You stupid, idiot.

The logical, sane half of my brain calls me out as I step down the old mud-cracked path into the woods. I lasted an entire thirty seconds on my quest to get to Ivan before I turned around, abandoning my bag by the highway and stepping lightly over damp earth, heading toward the raider base. The logical half of my mind still battles the idiot half. By all rights, logic should win, but here I am. An idiot. Doing idiot things.

Just a peek. Then I’ll come straight back here and never look back.

What do you expect to find? A dead man? Are you really risking everything for a dead man? And what if he’s alive? What then?

Then nothing. Ivan is still my priority. Even if the masked man is alive, I’ll just come back.

And have nightmares for the rest of your life, no doubt.

I grit my teeth. An earthy, petrichor scent rises from the ground and fills my lungs. Its warm, musty smell soothes the anxiety in the back of my mind, even still, I swear my thumping heart threatens to reveal me, pounding like a drum as if it might wake the entire forest. The distant rumble of voices grows louder and soon I can make out individual shouts from the crowd. Jeers and cackles mix with thunderous shouts of anger and disappointment.

Through the brush, I spy a rundown restaurant building and beside it, the remains of a gas station. A simple wooden structure rises two stories through the partly collapsed roof serving as a lookout post. No guard on duty. The muddy clearing out front, a parking lot once upon a time, more closely resembles a junkyard now with messes of vehicles, trucks, and bikes strewn helter-skelter. I follow the treeline behind the restaurant to where nearly one hundred men crowd in a circle.

There in the center sits an enormous pit, probably ten feet deep, and the length of a basketball court. Sharp barbed wire circles the top with wooden spears pointing inward. Weathered aluminum bleachers and logs line the outside of the pit for seating, but the crowd mostly stands, screaming and shouting. Men mob around the edge of the pit, some throw empty bottles or rocks while others shout and guzzle alcohol. Even from my distance, the smell of it swirls with a pungent armpit odor and stings my nose. A ring of torches illuminates the world inside the pit, and the sight sends my heart hitting the ground, wrenching down the blood in my body with it.

Inside, a man armed with nothing but a small knife stands off against an enormous grizzly. I watch as he ducks and rolls around the creature’s deadly swipes, using his knife to slice when an opening presents itself. A thick metal collar chains the man to the center of the pit, but it does little to hinder his movements.

Stripped of everything except pants, by all rights, I should not recognize him. And yet, I do. I see the haunting ghost of the masked man who cut down those raiders on that baseball field. The movements are exactly the same: fluid and controlled. And again, like before, I find my eyes cemented to the scene. Unable to look away.

Even from this distance, the cuts and bruises across his body stand out. The flickering torchlight catches the deep, red gashes and mottled purple across his body in distressing detail. Despite it, he moves effortlessly. Dodging left and right, missing the bear’s attacks by a hair. It lets out a roar—deep and guttural. Just one misstep means death.

But his steps are true. Just like in that baseball field he seems to hold all the cards, ducking and swiping at the giant beast. At first the cuts send it into a frenzie but then it seems to tire. The crowd screams in excitement as he finishes it off with a clean swipe across its neck. It falls beside the dead bodies of a cougar and giant boar.

One man in particular is agitated, cursing up a storm from his spot in the crowd. He sports a mohawk streaked with red and wears a string of shriveling human skulls across his chest like some kind of archaic barbarian. He rips something small and shiny from his waist and tosses it to the ground before leaping into the pit. Approaching with two crude broadswords drawn, he lets out a roar, making the crowd go wild. Mohawk is half a foot shorter from the man with the knife, but his fit, stout frame reveals bulging muscles.

The man with the knife stands erect, eyeing his opponent in a kind of silent calm.

Mohawk strikes first, lashing out with his swords, but the move is easily evaded. Like water around a stone, I begin to notice a pattern as Mohawk finds it impossible to land a blow. The man with the knife avoids every lunge, strike, and jab in a beautiful kind of dance. But his partner’s patience wanes. In his frustration, Mohawk bends down and grabs the chain leash. It rattles as he yanks it hard, sending the man with the knife to the ground.

