The Games Part 2

Here’s the second part of the games. Enjoy. I probably won’t post again until Friday. Two midterms and a CS assignment due, so I’ll see you then. You can find the first part here.

Chapter 2
Unto The Breach

What have I landed myself in? The thought was never far from my mind as Mr. Wesley Savick, also known as Lee, innocently helped me to my feet as if we had been long time acquaintances. The thought of slicing my throat was instantly forgotten. I wanted to look into his mind again but was frightened to think of what other gruesome things would be lurking there making the process almost impossible for me. One does not willingly place pain on themselves. Well, maybe not everyone, but I don’t willingly endure pain if I can help it.

Lee had already started walking in the direction of the saloon I had pointed to earlier. I began questioning whether I should follow or make a dash for it when he turned around and made a short whistling sound like he was calling a dog. What else could I do? I tucked my metaphorical tail between my legs and followed.

The night was becoming cold and Lee’s shoulder seemed to be the point of origin. He didn’t speak to me as we walked and I felt like an animal who wasn’t allowed to speak unless spoken too. I considered my poor dead mother and what she would think of her son who had just been forcefully taken into slavery in a matter of seconds by a well buy amoxil without prescription dressed man from another world. Scratch that, I’m sure she wouldn’t be terribly surprised. Slavery wasn’t uncommon in Cadous. With so many prisoners of war and no Intergalactic Rules of War Consulate anymore the Empire did whatever it pleased. As for rights of the Empire’s citizens, I had learned long ago that all the Empire did was dazzle with cheap entertainment; as long as everybody wasn’t bored and fed they had too much to lose to cause a ruckus. When one did cause a ruckus, they were only one and quickly silenced. Hence when slavery was re-adopted, no one made a fuss. Well they didn’t make a fuss for long I should say.

Contemplating cheap acomplia the bleakness of my future was rather discouraging. I had ten more reasons to feel sorry for myself since going on the walk, but these ones felt more real and present than some hypothetical degeneration of the empire. Even my grades at the University felt much further away when compared to the situation I was in now. I looked at Lee’s big back sporting the coat of an animal that had died in a miserable way and suddenly felt sympathy for the poor thing. The image of him skinning the thing alive with his bare hands popped into my head and I couldn’t dismiss it as ridiculous.

“What’s your name telepath?” my new order cheap pharm owner asked.

“Marcus… Marcus Doux.” His slave replied. I’m his slave.

“Marcus will do.” He confirmed with himself. We were at the saloon, he must have felt that calling me telepath would have warranted unwanted questions. He was right. I hadn’t realized that telepathy was an oddity when I was a child assuming that everyone must possess the skill. I found it strange when my mother couldn’t relate to my father when I was a child. Or that she chose to ignore his cheating on her with the family slave. When I told my mother about it she slapped me, told me not to tell lies, and sent me to my father who would punish me. Despite this one sided view they weren’t bad parents. My father very much loved my mother, but he also loved Bethany the house slave. He was very conflicted in his head. Needless to say I kept the power a secret and used it when it suited me. Apparently tonight being able to read a murderer’s mind had saved my life, just not in the way I had imagined.

Lee pushed his way into the saloon. The crowd was a ruff looking sort. There were the normal down on my luck looking persons but there were also the people who loved to drink and gamble, I heard a “perfect” emitted from Lee’s mouth as he walked up to the barkeeper.

“Can I place a bet on the Games?” He inquired.

The barkeeper did his best to look very intently on the glass he was polishing while casually passing a stack of papers in Lee’s direction. I inched up behind him convincing myself that I wasn’t actually curious about who was competing.

The Games posters were laid out with a picture of the contestant at the top with the person’s name or persona listed underneath. Sometimes there was a short description, but most of the time the picture said it all with their weapons so handsomely adorning the picture with them. I had seen them many times before as the Games were an annual event. Every year people from around the universe gathered in Cadous to either fight in the games or watch. Initially it had been a friendly competition to keep the Empire’s fighters in shape and ready for future wars. Now the Games were simply humans butchering each other for the delights of the crowd. Sometimes slaves would be entered while others would enter of their own free will to change their station in life as the winner would be awarded substantial sums of power and money. Some of the entrants just loved murdering, and murdering legally was something that you could only find in Cadous. Not only was killing the contestants, or Death Lords, legal, but the Death Lords themselves were not held responsible for the destruction of persons or property within the city of Cadous. All expenses paid by the empire, or should I say the taxes and spoils of war. The people of Cadous signed their lives away to stave off the constant boredom of peace. Of course this meant that the people in Cadous could kill the Death Lords as well, but most of the people who signed up for the Games were trained killers through and through.

