I woke in a haze, trying desperately to piece things together. The last thing I remembered was…Lord Caelan’s voice in my mind.

  “Aine! Are you awake?!” Belial shouted in a panic. I rubbed at my eyes, blinking as I tried to take in my surroundings.

  Where…are we? My head felt like it’d been split in half, a throbbing pain coming from the middle of my forehead every time I focused on anything. Surrounding me were the steel walls of the pod, the one I’d been strapped inside of. It was only slightly larger than me, leaving maybe a foot of extra room on either side of my body. A narrow pane of glass ran up the middle, giving me a limited view of a world outside that looked to be moving.

  “Uh, right now? Approximately 70,000 feet above your planet…and plummeting.”

  “Plummeting?” I asked with a surge of panic, “what do you mean plummeting?”

  “I mean plummeting. Fast. The pod’s thrusters aren’t working. I tried hacking in and engaging them manually, but they’re completely disconnected. Someone must’ve tampered with them.”

  Tampered? Who?

  Immediately, I thought of Lord Caelan’s father, but it didn’t make sense. With all his money wagered on me, he’d lose everything if I died. Did Lord Caelan mess something up? I tried to remember what he said before they took me to the pod…something about overriding my AY-EYE.

  “You were supposed to keep it from putting me to sleep.” I mumbled, remembering the plan. We were supposed to find an entrance before we set down, so we could beat everyone else there.

  “I did. You passed out from the spin—Ugh. It doesn’t matter right now. We have maybe four minutes. I need you to pay attention.”

  I shook my head, noticing a force pushing me up and to the left, fighting against the cloth restraints holding me down. A disorienting blur of blue and white was all I could see through the narrow slit of glass. The sky, I realized, suddenly overcome with nausea as I labored to suck in enough air to speak. “Are we—”

  “Spinning, yes. Very fast. You’re going to go unconscious again unless you listen to me.”

  What…do you need me to do? It was easier to think than speak, but only slightly. It felt like my brain was bouncing around inside my skull.

  “First, we need to stop the spin. When I say, throw your body to the right with as much force as you can.”

  How? I struggled to lift my head against the force pinning me down.

  “It’ll get easier as we go, but you’ll need to take off your restraints first. There’s a buckle over each of your shoulders.”

  I swallowed a lump, forcing down the contents of my stomach that seemed eager to escape as I lifted an arm to feel for the buckles. It took a moment of fumbling along the strap before my fingers wrapped around something cold and metal.

  “That’s it.” Belial said.

  I pressed the button on each buckle, a metal ‘schling’ sounding as I shimmied free of the straps. Without them, the force of the spin slid me further up and left, leaving me pressed awkwardly into the corner with my chin digging into my chest. Done. Now…what?

  “Get ready.” Belial said, prompting me to press my arms and legs against the left wall. “Now!”

  I pushed off, finding it easier than I’d expected as my side thudded against the right side of the pod. Belial must’ve been enhancing my strength. After a moment, the force pulled me back to where I’d started, with my neck craned against the upper left corner.

  “Again!” he shouted, his voice sounding slightly more optimistic than before.

  After several more agonizing thuds against the wall, the spin lessened. I sighed in relief at the feeling of cool blood rushing back into my limbs. Through the narrow slit of glass, I gaped at something massive in the distance. The tower, spiraling upwards from an ocean of clouds. It was narrow at the top, widening into a slope. I drew in a long breath, feeling the throbbing in my forehead fade just enough to understand how dire my situation was.

  “We stopped the spin but—”

  “Still falling, yes. 55,000 feet. We need to fix the thrusters. Do you see that panel on the wall? Punch it as hard as you can.”

  Despite my confusion, I didn’t argue as I slammed my fist into the center of the panel, warping the metal just enough to form a seam along one side. Managing to dig two fingers underneath, I pried the panel off, hearing it clatter next to my feet.

  “Now what?” I asked, staring at an incoherent mess of wires, all of which were black. The center of the mess held a space that looked like something square-shaped belonged there.

  “Urghhh. They removed the control module. No wonder I can’t turn them on.” Belial said, rattling off curses in my ear, most of which I’d never heard before.

  “So, we’re dead.” I said, squeezing my eyes shut as I thud my head against the padded surface of the pod behind me. I could’ve jumped off the arena ledge a week ago and saved myself all this time…and unpleasantness, I thought wistfully, more annoyed that I could’ve skipped wrestling that lobster in a tunnel of filth.

