The Lost Chronicles Of Pangea: Apocalypse

The Arena 1

As David counted down the hour and days that blurred together in his cell, he could slowly feel himself loosing his mind. He was not exactly sure, but it has been five days since the handsome villain paid them a visit. And in that time they have only been fed four times, for a total of once a day, and even then the food was quite a measly amount and no water was offered to them.

Lilith however has not said a word in all of those five days except when she told him who or what the handsome villain did for a living. It was even more cliché than expected, but it did not take the terror out of such a knowledge. So here David lied passing each waking moment in fear of death and covered in his own filth. And to make matters worse, that pressure that he was becoming really familiar with had appeared again. A few days ahead of schedule.

If David was not so scared of the onslaught of pain he was about to experience, he would be looking forward to an upgrade in his abilities. Maybe this way, he could find a way to escape. But this room was in all sense of the word empty. Apart from the Ionite chains being used to hold them, at all four corners of the cell, an Ionite dispersing array was installed. Just like how he modified his hover bike to have its gravitational and magnetic field controlled and regulated by an Ionite cap. This array completely dispersed any sort of energy or abilities. They were practically ordinary humans in here.

David remembered a time when life was simple. On Earth all he had to really worry about was going to school and making something of his life. On Pangea he had roughly the same goals, but in the end not everything work out as planned.

Because now he was chained to a bed, and injured, about to be killed to the amusement and enjoyment of criminals and miscreants. It was not fair which ever way you looked at it, David wanted to go home, and in this case he meant Earth.

“Arghh”

David grunted softly as his head experienced a short explosion of pain. The disparity between his two identities was all the more apparent during this period of evolution. If he thought of himself as David of earth, or David of Pangea as two separate people, he would go through one heck of a pain that would leave his eyeballs pulsing and his head on fire. He might have made a breakthrough at the convenience store, but with each passing day, it was obvious he had to find a balance for his identities, or his head would truly end up exploding.

All of a sudden the rune which was painted on the concrete ceiling of his cell lit up. And as it did so, the chains that held him to his bed, and Lilith to the wall became loose. Then the rune began to spew forth huge torrents of water that came crashing down on top of him and Lilith’s dirt covered bodies. At first it was painful for him, the force with which the water came down aggravated his previous wounds. But the pain was only for a moment, as the water seemed to seep into his body and soothe and heal his injuries.

David found that he could breath a lot easier and his pain was lessened by a considerable deal. The water did not just wash away his pain and the dirt on his body, it literally washed away everything, the jeans he was wearing, and the bed he was lying on. In no time at all, David found himself stark naked and on the floor. The water fell on for another five minutes, flooding the entire room and leaving behind a pool of water that was ankle high and rather murky. Then suddenly the rune that previously glowed blue turned yellow, and all the water on the floor was sucked up along with the dirt and whatever residue of things not mentioned was left in the room.

What was left was a pristinely clean room, with nothing but two Naked hungry individuals, and the Ionite dispersing array. David was surprised by the sudden turn of events, and he tried his luck by asking the silent Lilith a question.

“What just happened?” Lucky for him, she seemed to be in a good mood, so she answered his question.

“They’re preparing us for the arena.”

David felt his heart skip a beat. This was the part of his capture he had been dreading the most, the part where he would be forced to fight someone, or something. Lilith seemed to have taken notice of his fear, so she turned to him and said.

“Move around a lot, and fight dirty. You should be fine if your opponent is an amateur like you. But if your opponent is stronger, try to get him or her tired, you’re a smart boy, I’m pretty sure you can get someone to make some wasted movements in a battle. Strike when you see an opening, and go for a vital organ.”

David nodded in response, but as soon as she finished talking the rune above them glowed red, and a box was dropped in front of them. Within it were a pair of skin tight body suits for the both of them, a very sumptuous meal, and a pair of shields and gladius. It seems like they were taking this whole gladiator theme literally.

“They can’t just force us to fight right?, it’s a breach of our human rights. We can protest about it can’t we.”

