since I was four. The clothing is dirty.
The people around me are in no better condition than I am. We’re all dirty from lack of bathing. We’re all thin from lack of feedings. We all dread the day we’re torn from the safety of this filthy place and are pushed into the ring.
Beyond our door lies the unknown. Everyone who has ever left through that door has never returned. Beyond that door lies another, which leads into a room that belongs to our master’s Fighters. We all become one after our thirteenth birthday, and it’s on that day our master get his first look at us and he decides which he wants to keep and which he wants to sell to other masters.
Fighters are lucky to live to see their twentieth birthday; for once they leave the nursery they face the harsh, cruel rules and laws of the ring. When a Fighter reaches their thirtieth birthday, they graduate the world of fighting and live luxurious lives alongside their masters.
The ring is where the Fighters fight. The law is simple: if a Fighter wins, they move up in levels that define their fighting experience; level one being the lowest, level one hundred being the highest. If a Fighter loses, they die fighting. If a Fighter refuses to fight, they are taken down as many levels as their master sees fit, they’re beaten, or they could be killed. There’s no room for criers in the ring. Criers die. Fighters fight. Victors win.
Our district is one of six secret districts that are involved in human fighting. A handful of Fighter—usually five or six—from each district is selected each week to compete in a fight. If a Fighter from District 1 goes into the ring, he or she is up against an opponent from District 2. If that Fighter wins, he or she moves on to fight an opponent from District 3, and so on until they win or die. In the end there is usually one winner unless more than on Fighter from the same district wins. Then the remaining Fighters gain a level in experience and whatever wounds they’ve suffered are treated.
Whatever world that exists beyond this has only been told to me in stories. I’ve known no other life.
On the day of my thirteenth birthday the sound of the nursery door opening makes all of our heads turn. The six of us who have reached that special age knows what this means; the younger members of the nursery only hope it’s their next meal.
A man dressed all in black appears with choke chains and leashes in his hands. I know what this means, as I have seen it happen to others many times before.
I don’t fight or fuss as the man wraps a choke chain around my neck and secures to the rings at the end with the clip of the leash. Some of the others aren’t so smart as to just let things happen. They thrash in the man’s grip. They claw and bite the hand that holds the choke chains and leashes, but that’s all I see as my leash is given to B and she begins leading me out the door. The choke chain hurts when I resist, so I don’t fight any more than the occasional glimpse over my shoulder. I know I’ll nave see that old nursery again. My time of peace of mind and being carefree was over. From here is where my journey begins.
I am a Fighter, now.
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