Vivid images flashed in my mind rapidly shifting and changing around me, showing me of my youth, of me being happy alongside my family, that soon went away as I was harshly overwhelmed and reminded of all my failures, and the bleak horrors I went through. The echoing of screams deafened every other memory, explosions blinded and brought a singular memory up from the rest, playing as if it were happening in real-time as if I was reliving it once again.

There I laid, waist-deep in mud my gun planted firmly on the ground pointed off towards an enemy shrouded in mist, the whizzing of bullets passing dangerously over my head. Someone next to me seemed to have been hit multiple times, the bullets burying into his chest and a few of them taking his arm clean off, I spared him only a second of horror as my attention was drawn and focused on what was happening above me. Hundreds of planes sailed overhead, their engines like a siren song, singing us our demise. One of my squadmates seemed to grabbed me and dragged me back into the foxhole with him behind us, as explosions began to violently raddle the ground, sending dust and blood spraying everywhere.

I think I saw my buddy screaming but all the noise around us was drowned out, the only sound entering my mind was buzzing, and the raddling of chains, he tried to shake me out of it, but I only stared at him confused. Moments later my vision became blurry, and the next thing I knew I was running in an open field, my squadmates and I seemed to be rushing the enemies position, but before we could make it to their trench, several machine gun emplacements opened fire on us, culling us like sheep to the slaughter. I saw several of my buddies brutally massacred, them being torn limb from limb by the burst of hellfire, their blood staining the ground, and my mind, their faces forever etched and ingrained in me.

As we all ducked for cover, I could see a dark-haired woman in the distance watching the display with curiosity, but I didn't get much time to think as my mind shifted painfully once again, and I was screaming. One of my legs was partially gone, a small hole that used to contain a mine was behind me along with bloody chunks of meat, what was left of my leg was barely being held together, the slight sliver of meat holding what was left of it.

Looking around for help, I saw that I was inside what appeared to be a crater, no doubt made from the previous air raid. I wasn't alone in the crater either, along with me was a medic wearing a uniform that didn't belong to either side of the war, it was unrecognizable, the medics' hair flowed freely it was like a breeze was blowing in the wind when there was none. She tried to apply pressure to the wound, but I was losing to much blood, she tried her best to staunch the blood flow, but could only watch on as I slowly bleed to death, worse yet was when the sirens began to sing once again, hundreds of them flying overhead once again, the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was the woman's teal eyes looking up as a bomb started to plummeted straight towards us inches before it hit, water was splashed on me waking me from my slumber, the cold sweats that I was suffering through covered by the numbingly cold water.

Waking up and standing straight up put me eye-level with Goodberry, her looking over my body up and down.

"Curious most curious, and also wonderful!"

Goodberry exclaimed jumping up and down like a schoolgirl,

"How did you recover so much from that beating? It's like you weren't even attacked."

'Oh shit, I might have just fucked myself'

She circles me, her guards only a foot away, just in case I do something, she started to poke and prod me with the tip of her heels, nothing that hurt it just got a little annoying after a bit.

"My records show that you were blessed by the God Grumbar, is that correct?" She didn't wait for an answer, "Did he give you a special blessing?" She leaned in real close, the smell of her blueberry perfume wafting in my face, "Did he? Did he? Did he?!?!"

She kept asking, but I didn't respond making her frown harshly,

"Fine if you won't tell me your secrets, I'll get them out another way."

She waved to her guards and had me unshackled, I thought for a moment to try and perform an epic escape, but wisely decided against trying the six to one fight. The guards put a bag over my head and started to lead me throughout the cave system, taking many turns and leading me through several loud areas filled with the crying of what I assumed was children and shouting of guards. After walking for ten minutes the guards pulled the black burlap sack from my head, revealing a room that seemed to be at least one hundred feet in height and several hundred feet wide. In the center of the room was a large crater, with many bleachers surrounding it, reminding me of some of the old Roman coliseums. I could hear cheering and painful howling coming from inside the pit, as we got closer the smell of blood was prevalent, a sinking feeling of what I was about to see started to take over.

'Please don't tell me these psychopaths are using children,'

I tried to stop myself from the displeasure of seeing kids killing each other, but one of the guards made sure I kept moving, shoving me until I reached the edge. When we reached the hole grunts and the pounding of flesh could be heard, being forced to watch by one of the guards, I saw that there were two kids down there, both of them only a little bit older than me, ten maybe twelve years old. One was on top of the other bringing his fist down upon the other boy's face like a hammer, the teeth were flying everywhere with every strike, his nose was already caved in, and it wasn't long until his face did the same. With a nasty crunch, his entire face was gone, brain matter leaking out from his crushed skull. The crowd went wild standing from their seats, the exchanging of gold from bets, it seemed like the entire town's guard was down here, which explained to me that most likely the whole force was in on this, which might also include my father, but I couldn't know.