David was now hanging for straws, looking for hope or anything that can help him escape his coming predicament. But Lilith looked calm, almost as if she could not be bothered with the current flow of events.

“You might not have noticed, but down here there’s no such thing as a constitution or rules. We’re no better than slaves, and you should stop giving the fear rune ample ammo to mess with your mind.”

David was surprised by what Lilith said last, before he could ask anything he followed the direction of where her fingers were pointing and saw another rune etched to the floor of the cell. David had not been able to notice the rune etched on the floor because he had been practically bed ridden for the duration of the time he had spent here as a prisoner.

But come to think of it, he felt that Lilith was a little right. He was scared, but not up to the point he would loose complete control over himself. He had spent the past few weeks escaping from one close call with death after another. At this point he was supposed to have developed a sort of immunity to death.

“Eat. You will need your strength for what is to come.”

David wholeheartedly took Lilith’s advice, he was in awe about how calm she seemed about the entire situation, but David was rapidly becoming used to seeing her like this. He had seen Lilith at her lowest point, he knew how much pain she was in when her son died, so seeing her like this, seeing her strong and un afraid was a very surreal experience. No matter what might happen between the two of them, David respected her confidence and courage.

After days of being starved, the meal that was offered to them felt like a slice of heaven. It was well made, and David could safely say, that he has not had the pleasure of experiencing such a meal since his arrival in Pangea. That string of thought gave him a sharp pain in the head, but all he could do was squint and bear with it. It also occurred to him, that this meal might as well have been their last.

After ten minutes of the rather hefty and filling meal, which David now realized they should have checked for poison, there were sounds of multiple people approaching their cell from behind the screen of darkness. David and Lilith got to their feet as they waited for their approach.

The cell door slid open, and the curtain of darkness ripples as four heavily armed men made their way into the cell. No words were spoken, all they did was point their heavy assault rifles at them, while also gesturing for them to pick up the shield and short sword in the box.

Lilith picked hers up without making a fuss, so David followed her and did the same. Then the guards pushed them out of the cell and into the screen of darkness. As David went through the screen his body felt cold, and he could feel a piece of the darkness creep into the recess of his soul. The impact of such a scenario made him dizzy for a moment, as he felt an extra pressure at the back of his head. As he tried to shake off the disorienting feeling, Lilith gave an explanation of what just happened.

“That cold feeling is and observation rune superimposed over a tracking rune, with an exploding rune serving as a secondary support for the array. With this rune they can know where we are, what we’re doing, and kill us from a distance if we decide to run away.”

David gulped in fright and stumbled forward as he was pushed by a guard behind him. Then he marched through a rather short hallway, before coming out into a metal walkway that was four floors into the air. The walkway went on for a radius of almost a thousand meters, it was quite big, and went round what David finally recognized as an arena. They were imprisoned above it, and from where he was standing, it seems this arena was built inside a volcano.

David looked down and saw the rows, upon rows of seats stacked for a maximum of three floors, filled with screaming men and women, and a few kids too. At the bottom of it, he could see the arena, it was a metal platform with the carvings of ancients beasts, and warriors locked in a battle.

David did not know why, but that platform rubbed him off in all the wrong ways. It was eerie and grotesquely savage, and it did not just have to do with heavy coating of blood on it’s surface, or the fact that someone just used his teeth to rip out someone’s throat and raised his hands and bloodied face to the cheers of every screaming fan in the arena. David shuddered.

“My God!”

David was shocked, he had never heard Lilith mention God or sound so terrified. It was completely unbecoming of her, and he could not begin to imagine what could have made her so shaken.

“That platform is a summoning circle.” She muttered. But David had to ask.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that when that platform has had enough offerings of blood and c*****e, it will open a portal straight to hell that could be open for an undetermined stretch if time. It could be seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or even years. And in all that time it will endlessly spew hundreds of thousands of demons onto Pangea. The apocalypse would be in full swing then. It will mean the end of everything as we know it.”