The first few posters pictured the usual aliens sporting guns and one man with tentacles coming from his back when low and behold Wesley Savick smiled winningly back from the stack of Death Lords.

“You’re a Death Lord.” I gasped suddenly feeling very dead.

Lee flashed his insane smile, but apparently my comment alerted the barkeeper who’s eyes went wide the glass he had been polishing long forgotten. He looked to the back corner of the room where no light shown. I followed his gaze and saw a human sitting there, well mostly Human. He sat composed with a brown hood covering his face much like the person on the poster that Wesley Savick had just picked up.

The alien wasn’t huge. Blades extended from the bones on his forearms and his brown sweatshirts sleeves had been meticulously cut off. He had tattoos extending down both his right and left arms with archaic symbols that meant nothing to me, although I assumed he had little idea what they meant either. He stood up and cracked his fingers.

“Did I hear there was another Death Lord about to die here?” The man’s low hissing voice silenced the room.

Everyone in the saloon panicked. The barkeeper ducked below the bar and everyone at the tables made a mad dash for the exits. I was trying to follow suit but Wesley Savick had already grabbed my collar looking closely at the Games poster of the man who was standing in front of him.

“Tell me Marcus, what’s this man thinking?” Lee’s calm voice asked.

I desperately wanting to escape wanted nothing to do with reading the mind of another killer, but the look in Lee’s eye told me if I didn’t do exactly as he said I wouldn’t need telepathy to know what a killer was thinking.

I calmed my frightened mind just enough to reach out to the man in the brown hooded sweatshirt. The man went by the name of Z according to the poster.

Z apparently was not calm either, his mind was agitated and he did not like being ignored. The word’s he was thinking were obscene and he wanted very much to beat the smug look off of Lee’s face with the long metal pipe he was carrying. He had done it so many times before to others he had already imagined what Lee would look like with a bashed in head. I lost the connection.

“He’s thinking he would very much like to beat that smug look off of your face with a pipe.” I spat out regaining my composure.

I certainly felt like I had said the obvious when Z pulled out a pipe and started shouting things like “I’m gonna kill ya, ya…” and “there won’ be enough lef’ of ya fer yer mama to cry ova.”

Lee stared on calmly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol. Z seeing the metal said several explicit words very loudly and ran full speed at Lee with the pipe raised above his head.

Lee who had finished pulling out the pistol shot Z in the hood. Then he shot him in the chest twice. order online pills Z fell to the ground. The insane smile and joyful eyes that Lee had shown as he pinned me to the ground returned as he fired the rest of the clip into the man formerly known as Z. I was horrified and cowered under a table. This was the first time I had seen anyone die and Lee did it so calmly with such a joyful expression on his face that I felt like throwing up. Blood splattered on my cheek to the sound of another gun shot and I did throw up right under the table that I cowered under and saw to my amazement when I looked up the entire populace of the bar watching from the windows as Lee fired his last bullets into Z. Then they cheered, they ampicillin online actually cheered for the murder that happened before them. At first it was just a little hoorah until it became a full throated roar of approval. I was sick again all over the floor. I looked at my hands which had been supporting me a few seconds ago and saw them covered in blood. I couldn’t think anything, I simply stared. I stared at my hands until Lee had put his pistol away and had murmured something under his breath.

The crowd returned to the bar feeling as if the danger had passed and I noticed for the first time the flying camera that had captured the brief fight. After Lee had finished the camera quickly zipped out of the room without making a sound.

The barkeeper stood back up from behind the bar having seen the whole fight take place on the holographic projection in the corner and began polishing his glass again. I shakily stood up from the position I had assumed from underneath the table and considered once again running away from the madman who had conquered me. One quick glance at Z’s body and the sudden urge to be sick again convinced me it would be far better to try not to die for as long as I could. Lee feeling that his task had been accomplished went back to surveying the Games posters as if he had just taken out the trash his pistol already reloaded and in his pocket. I waited patiently for him to finish, trying very hard to not look as cleaners of the Empire walked in put Z on a floating slab and quickly whisked him away.

Z died pathetically and the men in the bar whispered excitedly of being front row spectators so early in the Games. Welcome to Cadous.