3081-ZX-15-3/09 Into the Fight Pit

The Crow wasn’t lying. The whole town is here, having the time of their life at my expense. But I’m not the only poor soul drawn to this mess.

I’m getting too old for this. Sure, I’ll punch mercenaries full of holes, and the crowd will cheer. Heck yeah, I can sense, find, and kill the neural implant hackers trying to catch me distracted, and the crowd approves. I’ll almost enjoy killing the wannabe-warriors in exoskeletons and blowing up your average killer robots, and the crowd’ll get real noisy.

But, kids in mech suits—that’s where I find my new limit. Can’t be more than fifteen years old...

Killed my first one in self-defense. It was me or her. The crowd cheered. The second one was more of a snap decision...a boy trying to sneak up on me with a cloaking device. It was me or him...I think. The crowd cheered again.

The third one came at me in a 20-foot humanoid machine, and the crowd went nuts. He must be some kind of local star. I aimed but couldn’t bring myself to shoot. He did not hesitate. The crowd cheered once more. Guess I’m not the only one who can make that happen.

My vision became narrow, then narrower. I’m losing blood. Is this how I die?
The cheering intensified, and everything else started fading away. I could just stop living. End the suffering. I always end up here anyway, halfway between despair and anger, wondering why the world is so damn violent and why I’m struggling so fucking much. I’ve tried to be like them, I’ve tried to be unlike them. It’s futile, and I think my time has come.

Remarkable though, how when push comes to shove, something within me always kicks in to keep the Reaper away. Can’t rightly say why, but I just can’t truly stop wanting to live, no matter how bad things seem to get.

Nothing else to do but slipping back into the groove and bringing my A-game to the fight pit, then.
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