Back to Black

The roar of the crowd felt far away from the shadowed tunnels of The Playground. The ebony beast had been conscious for several hours now, tending to her wounds and her ego. How soon the tides of fortune may fade, leaving humiliation in its wake. After a series of wins, Rue’s confidence had been soaring. She felt unstoppable each time she stepped into the ring. And The Playground had welcomed her. Here, Rue had felt some semblance of acceptance she had never experienced before.

But that, too, was as tenuous as grasping at sand. It can be gone just as swiftly as it arrived. Only one loss away from crumbling into nothingness – no accolades, no cheering crowds. No admiring looks. Only whispers and stares.

It had been Rue’s turn to experience the bitterness of defeat. An unknown fighter ntered the arena to humble the behemoth. And Rue had faltered throughout the match until she failed miserably. Despite a final attack that landed hard, some bitch called Omen had left her bloody and unconscious on the cold stone. It had taken three guards to drag the lifeless form of “Ruin” from the arena to a back area deep in the bowels of the cavernous tunnels, where all the losers were ingloriously thrown – either to regain consciousness and limp away with tail tucked between their legs, or to simply never rise again.

Rue’s humiliation was not at the forefront of her thoughts as her head pounded like a vicious drum within her skull. To her surprise, she had watched a match that morning featuring a woman that was familiar to her. Chances were high that Black had already left The Playground after her own unsuccessful fight. But that wouldn’t stop Rue from looking for her, and she limped through the long hallways that connected the inner chambers of the labyrinthine tunnels. The pale flicker of light shining from brass lanterns danced on the crumbling rocks, hardly providing enough light, so that Rue looked more spectral than wolf as she searched for another shadow in the dark.

art and code by Yahtzee-Penguiduck