Eliuteria

Chapter 1

Human beings are vile, nasty creatures.

Blood thirsty.

Evil by their very nature.

That is was we were told. By them, the Morri.

Humans relished for millennia in systematically destroying one another. Our innate yearning for violence lead to not only the destruction of ourselves, but of our planet.

Our home.

Our planet was left in ruins, our species nearly extinct, so we left. Those who survived dreamed of finding a new planet, a safe haven where we could start over. Our simple technology wasn't designed well enough to reach the destination and all that survived of the human race was adrift in space. Destined to die alone in the emptiness of the universe. It was luck that the Morrí heard the distress signal broadcasting. It was altruism that they came to our aid. It was their generosity that provided a home and a life for the remaining humans.

They were our saviors. Without the Morrí, the last of humankind would have perished along with a broken vessel.

That, at least, was the version of history we were taught. Humans had to earn their place among the Morrí. Humans must prove themselves. Humans are not to be trusted due to our volatile nature. Humans owed their very existence to their Morrí superiors.

I believed it.

For years my father tried to teach me differently, but I never listened. I knew the Morri to be our saviors and though I could never pinpoint exactly what it was that made me innately evil, I knew it to be true.

That was before my world was ripped apart and I saw the brutal truth.

Watching the battles play out in the arena was a reminder that it was not humans who relished in unnecessary blood being spilled. The stadium roared with the sounds of cheers but it was not my people who stomped and clapped and shouted in the stands. The cheers were deafening and the bench I sat on vibrated from the stomps and claps, but my section—the human section, remained silent.

They watched because they enjoyed it. We watched because we had to.

I was not evil.

Stretching my back from side to side, I shifted around in a futile attempt to find a more comfortable position on the long metal plank I shared with a dozen others. My shoulders pressed against those of the girls sitting on either side of me and I drew them into myself trying to create more space between us, but it was useless. A pair of knobby knees pressed further into my back and I whipped around, glaring at the older man behind me until he moved his legs to make space for me.

My eyes wandered across the arena to the Morrí who weren't preoccupied in the least with their sub-par stadium seating. Most of them were on their feet cheering and straining to get a better view. Perhaps, if I had been a part of that crowd, I would care less about my discomfort and more about the fun of the day.

If it had been our proeliet, our warrior, winning the battles would humans stand and cheer on our champion as he murdered challengers?

It wasn't a question I liked to think of too much, and I quickly pushed it from my thoughts. It didn't matter anyway. Humans would never win.

Battles, they called them, but slaughter would have been a more appropriate name for what we were forced to bear witness to each cycle.

The spectacle made my stomach turn. I faced forward and watched the humans sitting in the rows below me so that I did not have to see the one being ripped apart in the arena. A man shifted around the same way I had, trying to get comfortable. Another kept her eyes cast down at her lap instead of on the gruesome scene. Next to me Analiese, who had only just arrived in Aurael a few days prior, wiped silent tears from her cheeks. It was her first time attending the battles.