Several days later
Electricity surged through the boys body, his muscles moving uncontrollably, as if he no longer had control of his body and millions of ants were moving around and biting his flesh. He could feel every bit of electricity going up and down his nervous system like a bullet train.
As the voltage went through his left hand and out his right he was wondering what the hell was going on.
Over the pass couple of days, atleast he assumed it was days, he was being tortured basically nonstop. While before he would only be tortured after a match he was now being tortured basically whenever. Whether it was his him being wipped, burnt, drowned, being cut up, or, ofcourse, being electrocuted. He was constantly sore, in pain, and bleeding.
If that wasn't enough, when he wasn't being tortured he was being put into death fights over and over again. Previously he was only being put into the ring about every 2 months or so, and even that was considered alot of fights for this prison, but now he was getting multiple matches a day.
Speaking of which ...
As the final volts of electricity exited his body, he was unbuckled from the contraption and propped up, steam started rising from his eyes and mouth, and his hands were black, burnt, and charred from the volatage. As the steam started to slow down he was carried through a long corridor, where he was taken to the oh-so familiar arena.
In the arena this time was what looked to be a twelve year-old girl with brunette hair and green eyes. She had been there quite a long time, and looked like she was ready to get out.
That's another thing that had changed too, he would usually get some younger opponents mixed in with the older ones, almost like it was random, but now he was getting pitted up with some of the older prisoners that are absolutely ready to kill for their freedom.
The exact way this prison works is that prisoners are randomly assigned to fights. If they win their fight and kill their opponent, they are rewarded with better food, better living conditions, special treatment, and other things. If you win the fight, but don't kill your opponent, you are harshly punished with high pain torture and solitude. The same result happens if you lose the fight and survive. If a prisoner is sufficiently broken and groomed to be a kill hungry soldier, they are drafted into the military. This was the purpose and technique of the prison that they boy had endured for a very long time.
Which brings us to now, with the boy being dragged into the arena, his body already broken from the torture and previous fights, about to fight once again.
As he was thrown in he landed on his hands and knees, with his hands all burnt and exposed the cold stone floor felt like a red hot brick. He quickly jumped up on his feet from both the shock of the pain and the understanding that the girl infront of him was soon about to attack.
Right on queue the girl swung her leg, aiming for the boys side. He managed to block the attack just in the nick of time. He then held on to her leg and tried to sweep her other, but she used her free leg to kick off the ground, with the sudden weight shift the boy was forced to let go, after which he was promptly knee'd in the stomach.
The guards all cheered as the boy yelped in pain. Soon after which the boy was promptly punched in the jaw, with the pain making him get on one knee.
Now as he was below the girl he used this oppurtunity to upper cut her directly in the jaw, followed by him thrusting elbow to the side of her head, along with an added headbutt into her stomach.
This combo seemed to have done alot of damage to the poor girl, and he was sure that a good solid strike to the stomach would send her to the ground. The girl saw him trying to go for another attack and tried retaliating by ducking down and trying to hit his jaw with her left, but she was still much too staggered from the three hits to connect her shot, and the boy was quickly descending his fist onto the girls temple.
At the moment right before he was about to hit her, he started hearing a ringing sensation in his ear, he suddenly felt dizzy and overwhelmingly fatigued. With this split second of weakness the girl quickly shot her fist directly into the boys throat, knocking him on his back and making him gasping for air.
The crowd started going wild and were all chanting the same phrase. "KILL THAT BASTARD."
The knife was thrown down into the arena, all of the guards were either chanting or watching with bated breath. The girl picked up the knife, and got on her knees right infront of the boy.
This was it, he was going to die here.
She lifted the knife up, and as soon as she started descending the knife, the metal collar around her neck suddenly ticked, and everything from the neck up became nothing more than a red mist, leaving a streak of blood on the boys face. She was dead.
The crowd and the boy at first were completely shocked but after processing what just occured the guards quickly started to boo and curse at a figure on the top row of the arena. The boy looked up and noticed the warden was standing up there. "Did ... she make her collar explode?" He thought to himself.
The crowd kept cursing at the warden, as she grew visibly more irritated. "ENOUGH!" The warden shouted, overpowering the voices of all the gaurds and quickly making them silent. "I AM THE WARDEN OF THIS PRISON AND MY ACTIONS AND WORD NEED NO JUSTIFICATION! OUR PROBLEM CHILD WILL LIVE ANOTHER DAY, FOR NOW HE IS TO BE RETURNED TO HIS CELL! UNDERSTOOD?" All the guards started grumbling in agreement as they started dispirsing, while the boy stared at her with confusion in his eyes. As the warden started walking away from the arena he was dragged away from the arena and was taken back through the hallway and into his cell.
Once he was thrown in there a flood of questions entered his mind. Why was he getting more torture and more fights now, why are the prisoners he fighting now so much older and bloodthirsty, and the most confusing question of them all: Why the hell did the warden explode that girls bomb collar? He already had a hunch about the first two questions.
When a prisoner reaches a certain age without showing any signs of progress, they will be executed for all the guards to see, and for all of the prisoners to hear. His time for an execution was way past due, but now it looks like he finally had a death date.
But he could not, for the actual life of him, explain the third. He thought about it long and hard, when suddenly a very strange and almost horrific though came to his mind. "Does the warden want me to stay alive?"
It mostly made sense, it would not only explain why she blew up that girls head, but why he hasn't been executed yet, but why him? What made him so special she couldn't let him die on her.
That's when he remembered something from his first day in the prison.
It was around ten years ago, he can just barely remember. He saw a house burning down with the screams of a young women and a young man, as he was sobbing. He then remembers being brought to the arena where the warden was at the center.
"Hello boys and girls. Im the warden, from now on you will be living here doing one thing and one thing only, you will be fighting eachother to the death." All the kids looked around horrified and some started crying, but as this happened a chain appeared from the wardens wrist and cracked it like a whip in the air, quickly shushing the audience.
She cleared her throat and continued to speak. "Their is a way to get out though, all you have to do is kill your opponent and you'll be free, and that is the only way out. You all now have to fates, die in this arena, or break by my hand." She said the last part of this speech with a prideful menace in her eye, as if she enjoyed the thought of breaking them.
It all started to make sense in his head now, she wants to break him, he has spent so long defying her that she refuses to let him die until he is broken. With everything in mind he knew that he had a real shot of pulling off something spectacular.
He would continue to fight, endure the torture, and survive for however long it takes, because he knew that once execution day comes, he will escape, all he needed was simply patience and a plan.