10:55 AM -
The daytime battle had finished. However, there'll be another one in the late afternoon.
Children were being brought back to their cages in a cart being pushed by Chef 1, though being pushed by him isn't too common- far from common actually.
All the children were in tiny carrier crate cages stacked ontop of eachother inside the cart.
Seven and Six were right next to each other in their cages. They were on the very bottom of the cart.
"So, you're the almighty Brutus?" Seven asked a bit jokingly, scooting over to the bars of the cage to be closer with Six.
"Ha. No. Brutus isn't my real name, it's Six." She responded.
"Oh wow." He said.
"What?" Six asked. "Is Six a weird name to you?"
"My name is Seven and your name is Six. What are those odds?" Seven said.
"Huh. I would say low but I've met a far share of number-named children in my life," Six said, "So I would say a bit lower than common."
Seven nodded.
The Chef grabbed Six and Seven's cages.
-Six POV-
We were lifted up and put into a barely lit jail cell with multiple other children. Our cages were still slow.
The Chef opened our cages' doors and dumped us out the empty cage back into The Cart. The Chef closed and locked the cell's door before leaving.
The floor was made out of metal and seeing there was no short of heater, the floor was very cold to the touch. The walls were made of metal too and also quite cold.
The cell in here wasn't that big. Around 5 or 6 feet wide and long at best, but it could be worse.
I looked up, there seemed to be a wooden ledge above us. The Ledge looked pretty old and damaged but somewhat sturdy. This seemed to be the only cage that had this. I know this because while we were being pushed in the cart I was able to look at the other cages, none of them had a ledge.
There were three other kids in the cell with us. The three kids came over to me in interest.
One kid was a White Girl wearing a light green cloak. She had long brown hair that was surprisingly not tangled at all for the living conditions. Half of her face was covered by shadows.
Another Kid. He wears a black shirt and pants. over, which he wears a brown traveling raincoat with a hood. He has black hair too.
Last Kid. There was a white kid with a dark blue shirt and dark jeans.
Seven pointed to the white kid with a dark blue shirt and dark jeans. "That's my brother, Eight."
"Half-Brother." Eight corrected him.
Seven pointed to the long haired child wearing a light green cloak. "That's Two."
Seven pointed to the kid with a brown traveling raincoat with a hood. "And that's One."
"You're Brutus. I mean, that's your Gladiator Name. But what's your real name?" Eight asked.
"Six" I said.
I heard creaking coming from the wooden ledge above us. I looked up at the ledge.
I thought there were three children in the room with us, I was wrong. There was one more.
A child emerged from the dark corner of the ledge. It was a child wearing a brown paper bag, darker brown shirt and brown torn pants, and also a torn brown trench coat which was lighter than the shirt and pants.
The child was heavily scarred, all the skin I could see was completely covered in scars.
Seven stood right next to me. "That's Mono." Seven whispered. "He's the oldest child alive in The Maw. He's nearly 13, he has about 3 more months to go until he's officially a teenager."
"Who is this?" Mono asked calmly, leaning forward off the wooden ledge.
"I'm Six." Six introduced herself.
"Gladiator Name?" Mono asked despite already knowing.
"Brutus"
"I'm Mono." He said.
-Third Person-
Mono jumped off the ledge and onto the ground, landing on his feet.
"How did you get so many scars? I know you got them from fights most likely." Six asked.
"Well, I got this wide neck scar when a child attempted to impale me in a weapon round. A weapon round is where The Lady throws down a single weapon, most commonly a Long Dagger. I dodged but he was still able to hit me. Though he didn't impale me which was his goal." Mono explained. "All these other scars came from hits in fights, nothin' special."
"Well actually now that I think of it..." Mono remembered. He lifted up his pants a bit. Showing a concerningly wide scar on his ankle.
"There was a time in a weapon round where this little girl was able to cut my leg while I was moving very quickly. Causing this massive used-to-be-wound you see right here. This had to be my second most painful wound I got. It hurted so much I couldn't move anymore. I never knew how much an ankle wound could possibly hurt. I was accepting death at that point, but for some reason that little girl didn't kill me right there. She instead told me to play dead and once The Hanging Man came to tranquilize her, start moving around and showing obvious signs of life so they'll heal me and take me back to my cage instead of throwing me in the trash."
Mono paused.
"I still wonder why that girl didn't kill me." He added on, a saddness in his voice.
"Why can't you just ask that girl in your next battle?" Six asked.