The unfair move creates the opening Mohawk needs. He leaps forward, blades slashing down for a kill. No! I let out a gasp, gripping the tree beside me until bark crumbles away in my hand. But the man with the knife, quick as lightning, rolls backward onto his feet, coming up beside his attacker. He drives his knife into Mohawk’s stomach, twisting and yanking it up. The two of them freeze for what feels like an eternity until Mohawk’s body falls lifeless to the ground.

Silence descends over the crowd.

He did it. He won. Relief swells in my chest. Of course he did.

The man with a knife drops his weapon and brandishes one of the swords left by his dead adversary. An older, balding man in the crowd shouts something and picks up a gun, pointing it at the man in the pit.

I blink in shock. But he won. Will they really kill him? After all that?

What comes next leaves me dumbfounded. The old man with the gun closes his eyes, turns his head away, waves the nose of the gun a bit, and pulls the trigger. A blossom of red appears on the shoulder of the man in the pit, dribbling down his arm, and the crowd explodes with satisfaction. The old man opens his eyes and the two exchange stares, neither blinking until the old man breaks out with a grin. He shouts, but I cannot hear over the ruckus, and the crowd begins to disperse for the night.

I crouch motionless, hidden in the woods, staring at the man in the pit. The show is over, but I cannot seem to tear my eyes free of the grim scene. How has humanity regressed this far? These men were once members of society, civilized society. Unless, perhaps, they weren’t. Rapists and murderers can wake from the stone just as easily as any other.

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When almost everyone is gone, the man in the pit eases himself to the ground and lies on his back, one hand cradling his head as he stares at the night sky.

I should go. Already I have dawdled too long, best to leave now while I still can. I should have listened to the sane half of my brain and kept walking past that stupid sign. My eyes catch on the man in the pit. If anyone can handle themselves around these monsters, surely he can. Surely. He can kill whatever they throw down there at him.

But can he dodge the next bullet from a gun?

So what? Why do I care?

Because you’re the reason he’s down there. He saved you from them.

Best not to let the sacrifice be in vain, then.

I tear my mind free and turn to go when something new catches my eye. The glimmer of metal in torchlight there in the mud where Mohawk stood before jumping into the pit. That’s right. He tossed something away before leaping to his death. I squint and creep as close as I dare to the forest edge before my heart skips a beat in recognition.

A ring of keys.

My stomach bottoms out and I clutch the tree beside me. Keys to his collar. It must be. What else could it be? I sit frozen long enough for every single one of the torches lining the pit to burn out leaving nothing but dim moonlight illuminating the area. Men’s voices reverberate off the cliff’s edge coming from the building to the side. One wrong move and I will alert them, and then it really will be over in the worst of ways.

I remember my uncle’s words he wrote in the journal.

The world is not what it once was. Madness has overtaken it.

I should turn around right now. The man in the pit is, after all, a man. And he knows my secret, which makes him the most dangerous man alive right now. In fact, it’s a blessing the raiders caught him, and here I am looking a gift horse in the mouth.

But I can’t tear my gaze from the ring of keys at the edge of the pit. If I walk away now, I will feel guilty forever. He ran away at the swimming hole. At the time, I thought he might be running to alert others but now that seems unlikely. So why did he run?

Why did he run?

He was twenty feet away, he could have captured me easily, especially considering the situation. I was in no position to fight him off. So why didn’t he?

The question sprouts a stupid kind of bravery in my chest and I glance over at the buildings. The last few stragglers loitering about disappeared into the cafe’s back door a while ago, leaving the clearing between me and the pit wide open. It would take less than a minute to grab the keys and toss them over the edge of the pit.

This time I don’t think, don’t stop to consider the consequences of my actions because it doesn’t matter. Stupidity already won out once tonight and it's winning again. After all, if you can't fight them, join them. I dart to the edge of the pit, snatch the keys on my way, and peer around to an opening in the barbed wire.

