Page 20 of Meteor Storm

The valerian chuckled. “Humans are modest. Cannot afford to be modest. Out here? There is no safety. Survive. Don’t survive. Up to you.”

Her words had nothing comforting to offer. Survive. That was her advice and I wasn’t entirely surprised nor did I have plans to do anything else. My world was so small until that point. No one cared about my discomfort. My past. My wellbeing. It was all up to me.

As usual.

I was used to bearing the weight of things on my own shoulders. I was used to bearing too much, most said. I could do it again. I had to.

I didn’t have anything to ask after that. All I had was my nerves to deal with. I laid myself down and stared up at the ceiling again, my whole body hot with stress. Never in my wildest nightmares did I see this being my future and yet it was my reality.

All I could do was mentally prepare for what was to come.

“My advice?” the valerian continued, her voice lowering an octave. “Thilar not like other males. He fight men, not hurt females. His rarity has been enough until now. Enough to keep him around even if he not do what he is supposed to. But he will protect you.”

“How is that advice?”

“Because, protecting you make him vulnerable. The longer he fight Pek-Tol to protect you, more danger he in. More danger you in. Games only entertainment. The real danger be in the game behind the game. Always a game behind the game.”

I didn’t have to ask who Pek-Tol was. I knew by the way she talked about him. He was the boss. The owner of the whole operation. The man with his finger on the remote.

“So, what do I do about that?”

“Give a show, human. Stay valuable. Do what Pek-Tol wants. Thilar protect you. You protect Thilar.”

“I’m too weak to protect Thilar.”

“Hmf. I not talk about protecting with a blade. Small female like you? You protect different.”

I let the valerian’s words stew in my mind for hours until the discomfort of it all lulled me into a restless sleep.

I wasn’t sure how long the alien “rotations” were compared to Earth days, but they seemed comparable. Perhaps a little longer, but that could have been chalked up to boredom. Either way, it was game day. The muffled ruckus of a sizeable crowd echoed in the bowels of the prison we were in beneath the arena. I was given yet another set of fragile rags to wear. They were practically built to fall apart.

I was offered a large meal an hour or so before the game, but I hated the food just the same. It was bland, like eating too many unseasoned scrambled eggs. Eventually, scrambled eggs tasted like shit and so did whatever crap they were giving me, but it was calories. I ate it up and started pacing my cell, waiting for the moment I was thrust into an arena. Oddly, Thilar was taken hours before the game, leaving behind a brief slew of parting words for the valerian woman. I watched him pass my cell, but he didn’t so much as grace me with a glance. Eventually, the other men were escorted out as well.

Finally, the guards came to retrieve the women. Every female contestant was escorted to the little elevators first and transferred to the game grounds, a place I definitely didn’t miss. I didn’t exactly get the best look at all the other women last time, but I got enough to know there were new faces that day.

The light from outside was blinding, but even through the brightness I could see the endless ocean of onlookers vaguely through the light flares peppering my vision. But not for long. Soon, the dome turned to a purple sky. It was artificial, of course, and perhaps better than seeing how many were sitting in the audience waiting for a pornographic bloodbath.

Around us, I noticed the biome had changed. No longer was it a hot, sandy desert. Now it was a lush, living forest, though I wasn’t sure if it would be any easier to navigate.

The crowd was allowed to get a good look at us for a while before the males started filtering into the arena across from us, just like last time. I scanned them all, seeing most of the same ones from the last game, and as the enlarged images appeared on the dome above, I searched for Thilar, but the cameras took ages to focus on him. First, I got an eyeful of the others.

A few of the males were new. There was another gray ape with a giant scar across his chest, one with a whisp of thin hair tied in a ponytail, and a valerian with a muted complexion. The silver of his hair almost made me doubt what he was, but that unmistakable crown gave him away. Perhaps he was older. Perhaps he was some kind of sub-species.

They all looked feral and it made my skin crawl. Then I saw him. Thilar. This time, however, he didn’t have that controlled, analytical look in his eyes and that caught me off guard. This time, something was different. He seemed uncomfortable. Twitchy, even. Rigid. He was cracking his neck from side to side and rolling his shoulders, his brows fiercely knitted.

I swallowed, wondering if he’d go for me again. At the very least, I didn’t think he wanted to kill me. I couldn’t say the same about the others. With all the new faces, I was realizing that no one cared who died. They’d just be replaced in the next round. And I was betting that if any of the apes got a hold of me, they’d kill me before defiling my body… which might be for the best.

I reasoned that my only options were to die, hide for the duration of the event, which was very unlikely, or somehow stay close to Thilar.

“If we are all lucky, you will die this round,” the valerian woman said. I glared in her direction and she answered with a smirk. “Then they will not demand games so often. I can already tell this will be normal if you stay. They will get rich off you until you die.”

“This is bullshit,” I hissed. “You were giving advice before. Now you want me to die?”

“Hmf. I have time to think. Yes. You dying is best.”

I was tempted to just toss the dull knife on the ground, but a dull piece of metal could still be useful, I supposed.

“So? What did Thilar say to you before he left?”