Gabriel’s terrified shriek erupted behind Emily, but she did not turn to look. Fully focused on the advancing Spartan, she weaved her pole around her as she deflected its lazy strikes. She bled from half a dozen wounds along arms and chest, the price of her failures.

The creature was playing with them, and each time its blade struck her pole, the ring of metal took on a mocking tone in Emily’s ears. He swept her weapon away with ease and had forced her back, step by step, until her heel had pressed against Henry’s body.

A shrill laugh emerged from the Spartan, and its foul stench filled the air as its lips parted. Emily stood her ground, fear and anger precariously balanced within her.

Anjali came in from the side and thrust her spear at the Spartan. It dodged the strike with a quick step backwards. It gave a sidelong glance at the woman who had interrupted its entertainment, stepped towards her, and batted the spear from Anjali’s hands with a back-hand blow. Anjali’s spear skittered over the barricade and out of sight.

Anjali glanced down at her hands, numb from the strength of the creature. She was defenseless.

Her eyes flickered to the pharmacy, where Jaya lay hidden. She steeled herself, stared into the Spartan’s eyes with a mother’s fury, and raised her middle finger in its face.

The Spartan’s foot crashed into Anjali’s ribs. There was a sickening crack, and Anjali collapsed to the ground.

“Anjali!” shouted Emily as she thrust her pole at the Spartan’s head. “You fucking monster!”

The Spartan dodged the blow easily, grasping the end of the pole with one hand, its sword poised in the other. Its eyes flashed in amusement as it attempted to tear the pole out of Emily’s hands to leave her as defenseless as Anjali.

Emily let him do it.

As the Spartan pulled, Emily let go of her pole. It threw the Spartan off balance, as if it had pulled on a rope that had suddenly snapped.

As it stumbled, Emily dashed forward and crashed into the creature’s chest with a perfect football tackle. Knocked off its feet, the Spartan’s head struck the barricade as if fell and its sword clattered to the ground.

Emily seized the moment. She straddled the creature’s chest and jammed her thumbs straight into its two glowing red eyes.

The Spartan thrashed under Emily, and Emily dug her thumbs deeper into its eye sockets with all her strength. Screaming in fear-fueled rage, Emily’s fingers tore at the creature’s eye sockets without mercy or hesitation, robbing it of its sight. Her face became freckled with its fetid fluid, and she grinned as she felt its eyes give way with a satisfying pop.

With a hollow scream, the Spartan thrust its palm into Emily’s chest and sent her flying backwards. She landed atop Henry’s body, eliciting a second shout from Gabriel.

Rising to its feet, the creature flailed its muscular arms blindly to find either victim or a weapon. The putrid smell of its silent roar filled the air around them, causing Emily to gag.

Reaching behind her, she grasped the shaft of Gabriel’s abandoned spear. With a desperate yell, she thrust the spear into the blind Spartan’s chest. It pierced between heart and lungs, stuck firmly in its ribs.

The creature wrapped a hand around the protrusion in its chest and tried to dislodge the weapon. Emily smiled in victory, then called out to Anjali as she saw the woman stir. “Anjali, are you…”

The Spartan struck Emily squarely in the side of her head with its fist.

Emily’s world spun. Her ears rang and vision blurred, and pain crippling her thoughts as she stumbled away from the creature. She tripped over Rocky’s unconscious form and fell beside him.

“Shit… Rocky… get up,” she mumbled as she nudged Rocky to wake him. The effort caused her stomach to heave, and she felt a trickle of blood run down the side of her face from her ear. Her heart raced.

The Spartan perked its head towards Emily as she mumbled. She realized her mistake. It could still hear her, and now it knew where she was.

Her mind fogged with confusion. She knew the Spartan’s blow had concussed her – it wasn’t her first concussion – yet knowledge of that fact did little to transform her confusion to action. She felt her fleeting consciousness drift away as the Spartan approached.

Emily embraced Rocky, and with her last conscious thought, tried to shield him from the monster’s fury.

The fury never reached them. As the Spartan reached for Emily’s neck, a blade pierced its heart from behind.

Anjali held the hilt of the blade, breath shallow and eyes filled with tears from her broken ribs. She had used the last of her strength to retrieve the Spartan’s sword and thrust it into the creature’s back.

“Stay… stay away from them…,” Anjali said weakly, her vision blurred from pain.

The creature grasped the blade with its hands to pull it out, but only succeeded in cutting off three of its fingers. It fell to its knees, and its glowing red eyes faded to black.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Anjali collapsed beside Emily and Rocky, her breath dangerously shallow, and joined them in unconsciousness.

* * *

Elias, Ben, and Abigail flanked the final Spartan, which bled from a dozen surface wounds – the result of the combination of Abigail’s frenzied swings with her massive sword and the more precision strikes of Elias and Ben. A dagger lodged in the creature’s left shoulder was Zee’s contribution to the fight. Yet despite the damage they had dealt, all they could manage to do was contain the creature within their three-point flank.

Bethany could only watch as the pain in her ankle shot painful pulses up her leg. Her hammer had died away. She knew she had enough strength to call upon her light one last final time, but only for a moment. The effort would take all she had left, and if she did, she would join Rocky and Emily in unconsciousness. It would leave them defenseless.

I can’t let that happen. I have to protect them.

Elias, Ben, and Abigail’s three-point flank disintegrated, and Bethany watched in horror, helpless, as the enemy took control.

The Spartan thrust at Elias with its razor-sharp sword, and Elias was forced backward in a frantic attempt to dodge its attack. The blade sliced across the leg of his jeans as Elias stumbled.

