I’ve spent ten years in a cell. That’s too long to live anywhere, and here I am, ten years later, with someone trying to sentence me to an even longer prison. Out from the arena, into the coffin. No, not today.

Kacey dragged his shoulder around the corner of the emergency exit doors and into the room. The potted plants, the glass frames, a hallway leading into a small stadium. Not an arena, a horse track; a big dirt circle stretch that composed most of the floor. Dirt, no bleachers because there was no space for them and certainly no men for them. No, the people (or where they should have been) were about the same position Kacey now stood in, behind some metal bars a top of the carpeted floor and near dishes and liquor stands, where could drunkenly lean over and throw their gambling tickets onto. It was a little private track, had no doors save the emergency exit and the single elevator.

How’d the horses get here?

He looked behind him, the scattershot of spears still falling to the floor. The raw air had that heavy musk of iron and dirt and smoke that made him cough. He leaned over the metal guard rail, his shoulder hugged the steel. Blood fell from his stump-of-an-arm down to his thighs, stained baggy rags hid shaking legs. His vision blurred.

No, not here. I won’t die here. I did not die for rich men, I will not die for a rich psychopath.

His head leaned forward, then his good arm, until his stomach was over the rail and by then gravity had more a hand than any of will of his. He slipped down. His body tumbled down the slope. Each roll producing a new kind of thump as he fell from a metal wall to the pliable dirt floor. When he hit the end, he was on the track. It was a wide donut, the center had a portion of grass.

The spears no longer shot from outside. Or maybe the sound was too far. He stood. His knees locked and he took heavy steps forward. Each one left a trail, small, but noticeable amongst the orange dirt. He tripped over, his chin struck the floor. It scraped along a few inches before he put his knuckles against the floor and pushed. Lifting himself with one hand was almost impossible, almost. The pebbles dug into his skin. He grit his teeth, spit flew out from his coughing mouth. A heave. One singular scream, he stood up again.

Not here for the rich to gamble on my corpse. Not here, to be a made show for those with dainty hands and whose hidden smiles hide rotten souls.

He made it to one end of the track.

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I was landlocked in this country to be made a fool. To be taught just enough to know I was a fool. That’s been my whole life; withheld, with enough knowledge to know I was miserable. That’s a curse, right? Not being stupid enough to be happy with life, but not being smart enough to do anything about my misery. All I wanted was to go out, to meet people. That’s it. People like me. That’s all.

He dragged his feet through the aged track, the dirt was barely leveled and even the struggling breath he carried unsettled the floor. The tracks he left were thick, heavy, like a nomad or exiled ones should be. Heavy enough, out of sheer stubbornness, to remind the earth that at least he walked. It may have been all he’s done, but he walked. He walked through the grass, tripping over the rail, to drag once more. All the while on this grass, he cut his shirt and tore it into a small rope. He bound it to his arm and squeezed until the pain was too great that he could not help but kneel and scream and struggle with the light feeling in his head and the myriad bright spots in his vision that dangled over him like bleacher lights.

Like halos, like angels downcast for him.

He galloped over the second railing, a horse following his jockey’s kick. Live.

Live. If I live, they’ll never expect it. They’d have lost; money, ego, anything. They’ll lose. They’ll hate me if I live. So live. It makes them suffer, so live Kacey, live.

The noises came back to him, the arena came back to him. Familiar sand, familiar pain. The boos, the groans, the moans, the thrown and cursed tickets and shells of food that hit the pit and made their place amongst the bones and blood. How many men had he killed by now? Were they even men? With histories, with purpose?

It was not a pleasant fantasy that encroached on him. It was just the one that had endured. He couldn’t help but think of the old crowd, of his hands high in the air and the blood of another man in the sand. Though, this blood was his this time around.

Each lame step he took made his imaginary boo’s louder, they followed him to the end of the track.

He heard sand trickle behind him. He rushed. His cheeks went cold.

I will live. They will know it too.

The blood trickled out his left eye like a faucet left alone with slight ajar. He stopped all of a sudden, bruised and calloused feet placed firmly next to each other. He looked down. He felt cold air hit the soles of his feet. So he wiped the sweat off his face because it stung his eye and he bent over and placed his face against the cool air, and it felt like a gust, like he imagined an ocean breeze to feel (he’d never been there, he’d love to though). He pressed down, his fingers careful and spider-like as he reared them around himself until finally, something crushed his thumb - a gap! He dug his hand deeper, the pinching pain almost comforting.

Not today. Not ever.

The sand storm was coming, he could hear it through the doors, above, on the little stadium with the bar and carpet. He heard the sand falling.

His fingers wiggled inside the gap.

Come on. Come on.

He pressed up, then down. His bleeding eye closed, the other prompted wide open. Ready.

It glowed orange.

“Not today.” He pushed up. “Not ever!”

His eye glowed with the sudden realization; now he knew how they brought the horses up.