The Rider's Truth.

Chamber

Unedited.

Chapter Two – Chamber. 

They dragged me kicking and yelling out of that arena. Rage spewed from my bloody mouth, fists curled as I searched for a way to reach that lecherous snake. When the guards came; Arc B demons with small mean eyes and large, thick arms, I even fought back against them, my voice rising in hysteria.

"You fecker!"

I nailed a demon in his horned jaw with my heel, claws piercing the skin of my arms as I strained against their hold. The demon-girl went out with less of a fight, her head bowed as she marched past. She wasn't unconscious and I would have felt a little impressed by her strength if I wasn't so angry. The side of my chest was flaming, but I wanted to get at Acheron who only looked down at me with a smirking smile, enraging me further.

The back of my heels dragged over sand, the along uneven stone. Low walls pressed down on us, the ominous flicker of fire-light as I was dragged past. The stone widened underfoot and the walls opened up as we passed through a great cavern, across a bridge that stood over the Commons.

The Commons, a large pit nearly fifty feet below us, was where the prisoners could socialise every couple of weeks. I had been in it eight times, which didn't bode well for how long I had been locked up here but it was a dangerous place. Prisoners, so starved, would end up killing someone smaller and weaker and others preyed on anyone they thought would give them an easy release. Distantly, I could hear their shouting and hollering, broken only be a sudden scream and then a raucous burst of laughter.

'This place is hell.' I thought desperately. 'It has to be.'

The next cavern we entered was a place I knew too well. It was surprisingly light in this cavern, because of the light coming through the natural window in the ceiling which was really a series of cracks that allowed the light to filter all the way down. Whereas the other place was called the Commons, this was just called the Chamber.

Once we got into it, I was propped back onto my feet, facing the enormous cavern. The putrid smell of sick, faeces and blood was overwhelming here and my empty stomach clenched hard with the urge to retch. One of the demons was loading a man's body onto a cart, his flesh stripped clean but he was still alive, barely clinging to life. He would just be left in that cart to die.

Maybe some of us would eat this evening.

The young demon girl had gone ashen, eyes wide with horror as she eyed the room. I only dug my heels into the ground again, fear filling me at the sight of their stations. Not again. Not again.

The demons in this room loved their jobs – they got high off a man's pleading, or the screams for mercy. I had given up so many times in this room, but just because I begged for them to kill me, didn't mean they did. I gave up and was propped up to let them continue their work. Stubbornness and strength didn't mean shit here – a person was broken again and again; they were mindless animals and it still didn't end.

The chamber was relatively full today, the victims all losers. One girl glanced at me, a flicker of recognition passing over her expression before she pressed herself further back into the spikes protruding from the pallet at her back. Blood splattered down along her naked legs but her eyes never left me.

I did not smell that bad.

I mean, I hadn't showered since they hosed me down when I first came here, but still. I believed that my body was naturally cleaning itself beneath all the dried blood and grime.