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I blocked a fist coming towards my face. The hell? I thought.

Wait, WAIT! I'm in the middle of a freaking fight!

I blocked the punch and uppercut the jaw with my left, like I did reflexively in practice.

She was at my side, holding her own as well.

My opponent fell backward from my uppercut, so I kicked her shin and held her foot to help her meet the floor. Her head didn't hit first, but got enough force to knock her out. I as standing slightly behind the other opponent. She was out powering my roommate. I crouched down and attacked her legs, completely to her surprise. My roommate had her arm locked so she fell down as well, but kicked on the way down.

"VICTORY!"  rang the orator.

"Huh?" I asked stupidly, then screamed out in pain. The physical aftermath of basically fighting for my life hit me. My hands especially hurt.

"Bloody fucking hell!" - and another punch to the face.

"Language" my guard said was my offense, then escorted us back to our room.

Back in our room and out of earshot of an guards : "Uh what the hell happened?"

"You saved my ass, and your's too technically" she responded

"I just saw a fist in my face and reacted! Lat thing I remember before that is being some lean-to putting tears on your shirt."

"Well," she said nonchalantly "you missed a lot then. We were called to fight, like, an hour later. You were a blubbering mess, then you were beating the shit out of some poor soul, then, yeah, we're at about now." She pulled two somethings from her pocket, lit one on fire, and put it to her mouth.

"What's that?" 

"What? How do they NOT have cigarettes, even in The Cities" she stressed the last two words.

"There it is again. You keep saying 'Cities' or 'The Cities' like they're special"

"Potato, I'm not the one to tell you all the juicy info. You probably will never find out, and you don't want to. It ruins, that type of info I mean"

"No!" I threw sharply.

She shifted on her bed and gave me a looked that was equally condescending, concerned, and stern. "I would know. I don't want to be the person to tell you. The world is cruel, but it doesn't need my help to manipulate people"

I didn't respond to that- I couldn't. Who could? I instead climbed into my bottom bunk and silently fumed.

The anger eventually started to wear off, and I even considered apologizing to my roommate. I propped myself up on the bed and let out a whimper of pain.

"Jesus Christ are you that injured?"

"...maybe..."

"It'll feel better in the morning"

"I hope so"

"No, I lied. It'll actually probably feel a hell of a lot worse when you wake up. It'll feel better as you move though, or smoke a cigarette"

I wasn't even mad at that moment, I was just annoyed, and most importantly, sleepy.

"Oh, and sleep will make it feel better, y'know, cos ya can't feel when you're asleep"

"I'll keep that in mind"

"Sweet dreams Potato"

And I actually slept pretty decently, considering I was basically in a prison camp.

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