The tunnels spat Eren out like an arrow and the arena swallowed him whole. It was even more grand than he remembered. He looked up at the stands in wonder."Holy shit." He whispered, turning in a circle to take it all in. His opponent, Zack, did the same in amazement.The arena stretched out like a grand amphitheater with tiers of seats rising high around the central stage. The architecture was a testament to grandeur and functionality at once, designed to accommodate thousands of spectators while focusing all attention on the arena floor below. Sunlight streamed through the open arches casting light shadows that danced over the floors which were covered in sand.He scanned the throng of people for Silas's reassuring face. Above and below. East and west. There was no sign of the man who had easily become a mentor to him in the preceding weeks. With the crowd, Eren realized it would be next to impossible to find a single person. He hoped Silas would be watching. He knew the dir
"I won't lie to you. Sometimes, I wish Solvane Winchester was my Gramps." Tristan said.Drake threw his head back and laughed hard and long. Daniel chuckled until he was wheezing and out of breath. They had just seen the Winchester patriarch's speech televised and Tristan was enraptured."If Solvane Winchester was your grandfather, which he would not be in this world or the next, but if he was, that would make you a Winchester. And what sort of Winchester would that make you?" He made a flicking motion at Tristan's hair. Dark and frizzly. It was nothing like the fine silver locks by which the Winchesters could be identified everywhere.Tristan kissed his teeth, making a smacking sound with his mouth. "Yeah, whatever."He was hurt. He was very easily hurt by things, which Drake found quite amusing. The guy was nearly a giant. Drake cackled with Daniel. Soon, the laughter died down in his throat when he realized most of the contestants gathered around the screen before them. The ma
Who would have thought he would live to see the day?Eren stared at his hands in amazement. They glowed with phosphorescent, blue light. He threw a hasty glance in his opponent's direction to confirm his position. Eren did not appreciate the surprise he had received earlier, and if possible, he wanted to avoid another.Zack Palmer studied him with new respect in his eyes. "No one has ever blocked my attack like that." He called across the space between them.Eren shook his head. He had gained some confidence in the encounter. Weeks of preparation, weeks of fighting robot models in Silas' mansion, weeks worrying that he would not survive a real fight since he could hardly claim to have been in one. Because look what happened the one time he tried to fight Drake off with a club.After all that anxiety, he had managed to hold his own in the first few minutes of the fight. It felt like hard earned redemption. It gave him confidence."Well, in your defense, you hadn't met me." Eren
The walk back to the locker room was the longest walk of Eren's life. Confetti rained down from the stands onto his back. All over his suit. Some pieces of glitter and paper got into his hair. Like the tournaments, this too was a long standing tradition. They celebrated the opening contest almost as much as the final bout. The beginning and the end side by side.Despite the throbbing in his head and the pain at his side, a part of Eren still could not believe he had opened the games, that he had won, too. Maybe I am dreaming, He thought. Maybe Drake hit me so hard that I am still in a coma.He feared that he would wake up any time from then, swaddled in a hospital gown, gasping for air with oxygen starved lungs. But he trudged all the way to the locker rooms and nothing happened. No awakening. No drawing on the air for breath.The announcer's voice kept booming over the intercom and Eren dragged his unwilling body, wondering where the exhaustion had emerged from. The doors clo
BOOM!The last of the explosions boomed so loudly, Eren held his hands to his ears. The blasts took him by the feet and dragged him through the slick mud of memory - That one evening. His mother holding a smoking shotgun with its barrel pointed heavenward. The part of her face angled towards him was cast in shadow, and for a stark moment, he was stunned at how picturesque she was. Like a statute, perfect and perfectly still.Elizabeth Trost had started something resembling a garden at the back of their house. A pet project of sorts. There were tomatoes in a corralled patch of loamy soil and reddened fruits bursting from the branches of pepper plants. A few stalks of corn swayed at the back too. Nothing nearly enough to be substantial.She tended to it in the hours after work, gently, as though it was her child. A second child. It calmed her, she claimed.Eventually the garden bloomed into more than what she had planned for, and of course the birds came. His mother made herself
Tiana learnt early how to wear a mask. How to be a mask.It was quite simple actually. Force a bright smile onto her face. Sprinkle false confidence into her step. If sitting, place one leg on top of the other—it was easier to conceal knee jerking that way. Find something to keep your hands occupied so the trembling is not visible. Do not fidget.It was easy to look composed. To be composed was a harder task. Her heart pounded in her chest. Anxiety ate at her."See?" Sid was saying to Eren, "I'd make a good friend.""Shut up, man." Eren said coolly. But he shoved him with his shoulder, as if to say, you are alright.More than anything else Tiana envied their freedom. Their groundedness. Especially Eren's. Unlike her, he was not tied to a Clan name. He did not bear the weight of nobility. Little was asked of him if any.Only that morning, before being driven to the arena, she had sat with her mother at their table, and even though it was only the two of them, she felt that weight p
After the seventh fight, they summoned Tiana.She was speaking to Sid and laughing about something he had said when her name boomed over the speakers. All eyes in the room settled on her and she seemed suddenly very small, unsure. Then as Eren watched, her face rearranged itself. She was sliding under something. Or perhaps, behind something.Eren knew what it was like to hide away from the world so long that it became a personality. A kind of armor, but of the mind. Everyone had something that they fell behind when they needed to. But Eren had watched her animated for the better half of an hour and he had seen the mask peeling to reveal the person beneath. He liked who she was underneath all that chainmail. He hoped her mask never became her.Her would-be opponent, a huge, muscular guy smirked at her and exited the locker room for the corridor. Tiana got to her feet, folded and unfurled her fingers nervously and started walking to the tunnel."Good luck, Tiana." Sid called afte
For Sid, fighting was not just an art form - it was clarity.Most children were taught violence only because their parents knew they would need it to contest in the tournaments when they were of age. But Sid's mother had never been in the picture. She left when he was young and now she was like a figure in the rearview mirror. The older he grew, the more distant his memories of her grew, the less he remembered. His father was a scientist, the wealthy kind, who solved problems by throwing money at them. He parented Sid from a distance, too, drawing him close only when he needed something from him.Young and surrounded on all sides by wealth and little humanity, he was always acutely aware of how different he was from others, how alone. His peers loved him. How could they not? He inherited his father's charm and his mother's beauty, the kind that made you heady, that made people act like he was a fleeting experience, like he would vanish if they did not turn and try to grasp at hi