Clanging metal woke her up, as it did every morning. After 80 years, she was used to it. She shifted in her cage, the metal cuffs on her ankles and wrists dragging along the concrete floor as she sat up. To her left, Trystan was already awake and making sure that the others were okay. To her right, Silas was waking up, as she was. It was another day of hell.
The Captain walked in, his cane tapping ominously on the ground as he took each step. His chapped lips were pulled into a crooked smile exposing his yellow teeth. Everyone in the cages that lined each wall backed away in fear, the clanking of the chains growing as more and more people moved. The Captain's smile only grew with the clanking. Behind him was his second in command, only know to the prisoners as Hunter. He was tall and dark. He was usually in the shadows waiting for orders.
"Alright slaves, time for work. You all know what you have to do." The Captain looked straight at Amari with a sinister smirk as he said this.
Amari looked down at her cracked feet. She couldn't look the Captain in the eye anymore. When she first arrived at the camp, she was full of fight. She would talk back, refuse to complete the "tasks" that she was given, and tried to figure out how to escape. She was very quickly "taught" the rules of the camp. Her back and arms showed the evidence of that. The thin white, ratty shirt that she had for clothes did nothing to hide the raised lines.
As the rest of the prisoners were let out of their cages to get to their daily tasks, Amari was yanked from her cage by Hunter and dragged the opposite way. She was the only one of her kind at in the camp, though she knew from others talking that there were more shifters in other camps. Because of who she was, her daily task was to fight in the arena. The arena was a place where other camp leaders would bring their best fighters to fight to the death for money. Amari was the best. She never lost.
Hunter threw her in to the holding cell that opened into the arena. "Shift."
With more difficulty than there should have been, Amari shifted. Her once pure white fur was now matted and darkened with dirt and old blood. Where it once felt light and airy, it now felt heavy and sticky. There were scars running all over her body. A particularly pronounced one was down her right flank starting at her spine and ending almost at her feet. It was four deep lines given to her from another Cat shifter, this one a lioness. Amari barely made it out of that fight alive.
The loud thud of the main door closing brought Amari out of her thoughts. She looked across the arena out of the metal bars and saw a black panther stalking back and forth across their cell.
"Let the fight commence!" A loud voice echoed and the crowd roared with applause.
Then the doors to the cells rose and Amari darted forward with a snarl.