Page 85 of Death is My BFF

Rage lengthened my fangs. I gripped my desk with one hand and chucked the whole fixture across the office with a menacing roar.

It smashed into the television and blew a massive hole in the wall into the vacant office next door.

He’d hung my weakness over my head. He’d baited me like a fucking helpless child. I was no child.I was two thousand years old.

Prowling back and forth, I tried to control my wrath before I tore this entire room apart and then took it to the streets. My talons had already extended from my fingertips, tearing through my gloves, and I could feel myother sidepurring to be let out.

I braced my hands on the wall and hung my head as I tried to calm myself. Faith’s art portfolio lay open at my feet amongst a mess of files. My lip curled as I bent down to pick it up.

The painting of the willow tree.

There was too much on the line to let another deity take advantage of her power. I could not let her get away. No matter how much she’d despise me once she found out the truth.

This is what you wanted.

I turned with her portfolio in hand and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the tinted windowpane. Sharp, cruel features repelling any signs of life, like cold marble. Hunger had hunted and killed the green hues in my mismatched eyes, draining them to an onyx black.

It chilled me to the bone.

How I looked exactly like my father then.

The willow tree slipped from my fingertips, and I went back.

Back to my death.

I stood alone in the darkness of the corridors of the gladiator arena, torches flickering in the stale, humid space. Drums rolled out in a slow, rhythmic march. I felt no adrenaline. No fear. Nothing at all.

My hand clenched against the hilt of my sword, the familiar grip of my weapon giving me enough strength to trudge forward.

Sunlight slanted into the corridor and chaos erupted, a roar of a crowd so blaringly loud, I swore the ground beneath my feet trembled. I sauntered down the corridor into the rowdy arena with a modest wave to the crowd.

Golden sunlight bounced off my armor, the shield down my right arm, and the designs along my helmet shifting color to black. I slashed my sword through the air and in a grand display of skill, spun the weapon around my body. The crowd’s shrieking was deafening, having traveled from all over Rome to see the renowned “Dru the Beast” now in this arena.

I prowled to the center of the performance area and posed with a wide stance and a proud, erect posture. Then I feigned a smile at their heartless faces. The performance, the lively armor, it was all an act, an unwavering mask I’d worn for years as a slave to the game.

Once, in a moment of weakness, I’dbeggedthose mortals, pleaded, for someone—anyone to see. See me for a human being. See the scars on my ankles and wrists. See how I’d tried to rise from this hell, and how my own father would pull me back down. What a waste, to beg humanity to save me. Mortals turned a blind eye to suffering for the sake of their own entertainment.

Today, my mask wavered. For beneath my hard-wearing exterior was a decimated soul so tortured it craved pain.

Unspeakable grief had stunned my heart into a complete state of numbness. For days, I’d wandered around Rome like an empty corpse. I’d losteverything. Everything, in a series of tribulations and deaths so sudden and swift they felt like cruel vanishing acts, leaving me questioning both my existence and the creators who had put me on my path.

Why me?I’d been torn limb from limb with everything still intact. I’d fallen to my knees, defeated by a power far out of my control, that left me with only the flicker of fading memories and the waning ghosts of people I should have held on to tighter. To be so shattered with grief you forget how to breathe. To live. Frightening is the man who has nothing left to lose.

“Dru the Beast! Dru the Beast! Dru the Beast!”

My insides churned with disgust at these sadistic people. They’d get their thrilling game today.

The drums rolled for the challenger.

My sorrow had ironically led me here. Back to the macabre games that had torn me from a normal childhood. Yes, this was where I planned to die, where I would coerce my opponent to take my life.

The challenger marched out from an opposite entrance. He ventured to the center of the elliptical area and faced off for battle.

This other gladiator, the challenger, stood a handful of inches shorter than my almost seven-foot height. Although he was slighter in stature and wore iron panels not as extravagantly detailed as mine, he held a certain confidence over my abilities. He didn’t have bands around his ankles. He wore plain leather shoes. His obsidian cape, strewn into the armor on his shoulders, flogged the hot air with fine, thick material that seemed kingly.

The thunderous crowd roared on with eagerness for battle. A gate lifted into the arena and in came two midnight jaguars. Feeling their intense fear was a sixth sense that lifted the shackles of my awareness. They’d been taunted more than usual today.

The challenger did not seem fazed by the wild animals either. I played the part of my celebrity role and fell into a defensive position.

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