Underland(25)

He had to blink to adjust to the sudden brightness.

The gate opened. Den and Warrick stepped out and immediately moved to the middle of the room towards Ferb. He scurried over and greeted them.

While they chatted for a moment, Den watched Kira study the room. TV screens lined three walls, including digital projection screens and even a wall of water.

Everywhere flashed images of events from the gauntlet. People running for their lives, killing each other, setting traps. Other screens showed the aftermath, a smiling champion getting interviewed. One wall was covered with pictures of the top ranked champions of all time. Creeper’s picture was on the wall with a 4 under his frame.

Ferb’s long tail and ears twitched with excitement when Warrick introduced her. “I’m very pleased to meet you. No one’s ever brought me a human to teach before.” His nose twitched, and he offered his small hand.

Kira shook it gingerly with two fingers and Den snorted.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m glad to be here.” She was able to paste on a fake smile.

Den was amused at her obvious awkwardness when confronted with Ferb. Yes, he was short and fuzzy, but also very deadly. Den hoped she was smart enough to get past the cuddly exterior and realize that he’d brought her to The Expert on the games.

***

Wow, this place. Kira studied their host again. He looked like an oversized meerkat with a tail and eyes so large they could only be described as boggly. He was super cute. But the décor suggested he had a dark fascination.

Not cuddly.

Kira glanced back at the picture of Creeper on the wall. She felt zero remorse when she looked at his gaunt skin and haunting smile.

Warrick was distracted by a large screen with a large ogre-looking beast tearing through a crowd of people with ease. He picked one up and threw him to the ground with ease and then began to stomp on him crudely before running. The camera seemed to love him—the crowd favorite.

Appalled but unable to look away, Kira stepped closer to the screen and stared, mesmerized by the destruction and chaos left in the monster’s wake. This was where she would have to fight to survive?

A large obstacle course filled with deadly looking pitfalls, acid rivers, and traps. Some guy tried to swing over the river of acid and got knocked off his rope by the whitish beast. He fell into acid, but the death wasn’t swift. It was horribly loud and painful—Kira had to turn away. Just as she looked back, the camera zoomed in on the monster’s final moments. Kira’s stomach heaved. The crowd went wild, screaming and whistling. Only a few onlookers groaned and shook their heads in defeat.

The perpetrator who knocked him off took center screen, and a score box appeared below his face. Bogeyman’s bio, weight, and other stats were listed. This horrible looking boggart weighed nearly three hundred pounds. Of the seven races he’d run, he’d won five. A few seconds later, a gold box appeared with numbers in the shape of bones.

The tally was twenty-one.

“What does that mean?” Kira had to be sure. Maybe the number didn’t mean what she thought it did.

Ferb scooted over on a chair with wheels; he looked up at the screen and grinned. “Ah, the kill tally. It helps the betting. Plus, the higher the number usually means the more popular you are.”

“That’s disgusting!”

“Only to you. Here, it’s the same as seeing a baseball player’s RBI’s. It’s an integral part of our life. Soon you will have one too, if I understand correctly.”

Ferb pushed off from the table and flew across the room, still holding onto the office chair. The chair slid and slowed down by a long display of cases and frames.

Kira followed at a slower pace. He waved her over impatiently and pointed into a glass case. When she leaned down to focus, she gasped at the objects inside. There was a bloody shoe, a torn uniform, and various other objects.

“You see that?” He pointed excitedly. “That was the shoe worn by Zephyr in the 1507 Championships. And that was the uniform of Tora in the ’13 semifinals; she was the favorite, but a dragon obliterated her three yards from the finish line. I had to search long and hard for that—traded a years’ worth of tokens for it.” He spouted off facts and information about every item in his case. His warm breath left small steam circles everywhere.

“But no one has been able to beat the Labyrinth. I think that’s why the Underlords are picking more chosens.”

He’d almost managed to get her interested, but a small object on a plush purple pillow caught her eye. Once she recognized the object as a mummified finger she turned and ran for the door.

Warrick blocked her way.

She ran right into him and started hitting him with her fists. “Why would you bring me here? Get me out!”

Warrick let her pound him with her fists, sighing. “We thought it best that you understood what you were getting yourself into. You need to be prepared.”

“And this was the best way? To show me videos and body parts of past contestants. Are you nuts?” Kira wiped her tears on her jacket sleeve and stepped away. She kept her back to the TV screens that replayed the best kills of the centuries and found the one spot in the room that didn’t have anything dead or dying displayed on it. She focused on the framed picture of a young Ferb waving a flag at a race. He was truly a lifelong collector of the games’ artifacts.

“I want to leave…now!”