“Damn it, Elias, watch…” shouted Zee, as Elias tripped over Zee’s leg and fell onto the prone Bethany. He landed on her stomach, which sent an intense shock of pain throughout her body. She struggled to hold in a scream. Elias scrambled to his feet, but by the time he recovered, it was already too late.

Ben stabbed with his spear, his eyes clouded with tears for Marvin, whose body lay at his side. He struck the creature’s side, and the spear got stuck between its ribs. The creature released a silent, fetid howl and grasped Ben’s arm. Yanking him forward with unnatural strength, the Spartan thrust its sword through Ben’s chest.

Ben’s body fell beside Marvin, the old men’s eyes clouded with death.

Abigail, drenched in sweat from her earlier attacks, watched Ben fall. She glanced back to the body of her dead husband, where Gabriel cried uselessly over his body, and she let rage fill her again.

She screamed in anguish. Summoning the last of her strength, she lifted her sword and recklessly charged into the creature. Caught off guard by the sudden attack, Abigail’s sword pierced the creature’s knee, and it staggered.

A quick backhand across Abigail’s cheek send her sprawling to the floor. The Spartan crouched over the woman, its sword raised to finish the job, when Gabriel’s cries attracted its attention, as if the man’s cowardice was a fly buzzing around its head.

“Ab… Abby… not you too,” Gabriel moaned.

“Gabriel… get out of here,” Abigail cried out with equal parts fear and frustration.

The man did not move. He simply sat beside his brother, his capacity to move and think frozen by fear.

The creature abandoned the killing blow on Abigail. It walked over to Gabriel, gazed at the trembling man, and split his skull in half with a single, violent swing. Gabriel’s body fell atop his brother as the Spartan walked back towards Abigail, its victim already forgotten.

“Gabriel!” cried Abigail as she watched the last of her family die. She tried desperately to climb to her feet as Elias positioned himself between the Spartan and the scrambling woman.

The creature scoffed arrogantly, until two daggers sprouted from its chest. They were Zee’s last, and he had made them count.

“Bullseye,” Zee bragged, propped up against the barricade.

Elias dashed forward, capitalizing on the distraction. His first swing sliced into the creature’s wrist and disarmed it. His second ripped across the creature’s stomach, and a putrid smell filled their battlefield as maggots poured from the wound.

The Spartan caught Elias’s third strike before it fell. It wrapped its hands around the blade and held it firm.

Propped up next Zee, desperation fueling her actions, Bethany gripped her ball-peen hammer tightly and hurled it towards the Spartan’s head. “Hey, fucker, think fast!” she shouted.

She knew it would be a useless attack.

It was just what Elias needed.

The creature instinctively released Elias’s sword to deflect the ball-peen hammer with the back of its hand. As it did, Elias swung for the creature’s neck with every ounce of strength he could muster.

The blade cleaved through thick bone and muscle as penetrated deep into its throat.

The creature collapsed. The impact dislodged its head from its body, which came to a rest beside Martin and Ben’s bodies.

Zee let out a cry of victory, and Bethany allowed herself a single breath of relief, before the reality of their situation settled in.

Elias was the only one of them left standing, save for Priyanka hidden with Jaya, Brandon, and Harmony behind the pharmacy counter. Rocky, Emily, and Anjali were unconscious. Ben, Marvin, Gabriel, and Henry were dead. Abigail had crawled over to her husband and brother-in-law’s bodies, her strength and rage exhausted.

Zee leaned against the barricade next to her. His shoulder wound had gotten worse with each dagger throw, and he was pale from blood loss.

“Are you okay?” Elias asked Bethany. He handed her back her ball-peen hammer, which she took like a child reached for a safety blanket.

“No,” Bethany admitted, as another pulse of pain shot up her leg. She tried to crawl over to Rocky and Emily to check on them but gasped as pain from the motion.

“I’ll check on them,” Elias said softly. “You rest. This isn’t over yet.”

They had survived, but three Spartans remained, guarding the exit.

We can’t even move. How are we supposed to get past them?

“Hell of an arena, huh?” Zee whispered as he winced in pain. He drew a bottle of white pills from his pocket and dry-swallowed four of them. “Think we’ve satisfied Ares’ blood lust yet?”

“No,” Bethany responded simply. Zee offered her the bottle, and she took it without hesitation. She swallowed two of the pills, not bothering to ask what they were. She felt numb inside, surrounded by death.

She glanced up at the floating eyes seated in the rafters above them – cameras that broadcast their suffering to the unseen Gods. She had forgotten they were there. “Are we just entertainment for them? Did they cheer as we died?”

“We’re the gladiators of ancient Rome,” Zee said with a weak laugh. “Fodder for godly masses, who stay hidden, so our blood does not stain the angelic white of their togas.”

Bethany watched Zee lean back and stare up at the Winged Eyes, his eyes filled with challenge. Behind his bravado, flattery, and false smiles, there was a determination within the stranger that Bethany admired. A spark that kept his life fresh, even in the direst of circumstances.

“You’re completely mad, Zee,” Bethany replied, joining his rebellious stare. She saw Jitters – her own personal camera – bound excitedly along one of the rafters. “And I’m more than a little scared of you. But right now, I’m glad you were here.”

Zee smiled, the first genuine smile she had seen from him. She could see the pain behind that smile, no longer masked. A pain that stretched far back in time, long before the God Contest.

The smile quickly faded, replaced by his characteristic forced smirk, as if his vulnerability threatened his well-crafted persona. Pushing himself up, he limped to the pharmacy counter and grabbed a package of gauze. He tossed it to Bethany.

“We’re not done yet, my dear. Bind that ankle. We have a God Arena to win.”