The victorious red-headed boy kept hitting the corpse until one of the guards rang a bell, and he seemed to just go into a daze, seeming more like a zombie as he was escorted into one of the cells that lined the walls of the crater. Some of the guards started to notice me and smiled as they got their buddy's attention, some of them pointed and cheered me on, saying good luck. The guard that was shoving me before gestured for me to take a stairway down that seemed to have just appeared out of nowhere, I listened to his order and descended the stairway, it disappearing back into the wall as we finished the last step. The guards brought me to the same cell the red-head had entered and signaled for one of the guards above to open the cell, he gave a thumbs up and activated some device to unlatch the door. I was shoved in, and the door was closed behind me with a slam, knowing I wasn't alone I paid no mind to the door and watched the boy I just saw murder someone sitting in the corner.

When seeing him closer I saw the boy was barely skin and bone, I couldn't tell how old he was due to how much he seemed to be starved. I had a grip on the bone in my pocket as I slowly approached the boy, he was hunched over something, but I couldn't see what as he was blocking my field of view. He seemed to notice me at this point, turning towards me and snarling like a wild animal, he tried to use one hand to block what was behind him, but I saw, a little girl younger than me, who seemed to be in a worse situation than the boy. She was missing several of her fingers, and if she was breathing I couldn't tell from where I was at. All around her and the boy was moldy bread, the few bites that were taken from it seemed to be the only none moldy parts of it. I didn't know if it was the boy who was eating the bread or the girl, but I didn't care as I stepped back, and made my way to the other side of the cell.

Taking a seat on one of the dirty mattresses that lined the cell seemed to put the boy at ease, him cooing to the girl and brushing her hair with his bloodied fingers. The girl didn't seem to respond to any of the affections, so I just assumed she was dead at this point. Leaning back against the cave cell, I decided to get the lay of the land and take a look outside my cell, seeing another fight already taking place. This one seemed different though, it seemed that two young wealthy nobles were having a friendly boxing match, their elaborate outfits seeming out of place in a death pit. Not partially caring for their duel my eyes drifted to all the cells around the room, spotting nothing of interest until the last cell. Inside the cell to my surprise was three idiots that I recognized, Slob, Glob, and Blob.

'Why are Desert's friends here?'

The three boys seemed absolutely terrified completely out of their element as they held onto each other, I genuinely felt sorry for them, nothing seemed to change though as they cowards, so I decided the best thing to do for now was just wait, so I watched the two young nobles who seemed to be around fourteen and fifteen do there match. The fighters seemed to know exactly where to strike each other as to not leave a mark, their hair and clothe staying in top form as they casually struck at each other. This situation made me laugh a little, these two boys were some of the budding elites of this world, and it seemed that they didn't care about anything that was happening here, they seemed complacent, reminding me a lot of my old world, and shattering any hope that this new world was a peaceful utopia. I wasn't as fazed as I thought I would be either, the death itself was nothing new, I was a solider I did my fair share of killing, young and old, but these people come from a somewhat peaceful world, where the last war fought was over a thousand years ago, so what brought upon all this chaos. I expected better, and sadly I was let down.

The noble's match would end, the boys bowing to each other, then the crowd and leaving from the staircase. That's when Goodberry stepped down from her little throne, and made her way to the center of the ring, making a grand display of it, using her magic to send sparks into the air. Her face glowing with anticipation and badly hidden excitement as she took up a microphone.

"Hello, ladies and Gentlemen! How is everyone DOING TONIGHT!?"

She held the mic towards the crowd, which roared to her delight.

"That's good, real good to hear, I hope you all are excited for our main event for the evening,"

She started to circle the room.

"Today we have a very special group of boys that are going to be tussling it out."

She stopped in front of Glob, Slobs, and Blobs cell.

"We have the boys that failed to defend my daughter when she was brutally beaten and humiliated."

She gestured to the three boys inside, which got all the audience to start booing, she then made her way over to my cell and stared right into my eyes.

"versus the boy that did the brutal, unjust beating, and cruel humiliation."

The crowd was angry tossing whatever they could get their hands on at all four of us, a rock making contact and cutting my eyebrow.

"Tonight they shall duke it out once more, no holds bar, no interruptions, and of course NO MERCY!"

Shaking my head I had no idea what to think about this situation, of course, I didn't want to fight the boys, but I also really didn't have a choice if they attacked, so I decided that I would only act if they struck first. After her speech, I heard a click from above, and the cell started to rise opening the way for me. I stepped out, and just stood right outside of my cell, seeing if I could see anything of use, and spotting nothing but a few corpses and peddles. I could see several guards trying to talk to the three boys, dropping them something from above, I was wary of that, wondering if they got dropped a shiv, but that was dashed as Glob, and Blob quickly scooped up whatever it was consumed it almost in an instant, the only one who didn't was Slob as he put whatever it was in his pants pocket.

The boys stepped forward a little closer, them seeming a little more confident, slight smiles on Glob and Blob's face.

Goodberry who had retreated to her makeshift throne spoke one last time while ringing a small bell to add dramatic flair.

"Let's make this bloody boys!"

Immediately afterward the howling of what sounded like animals erupted from every cell, Glob and Blobs bodies started to convulse their limbs twisting every which way in breaking several times as they got longer, foam started to froth from their mouths, their eyes rolling back into there skulls, as they turned a pale white. The sound of bones cracking and twisting overwhelming the cheering crowd, the two boys hunched forward like gorillas, them seeming to have gone feral.

Author's Note

Here's another chapter my friends, idk how I want this story to progress really, just writing in my little notebook at work, and editing when I get home. Hope you enjoy!