The man lies on his back in the center of the pit but as I stare, he looks up. A moment passes and he sits up, face trained in my direction. We simply stare at each other and I can’t make out much in the dim moonlight but I feel his shock. You and me both, bud.

I throw the keys with all my strength and hear a soft thud as they hit his chest. All those years as a statue and I still got my throw. I glance over to the restaurant. Still no cry of alarm, only the sound of booted feet on an old, wooden floor and distant conversation.

I turn on my heels to race back to the treeline when my foot catches on a bundle of knotted rope tied to the base of some bleachers. Rope? Why is there rope?

I glance behind. The barbed wire which rings the top of the pit stops here, leaving this one section of the pit open. This must be where the raiders get in and out. Without a second thought, I sling an armful of the rope over the edge.

There. Now you’re on your own.

I couldn’t have done more. Keys and a rope leading to freedom? I practically picked him up and carried him to safety myself.

I race back to the woods as a shout rings out from the watchtower. But I am already lost behind the leaves, flying over fallen logs and tearing through shrubs. I’m not too worried. With no dogs, I just have to get far enough away to find a solid tree to hide in.

Then I hear something.

Another pair of feet thump in pace right behind mine. My heart drops even as my feet pick up speed. One of them found me. Already? How? They might have seen my general direction from the watchtower, but it should have taken a hot minute to spread that kind of information. And they couldn’t have expected a jailbreak.

The person starts to close in and panic floods my system. My worst fears display themselves like a movie theater in the forefront of my mind and I beg my legs to carry me just a little faster. But my pursuer is too fast and a hand grabs my shoulder from behind. I pivot, turning my body and whipping out my knife in the same motion. I swipe it in their direction, hoping to get something vital when they sidestep out of reach.

“Wait,” the person says in a hushed tone.

My eyes go wide. Instead of a raider, the man from the pit stands across from me.

“You?” A new kind of terror grips me and I wave the knife like a maniac. “Stay away!”

From this distance, I get a good look at how much of a mess he is. One eye is swollen shut and a nasty cut on his chin matches the one on his busted lip. Blue and purple stains up and down his torso like they used his body for batting practice. They probably did.

“Why did you do that?” he asks.

Do what? What did I—Oh.

He means why did I rescue him?

Because I’m an idiot. Because I couldn’t leave him well enough alone and just be happy that I survived another day in this literal apocalypse of a world.

But instead, what comes out of my mouth is, “Why did you run?”

Even between his swollen face and the darkness of night, I can make out his confusion. Men’s voices, less than a block away, catch my attention and I let out a curse. I should have been running far from here, but instead, this guy decided he wanted to chit-chat. I hold the knife up threateningly, though it feels more like a plastic toy around him than sharpened steel.

With my best menacing look, I say, “If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”

Then I turn and run, leaving it at that. After all, the raiders will be coming for him too. Hopefully, they follow his trail instead of mine. When I reach my bag, the raiders sound distant. The occasional flurry of gunshots gets cut off quickly with distant shouting. I guess they found his trail after all.

Lucky for me.

For the next hour or so I make good time putting distance between myself and the raider’s’ base. The random gunshots grow fainter, and when they become tiny pops, I start looking for a tree to stay in for the night. I settle for a large oak. The branches are low, which makes it easy to climb, but they get thinner near the top where I’d sleep. Far out of sight and safe from wandering eyes.

As the adrenaline trickles from my system all the pains of the day float to the surface. My ribs are especially keen on making me suffer. My mind is a chaotic mess of thoughts and emotions as it flies through the day’s events. The face of the dead raider laying inches from my own. The masked man cutting them down in the field and again in the raider pit. I see his bruised and beaten face lit by moonlight. The confusion there. My mind fixes on the image and as it does, I feel the strands of my mind unwind. Exhaustion rises up and with every breath I feel my consciousness inch further and further away.