Emile looked at the stone ax. It was the same black rock that surrounded them, but the handle was covered in some light brown leather.
Picking it up, Emile inspected the ax. Its head was split finely, creating a sharp edge that could easily cut skin. Meanwhile, the woman sobbed on the floor, a mix of blood and snot pooling on the ground beneath her.
Emile raised the ax above his head and waited. The crowd around him roared in excitement, some people hollering for him to strike.
He took a deep breath.
'I'm sorry.'
And clenched his grip around the ax's handle and slammed it down. Emile felt as the ax slid into the woman's neck.
For a split second, Emile felt the ax impact the cervical spine in her neck, but it quickly shattered and the ax entirely cut through.
Her head dropped to the floor and her body went limp, falling forward on top of her now detached head. The crowd's torrent of applause followed.
Emile tossed his murder weapon to the ground and limped back to the gate. His body had healed the major injuries like his burns, bruised organs, and torn ligaments, but he was still in a state of shock.
His muscles ached and his body felt stiff. He crossed into the tunnel and returned to one of the prison guards who then threw him into his cell.
Not long after the guard left, Emile heard footsteps bellow from beyond his confinement. A latch flipped and the door down the hall slid open.
"Should I kill you myself?" Khon's deep voice resonated with the bars.
"Your luck. It's quite something isn't it? Should I test if it'll work against me or should I see how long it'll last? Both—" Khon pushed his head between the bars and spat in front of Emile, "are enticing in their own ways."
"Bit aggressive to be honest, you remember I didn't actually do anything to you, right?" Emile smiled.
Khon's arm flew between the bars and grabbed Emile's hair, which has grown back down to his eyes since his gift applies to hair cells too.
With Emile's hair in hand, Khon pulled back. Emile hit the bars and fell to the floor. Khon hunched over, his own face inches away from Emile's.
"Don't test me boy!" Khon pulled Emile again and inhaled deeply, smelling his hair, "Thank your luck for keeping you alive."
Khon dropped Emile and left. Emile continued to lay on the floor, his head now throbbing, in addition to the rest of his battered state.
He closed his eyes and read his soul. His essence was recovering unusually slow. Hours passed in the darkness, doing nothing more than watching his essence rise and fall.
Late into the night, as promised, the latch released again.
"You're welcome by the way." Luna's voice traveled down the hall, "And good match, you fight better than you look."
"I—thanks?" Emile responded to the dark. He pushed himself off the ground and leaned against the wall.
"The Chief, he visited you again, what happened?" She asked.
Emile proceeded to tell her about his brief conversation with her father, emphasizing his use of unnecessary force.
"If you're gonna cry about it I don't mind leaving you alone." Luna winked at Emile.
"Can I ask you something?" Emile interrupted their conversation, "Why are you making people fight to the death?"
Luna sighed and recognized that she might have to stay longer than she'd like. So, taking a seat across from Emile, she answered:
"Do you think everything happens for a reason?" She asked her own question instead.
Emile paused for a brief moment, both surprised by the question and unsure of what to answer. Before he came here, when he was on Earth, perhaps he would have said yes. It's easy to believe everything happens for a reason when your life is good.
You have a small, but reliable group of friends, a family that encourages you, and a place that makes you feel comfortable, a place that really feels like home. When all of your needs are met, everything happens for a reason. It's a colloquial expression used to process and accept bad or undesired outcomes within ordinary life.
But recently, Emile had a hard time coming to terms with anything. Today he killed a person. Today he killed a woman. He killed a woman who was forced on all fours, a rain of helpless tears rushing down her face, and he killed her for entertainment's sake.
Of course, any rational voyeur would argue that Emile is not at fault, nor is he to blame for the business itself: the business of pitting slaves against each other and only allowing one to live. If Emile didn't kill her, she would have killed him.
Emile had to kill her.
He lifted his face and looked at Luna.
"I think things just happen and it's up to each person to choose how they react." Emile said.
"Things just happen?"
"Yeah–things just happen."
"The woman you killed–her death didn't just happen. You chose to kill her." Luna argued.
"I didn't choose to kill her… I chose to live. And she had to die in order for me to live. I chose between the options I was given, but if I was given a choice where we both live, I would have chosen that."
"That woman–" Luna said, "she was brought here because she killed and ate a child. Those are actions she chose to commit. I'm sure she was hungry, probably starving, but does that starvation excuse the cruel fate that child experienced?"
Emile was sure Luna was asking a rhetorical question, so he waited for her to continue.
"You asked why we force people to kill each other, but I don't think we force people to kill each other. They started killing each other long before they came here. If anything, I think we give them an opportunity to die fighting. That way, they can be mad at us instead of wallowing in self hatred."
Emile scoffed, "You're proud of giving bad people an easy escape?"
"What's a bad person?" Luna quickly asked.
"Someone who–" Emile struggled to come up with a good answer, "someone who kills, steals, cheats, and takes advantage of other people."
"You killed the woman." Luna pointed out, "You took advantage of her defenseless position and chopped her head off when she couldn't stop it, and yet still, you don't seem like a bad person and neither did that woman."
"Okay–what's the point of all this?" Emile asked, now struggling to follow their conversation.
"The people who come here—they aren't bad people. They're just people who made a bad decision and have to deal with the consequences. The woman you fought, she chose to live too; and her consequence was coming here."