Trapped
(Project: Arena)
Chapter I: For Sport
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..."Ugh.." Dark Haze shook his head, waking from a daze.
He took a moment to regain his battered senses.
First, his sight.
The slight light from a nearby lit torch was enough to initially cause him to squint, his head still swimming, but he still could see nonetheless.
Then, his hearing.
A loud, sharp ringing in his ears caused him to cringe and cover them. An unpleasant way to wake up, but his hearing seemed to be fine.
Then his sense of touch.
He felt a slight pain in his right wing, but as his sense heightened, the pain intensified. He'd try moving it to no avail.
It had been fractured.
Then his smell.
The room had a terrible stench;
It reeked of mostly urine and vomit, with a hint of mold.
Lastly, his taste.
He hadn't eaten in a while, so the only taste was the bitter tang of his breath on his tongue.
Once he was sure he regained all his faculties, he focused on where he was.
The room he was in was small-- cramped, even.
There was barely any room to give himself a good stretch, so he stretched as much as he could, his joints clicking and popping from his surprisingly refreshing sleep, albeit dirty.
While he stretched, his leg bumped into something he hadn't seen.
He looked down to see a saddlebag with his cutie mark-- dark clouds-- imprinted on it.
Haze looked at his flank to make sure it was for him, even though he had amnesia, he shouldn't forget his cutie mark.
He checked just for good measure.
He opened the bag and dumped the contents on the ground:
One lantern,
Two containers of oil,
An assortment of tinderboxes,
and one key.
Haze looked in the bag to make sure that was everything, expecting a note of some sort.
Nothing.
Once sure that there was nothing left for him, Haze tucked it all back in but the key, checking the door in front of him.
He scoured the door for any type of hole the key could fit into, dragging it across the door.
Just when he was about to stop and give up and just sleep the pain away,
Click.
The key fell into a hole, the click resonating in the tiny room and the room on the other side of the door.
Haze gripped the key firmly and twisted it, popping the internal lock of the door.
Haze's heart was pounding.
Do I really want to do this?
What if there's something out there?
What if I die?
What if it's a trap?
All the "ifs" hung around Haze's mind. He grunted in frustration.
"Why am I afraid?!"
Haze verbally shouted at himself in anger, and, in his frustration, turned the knob and flung the door open, the cooler air of the next room caressing the heat of Haze's head, distinguishing the anger and putting out the nearby torch on the wall, enveloping the room in darkness.
Haze exclaimed, fumbling in the darkness to find his lantern.
He took the handle in his mouth, and fumbled for a tinderbox to help light the lantern.
Haze's efforts proved fruitful, as he could see far into the long hallway before him.
He could see two doors on opposing sides before darkness slowly crept in.
The darkness beckoned him, like an attractive mare motioning to come forward.
Haze slowly walked forward, the darkness receding as if it were frightened.
He slowly checked each door, both proving locked and inaccessible.
He turn his attention toward the darkness once more.
Haze stared for a while, not moving, asking himself if he could take the suicidal step forward into the darkness.
He decided there was no other option.
He stepped forward, the darkness receding as if it were being bullied by the light.
Haze pushed himself to take a step.
And another.
And another.
He finally gathered the courage to reach the end of the hallway, a door being the only still-imposing obstacle.
Haze anxiously gripped the handle, turned, and pushed, flinging the door open.
The door creaked loudly as it flung open, and the room it had revealed was all but visible.
Haze stuck his head into the pitch black room.
He could see no further than the extent of the lantern light below him. The room was too massive to be illuminated by the small lantern.
The frightened stallion wandered into the room, looking from side to side, finding the walls nowhere to be found.
He continued to look left and right, but did not stray from his path, until he heard a click.
The click was loud enough to resound and resonate, revealing the massive size of the room in a unique way.
The stallion was able to decipher the room was infact, very large in height.
The click came from a nearby torch, which had burst into flame, revealing the dull, glossed concrete floor.
Haze took another step.
Click. Click. Click. Click.. Click.. Click... Click... click.... click..... click...
A symphony of clicks rang, as more and more torches lit the ever shrinking darkness of the room.
Haze looked around to find himself in an arena-esque room, with cages on all four sides, including the side he had entered from.
"Oh Celestia... Don't tell me this--"
The stallion's sentence was cut off by the closing of a chain linked gate behind him.
"Aw... Shi-"
A loud, sharp ringing in Haze's ears cut off his sentence, as the stallion gripped his head and yelled in pain.
A voice boomed loud through the screaming in his head.
"You. Stallion. You will fight for my entertainment. Live, and move on to the next round.
Lose, and you're dead.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN."
The internal noise had died down, and Haze looked up to see the gate directly in front of him slide open, and a silhouette seemed to hobble out and approach slowly towards the light.
Haze gulped as the figure made its way towards him.