  “Not necessarily,” Belial said, as if mulling something over. The optimism in his voice made me open my eyes. “This pod has a parachute for emergencies, imagine a big blanket that’ll catch the air and slow us down.”

  “Okay, great,” I said, blinking at the unexpected stroke of luck. “What are you waiting for then? Turn it on.”

  “Ugh. You don’t turn it on, you de-ploy it, and I can’t. You’ll need to do it manually…and fast. You’re ninety seconds away from being two-dimensional.”

  "Two di—” I stopped myself, “Where is it? What do I need to do?”

  “It’s behind another panel above you, on the outside. Don’t worry, there’s a hatch on the ceiling close to where it is.” I looked up to the ceiling, seeing a red lever attached to a circular metal door, maybe 30 inches wide. “You’ll need to hurry.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I strained, standing on the tips of my boots to reach the lever overhead. With a final grunt, the hatch disconnected, catching on the wind and tumbling away like a leaf in a storm. I drew a determined breath before gripping the edge of the opening with both hands. Pressing my boots against the inside of the pod, I pulled myself halfway through, squinting as the wind assaulted my face.

  “It’s that one,” he said, the same moment I saw it. There was a seam around a rectangular section directly in front of me with a small, circular depression in front of that. A rod spanned the circle’s width, looking like it was meant to be turned. Following Belial’s directions, I cranked the dial left, growing more nervous as nothing happened.

  “Is this supposed to be doing something?” I shouted over the wind as I frantically twisted the dial. A sudden feeling of happiness washed over me that made me stop. “Why are you—”

  “I’m sorry, Aine. They must’ve disconnected the latch internally.”

  “You’re giving up?” My face twisted as rage swelled inside me, burning away the joy he’d meant to console me with. The ground didn’t seem that close yet, but I could tell the metal was too thick to pry open like the one I had inside.

  He doesn’t think I’m strong enough. That thought enraged me more as I slammed my fist into the surrounding metal, eyes wide with hope as it started to give, creating a wider gap. I dug both hands underneath, wincing as the bent metal bit into my wrists. The panel didn’t give. I screamed my frustration, straining harder until my fingers felt something odd. I pulled one hand away, the wind stinging my cuts as I leaned in, trying to spot what I’d felt. Whatever it was felt rod-shaped, I wondered if it was part of the latch or what secured the panel in place.

  “Ah! Try twisting that! It might be the spindle for the dial!” Belial shouted, excitedly. I forced my hand back inside the gap, barely managing to wrap my fingers around it. Turning it felt futile at first, until I felt a tiny give. I screamed with the effort as I twisted with every ounce of strength my fingers had, ignoring the jagged pieces of metal cutting and scraping my hands.

  Tears welled in my eyes, both from the wind and the pure joy I felt when the panel finally opened, and a stream of fabric shot out, unfurling overhead. I was about to chastise Belial for giving up when the parachute finished opening, the force of it causing me to slip back inside the pod.

  I sat there a moment, marveling at the brief feeling of weightlessness, despite being wedged awkwardly with one leg still raised over my head.

  “I, uh…just wanted to apologize for giving up back there—”

  “You…piece…of shit.” I muttered, using the straps from earlier to help myself stand. “you were just going to pump me full of happiness?”

  “I’m sorry,” he drawled, sarcastically, “I figured you might appreciate feeling nice before being transformed into a waffle.”

  “A waffle?” I giggled, forgetting to sound angry as I tried to imagine what something called a waffle might look like, “what a strange name for something. Are they flat?”

  Before Belial could answer me, I heard a tearing sound that made my stomach lurch.

  “Uh oh.” Belial said.

  “What now?!” I asked, though I saw it immediately through the hatch. A small tear along one side of the round canvas. The cuts stinging my arms made me realize what’d torn the fabric. It was the metal I’d mangled to get the chute free. I held my breath as the rip widened, stumbling when the pod rocked slightly. “Are we going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know, what am I a fabric-ologist?”

  “No,” I muttered slowly, annoyed, “I just thought since you knew everything else about this stupid pod—” The pod lurched again, and I looked up to see the hole in the chute had widened. Fear spiked in my chest as I pressed my face against the narrow slit of glass, looking for the surface. We were still high up, but at the rate the fabric was tearing we should make it. I felt a tiny bit of relief before I noticed something else. The tower was getting larger, or rather, we were getting closer. Somehow the tear in the fabric was sending us directly at it. I realized it didn’t taper the whole way down. Instead, it straightened a few hundred feet from the surface, ruining any hope that I could somehow slide down its walls to safety. “Are we going to—”

  “Crash into that gigantic 90,000-foot-tall building in front of us? Yes. Hold on to something.”

