I was told the end of the world was peaceful. 

With the rush of serenity I felt, it almost was. Almost. Nothing could mask those screams. The adrenaline I felt at the end was too good, knowing it would all end in that very moment…

All of the suffering. All of the lies. All of the violence. 

When a surge of fresh air entered my lungs and a droplet of water hit my forehead, I realized it was not over. Not even close. 

Clutching at my chest, I sucked in the biggest gulp of air physically possible and sat upright. Dizzily looking around, I used my other hand to steady myself from wobbling onto my side. The air stunk like rotten meat, the distant roaring of cheers ringing in my ears as reality settled in. The room was dark, crates and bags of wheat nestled into the shadowed corners, water trickling from the ceiling onto the floor. Looking down at my hands, I noticed dirt shoved beneath my nail beds and cuts on my knuckles. 

My clothes were plain, beige everything from head to toe. There were holes at my knees, dried blood running down the pant legs. At my abdomen was a large dried patch of blood, but when I lifted it I was greeted with nothing but dirt and skin. 

Standing to my feet, I grabbed hold of the nearest surface to level myself and took a deep breath. Where was I? Not home, that was for sure. Perhaps I got locked up after that brigade outside the alley. 

The last thing I recalled was blood pooling at my feet. There was a gloved hand around my neck, an ominous voice reminding me of the sins I had committed just days prior. 

My fault… 

So, where’d all the blood come from? Where was I now? 

Deciding to figure that mystery out later, I took a few steps toward the closest source of light and found a  stairwell. It was made of stone, a wooden handrail following it up to the top. My ears perked up at a distant laughter, catching my attention for just a moment. 

“...poor lass had it coming!”

“Don’t say that, Rodrick. She was more than a lass.”

“Sorry. That rotten girl had it coming.”

“Yeah, yeah, well Aviana lost me five-hundred lunes when she fell. We're both shit out of luck!”

“Please. The on-call physician will give that magic juice and she’ll be back in the fight by next week—maybe you can lose another bag of lunes then?”

Squinting my eyes, I departed from the confusing conversation and went upstairs. The walls were dimly lit, each step slick and difficult to walk up. Green sludge dripped down to the landing, eventually pooling at the floor and bubbling. I shuddered, grabbing hold of the railing to support myself as I hoisted myself over the waste. 

Where the hell was I? 

There was no indication that I was going the right way, but anywhere was better than being near that disgusting stench and mysterious men. Aviana… I knew nobody by the name, but it sat on my tongue like it should be spoken over and over again. A feeling I couldn’t exactly place, but my stomach churned at the irritating curiosity. 

Eventually, after stepping over a few more puddles of muck I found myself at a large, open floor. There were a few people at the end of the hall who were carrying large platters of food, disappearing and reappearing from the doorway. On the other end was a closed off entrance, a large deadbolt latching it shut. 

Obviously, I knew which way to go. 

Tucking my lip between my teeth, I made way for the locked door and snickered. No deadbolt had stopped me before… I was a master lock picker. My dayjob would be much harder if I didn’t know how to get in and out of locked houses quickly. 

Feeling around my hair for a bobby pin, I huffed out in frustration. Nothing. When a strand of my hair fell from my ponytail, though, and into my face, I noticed something different. 

What was supposed to be dark brown, almost black, was light. Grabbing a fistfull of hair, I undid my ponytail and brought a section to my eye level. There were thousands of delicate, soft blonde strands staring right at me. 

“What the fuck…” I whispered shakily. Last I checked, I was not blonde. 

Dropping my hair, I backed away from the door and into the chest of an employee. Turning on my heel, I stared up at them and did not hesitate in questioning them. “Where am I?”

The man, who stood tall and strong, stared at me like I was a lost cause. His brow furrowed, dark curly hair falling over his forehead sloppily. “Are you mad? Right, I forgot,” he snapped, “you hit your head pretty hard. Come on, I’ll take you to the doctor.”

I made an ‘o’ shape with my lips, pinching my palm with my fingernails nervously. He moved past me after giving me a smile, taking hold of the lock and pressing his fingertip to the flat edge of it. In an instant, it opened and the deadbolt moved automatically. 

Standing in awe, I blinked at the magical door. There was nothing like this where I came from—granted, I was as low class as it got, but still. I had been in tons of rich, extravagant homes, and never had I seen such advanced technology as that. 

Did he really just open that with his fingerprint? 

As I passed the entryway, I noticed the lock glowing a blue hue. It called to me, but I refused it for now. I would take a personal escort through this place over a curious magical lock. 

“What’s your name?” I asked.

His face flashed an expression of shock, flashing his brows before focusing in front of him. “Luca. Not many of the fighters ask me that.”

Fighters?

Looking down at my hands again, I observed my knuckles. No bruises, no scars. In fact, it looked like my hands had been exposed to papercuts, let alone the physical injuries that would come from professional fighting. 

“You really took a beating, huh?” he continued. “I watched from our employee quarters. You got knocked out of the barrier.”

 “Sounds… awful. I don’t remember any of it.”

“Yeah, we’ll get the doctor to heal you up. You’ll be ready in no time for the next fight. To be honest, we thought you were already dead. I thought Lucille tossed you downstairs to be collected later.”

Collected? My skin crawled at that terminology. What was I, day old meat? Was I to be bargained and bartered on the merchant square? “Where do you take the ones that… die?”

Luca looked over his shoulder at me again, eyes twinkling with a certain level of curiosity I didn’t know how to measure. “People don’t die here, Aviana. You really got knocked out, huh? I’ll make sure the doctor gives you the good stuff.”

Sucking in a breath, we eventually got to a set of white doors. On the front read ‘infirmary,’ in capital, glowing letters. Without knocking, they entered the room and I came face-to-face with a woman who grabbed me by the arm. 

“Unit 056 is here for a physical exam,” the woman said into a mic clipped to her collar. Luca stood at the entrance, hands folded behind his back. She guided me onto a bed, barking at me to lay down before she grabbed a needle. 

“If I can chime in here, Kristy,” Luca said, “she woke up on her own. You have to do a better job training those dogs downstairs.”

“You know as well as I do that is above my paygrade,” the woman snickered. In that same breath, she jabbed the needle into my abdomen, through the fabric of my shirt, and injected the neon blue liquid into my system. I screeched, my vision blurring in and out after she took it out. 

“What the hell was that?” I cursed.

“Ah, I should have warned you,” Luca said. Between the loud ringing noises and incomprehensible vision, his voice was the only thing gripping me onto reality. “She had no memory of what happened. I’d ask the doctor to give her…”

And, with that, the darkness greeted me again. I felt a cool hand rest on my forearm, another sharp sting entering my skin before I grew completely numb. In this void, written out in bright white letters, read: 

Who the hell was Aviana? Who was I?