"Can't, she died before we could get into the same Holding Room or fight."
"What was your worst injury? You said that ankle one was your second most painful." Six asked.
"Oh, there was an incident that happened which caused a fire. They decided to get The Guests out before helping the children which was unsurprising. The fire got into the Arena, the kid I was fighting got crushed and killed by a metal pole that fell because of the fire. The pole had some wooden stuff on it so the pole itself was on fire. The Fire spread onto the sand and soon the whole fighting Arena went up in flames.
I caught on fire- well half my face did. The Janitor came in and poured water on me and the things around me before I died. The Janitor saved my life. But my face... Let's just say it's the reason I wear a paper bag and I'm half blind now." Mono said.
"That's-" Eight was cut off by the sound of their cell door being unlocked. It was The Janitor unlocking it.
The Janitor threw a trash bag into their cell and then closed the door again, locking it.
All the children except Six ran the bag and crouched down next to it.
"Why are you gathering around the bag?" Six asked.
"Oh, our food is in here." Two explained.
Six walked over, standing over them and just watching them.
"Do you think there's actual good bread?" Seven asked.
"No, that's only when Bread Kid wins us food." Mono said.
"Wins us food..?" Two said.
"Steal The Janitor's heart or whatever reason The Janitor does what he does to Bread Kid." He explained.
"Can you guys stop calling me Bread Kid?" Eight begged.
"Never." Two said, smiling. Eight rolled his eyes.
Seven ripped open the bag.
"Two chucks of possibly raw chicken, a mostly empty chicken nugget box, three blueberries, a rotten banana, and a burnt hotdog sausage." Seven said what was in the bag.
"Is that a cockroach under the chicken nugget box and rotten banana?" One pointed out.
"Yes, that's definitely a roach. Hopefully it's clean enough to count as food."
Seven looked up at Six.
"This is the best meal we had this week." Seven said.
"What about when we had actual clean cold ham, Monday?" One reminded him.
"Oh yeah... That was really good ham." Seven remembered.
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-SIX POV-
12:20 AM -
We were now eating the awful food inside the bag. I was eating the burnt sausage since it looked the least disgusting, it tasted horrible. Though it seemed like the children were pretty happy eating this filth you call food.
"How does that taste to you?" I asked One who was eating the rotten banana.
One swallowed a piece of the banana. "Well, it tastes pretty good!" He smiled.
"Really?" I said, not being able to fully believe it.
"Well.. When you first eat food here it'll taste bad. And, this banana does taste bad. But other foods here taste so much worse than this that this banana is actually considered good! So yes, this banana tastes great."
I stared down at my burnt sausage, then at the food the others were eating.
"Do you guys actually enjoy this crap?" I suddenly yelled, causing everyone to stop eating and stare at me.
"What?" One finally said.
"Do you guys enjoy this? Eating this filth, fighting for people's entertainment!" I explained in a more calmer voice.
The Children looked at each other then back at Me.
-THIRD PERSON-
"I can only get sick from this food so many times." One said a bit quietly.
"Have you guys heard the rumor? About the kid that came in last week?" Seven asked.
"No." We all besides Seven said.
"There was a kid last week, recently brought in. He was desperate to escape this place in any ways possible.
When I say desperate, I mean very desperate. He escaped his cell so many times that The Janitor had to isolate him in his own cage and chain him to some pole-like thing. His cage had a nail in the wall.
So after all his other escapes failed, he decided to hang himself on the nail using his chain." Seven explained.
"Oh..." Two said. "That's horrible..."
"That kid is an idiot for even trying to escape." Mono said blatantly. "Even if he did escape, where would he go? There's no world outside The Maw."
"Actuaaly, there is-" Six was cut off by Mono.
"I mean the ocean. There's only an ocean. You'll drown trying to get to the mainland."
"What if we build a raft?" Two suggested.
"The Raft will at some point, break." Mono said. Mono grabbed his food and began walking to the ledge above. Mono threw his food onto the ledge.
"There's no good future on The Maw." Eight said. "We'll all die here in battle at some point."
Mono backed up and ran towards the wall. Mono wall jumped and landed onto his ledge.
"Well, than if death is the last appointment then I guess we'll all just sitting in the waiting room." Mono said as he carried his food into the dark corner of his ledge.
Mono disappeared into the dark corner of the ledge.
"When will we start our escape plan?" Seven asked.
"Tomorrow." Six said.
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1586 Words (Edited chapter : 1828 words)
i DiD iT, i Got iT oUt.