#31 of 100: Animals of the Arena
Flash fiction. After every fight, Hadriana dragged the animal carcasses out and shovelled the most bloodied sand into a wheelbarrow.
After every fight, Hadriana dragged the animal carcasses out and shovelled the most bloodied sand into a wheelbarrow. There were loose teeth sometimes, and limp fingers and toes that had been sliced or bitten off. Any flesh was ground down and given to the dogs and lions that would soon be slaughtered themselves.
Hadriana had fought in the arena years before, but the fame and glory had faded fast. Once her likeness had been scrawled on a tavern wall, showing her with a spear in her hand and two dead crocodiles at her feet. The image had since been defaced with phallic scrawls and a bawdy poem about some other, newer gladiator.
Her strength and agility would have made it easy to find a job, but during the fight that had won her freedom, a crocodile had clamped its jaws around one calf and nearly severed it completely. The medical costs swallowed up her winnings and left her sinking in debt. She now limped across that same arena and the sight of every sticky globule of scarlet sand brought back a twinge of pain.
No one paid much attention to the crippled freedwoman as she doled out food to the animals, and no one observed the contacts she met up with in the evenings. What her associates wanted was simple: a quick and reliable way to make some money. Officials were already investigating fixed fights between gladiators, but they hadn’t thought to consider that fights between gladiators and animals could be swayed.
Hadriana was given poisons to slip into the meals of the creatures she tended to. They had been carefully balanced to still allow such beasts to appear vicious, but they ensured their reflexes would suffer. Gladiators would survive. No one fight could have a guaranteed outcome, but with enough gambling on enough fights, the gang made an easy profit.
Hadriana appreciated her take of the winnings, but when she finally managed to pay off her debts she never told her crooked friends. She let them think she was still just in it for the money.
I do finally have a longer short story planned! I started it today, but didn’t have enough focus, so thought I’d jot down another flash fiction and return to it tomorrow.
What are your thoughts on Animals of the Arena? I’d love to hear what you think works and what doesn’t, or how it could be improved. I’m also interested in other more engaging titles - I had wanted to use something that worked on the level of “the people arranging these fights are also vicious animals”, but I don’t think that comes across in this title.
Love this short bite. Clear and concise. I felt a lot of sympathy for the protagonist. How about “Paid in Blood”?