  My mouth hung open in disbelief, both at how abysmal my luck was, and how gargantuan it looked as we sailed towards it. Fast. I didn’t have time to wonder when I’d learned those words before the sight of it filled my vision.

  I braced myself, the crash bouncing my face off the glass and off all four walls as the pod flipped and spun, before finally landing on its back against the sloped surface of the tower. My stomach lifted into my chest as we slid down the tower’s slope, steadily picking up speed. I craned my neck to peer out the hatch, cursing when I noticed the parachute had somehow become a tangled mess of lines and fabric. It wouldn’t be any help.

  “I need to slow us down before we fly off that cliff,” I shouted, crawling towards the hatch when I felt a rush of air.

  “Here,” Belial said, as the front of the pod swung open on its hinges, revealing the sky.

  I stood, using both hands to steady myself as I readied to jump. I stopped myself as I noticed my hammer, strapped to the outside of the pod.

  “Leave it!” Belial shouted. I ignored him, leaning outside the pod and searching for a way to pull it free. Out of time, I gripped the handle with both hands, pulling until I bent the metal clamps that secured it.

  I launched myself at the tower, raising my hammer and twisting the handle as I soared through the air, poised to slam it into the tower’s side. The pod and tangled chute continued down the slope, sliding away beneath me as I hung for a second in the air. I felt the dull clank inside the hammer; it’d finished charging just as it collided with stone. The air rippled as it struck, pressure erupting outward. The hilt vibrated, and I struggled to hang on as the hammer pulled me, dragging me forward. I felt like I was being crushed from two sides, the hammer’s momentum, and the force of my fall both threatening to rip my arms off as the hammer anchored itself into the wall.

  I heard a horrible pop from inside my shoulders; a dull ache radiated from both as I realized my arms felt wrong. They felt limp over my head, like I couldn’t control them, but somehow my hands held on.

  “You dislocated both shoulders,” Belial shouted in my ears. “But don’t worry, I’m controlling your hands.”

  Worry or not, it hurt. I cried out in pain, kicking my feet as I hung there, suddenly realizing I was hanging off the ledge. Despite jumping when I was still roughly fifty feet away, I somehow landed right before the tower’s slope ended. I dangled there, groaning in agony, inches away from plummeting to my death. A new pain surged in my shoulders. Needles, swimming inside of me, threading through the flesh in my arms. My chest spasmed as I tried to cry out without enough air to scream.

  My body convulsed, hips bending as if something had kicked me in the stomach as I felt my arms slip back into place. All the pain I’d felt vanished an instant later.

  Somehow, I heard faint clapping from inside my head, as if Belial were brushing off his hands after a hard day’s work. “Those are fixed, now for the internal bleeding.”

  I pulled myself up by the hammer’s hilt, trying to ignore the stabbing pains inside my chest as Belial continued healing me. Still hanging onto the hilt, I leaned over the edge before cursing at what I saw on the ground below. Several gladiators surrounded the now gnarled wreckage of my pod. I jerked my head back when one of them, a tall man in scary looking armor, pointed up at me. Even if I somehow managed to climb down safely, they’d swarm me in an instant.

  “Maybe you could throw your hammer at them.” Belial suggested. I shook my head at the idea, it would only deal with one, and that was only if I managed to hit them.

  Just then, something gave inside the wall. I felt a deep rumble just before a small section collapsed, freeing my hammer, and leaving a gaping hole behind. About to lose my footing, I lurched forward, barely catching the rim of the opening with one hand as the hammer dangled behind me in the other.

  “Wow. You really are lucky.” Belial said, as I pulled myself up to rest my elbow on the edge of the new opening. The inside was dimly lit, but I could see the outline of a stone corridor, sconces affixed to the walls on either side. I pulled myself through, dropping about six feet to land on the floor. Yellow symbols flashed in my vision the instant I landed.

  “What does it say?” I asked, trying to blink them away. They took up every inch of my sight, dancing around as little embers flew around them. I leaned up against a wall, the images making me dizzy as the embers burst, raining sparks of every color.

  “It says Congratulations, gladiator. You’ve entered level 2.”

  Thanks for reading guys <3