Chapter 2 – Journey to the Arena

"Titus! Titus!" his father boomed down the hallway and into his bedroom. "It's time," he said in a tone that sounded like it was conflicted between excited and upset. But the call and announcement had been unnecessary; Titus had already heard the carriage arrive outside the bakery and heard the metal rim encompassing the wooden wheels crunching the stones surrounding the house. Getting out of his bed as unenthusiastically as possible, he exited his bedroom and walked down the hallway without saying a word.

Looking into the kitchen where his father and Millicent were standing and awaiting his arrival, he still didn't say a word. They were standing like they were waiting to bid him farewell on his illustrious journey, but he didn't even raise his gaze to look at them. In fact, he didn't even acknowledge their presence at all. Instead, he simply walked past the kitchen, out into the main storefront, and out the front door into the morning's orange sunlight.

Titus took no bags, no clothes, no possessions, nothing. Nothing because his life as he knew it would be truly over the moment he set foot in this carriage, and he had no desire to look back, or even come back one day as he had promised. His father had abandoned him, and all but sentenced him to death. That was something that no child should ever have to deal with.

Titus silently sat atop the cart as the driver pulled away. It was drawn by two horses, which seemed a little excessive for carrying the one small boy the short distance from his bakery to the arena in the centre of the city, but he didn't question it because it was not his place to open his mouth any more, that much had been made clear. His place was to become a man. A man who had no father and no home. A man who did what he was told and nothing more.

The journey was over quickly, but it certainly reminded Titus of the scale and grandeur of the city that had been built around the arena. The entire city was set out in ever-expanding circles around the arena in the dead centre. It was a marvel to behold, watching the tallest structure in the entire city grow into view as his carriage drew nearer and nearer and as it winded its way down narrow side-streets and along the wider main roads.

But then, it took him only some of the way to the main gates of the arena like he might have expected. A few roads before the colossal stage of war, as the houses started getting bigger and closer together, the carriage driver turned away into one last side street instead of straight ahead to the main gates and it made Titus' heart begin to race. It was narrow and dark, and clearly stood out from everything surrounding it as the houses had been growing larger and larger the closer they came to the arena. This now seemed almost seedy somehow.

At the end of the narrow street where the carriage finally came to a halt and the horses pulling it shuffled their feet on the stone ground, stood a single ornate-looking wooden door with gladiators and monsters of all descriptions carved into its front.

The carriage driver turned to Titus.

"This is it, Contestant, and may I be the first to offer you my gratitude for giving your life to those of us who may not deserve such platitudes."

"What?" Titus asked before he could stop himself.

"Just thank you, that's all I'm trying to say," the driver repeated. "And I wish you good health, strength, and a long life." Then he placed a fist on his chest and announced loudly and in somewhat of a more official tone: "For the people."

Titus had no idea what was going on and no idea why this man seemed to be giving him such praise when he didn't even know him; he wasn't a Contestant, yet, he hadn't fought any monsters or really even done anything at all in service of the City or its people. Bemused and quiet again, he stepped from the carriage and walked up to the ornate wooden door.

When he was close enough to the door, he could see the details and all of the markings that must've been painstakingly carved there long ago. And Titus found that if he squinted, he could read a passage right in the very centre.

"For all those who enter through the door, we pray to The God of Balance for a long and healthy life. We ask that our Contestants are nurtured and cared for until they walk through this doorway's twin, on the other side."

Then, in smaller letters underneath, it read:

"You shall walk through this door only once, Contestant, but know that one life offered could mean a hundred lives saved."

If Titus had been in any other situation or frame of mind, he might've stopped and worried about what that message truly meant, etched into the door. But as it was, as his father had so easily turned his back on him to give him away, Titus pushed open the door and stepped right through without a second thought. He felt nothing, no sadness, no anger, no fear. He just felt nothing.

Titus peered down the set of stairs that led down to a hallway below, illuminated by flickering torches. Cautiously descending the stairs, when Titus reached the bottom he found two city guardsmen standing to attention, as if they had been waiting ther just for him. They wore the usual armour of the city guard: Plated armour over plain red shirts. Leather trousers and a single sword attached to their waists. A shining silver helmet atop their head. These were the real protectors, Titus thought.

As he passed them, both of the soldiers placed a fist on their chest and proclaimed: "For the people."

Titus didn't know how to respond or what this proclamation actually was, so he simply kept walking along the hallway in silence. The hallway that he was sure would lead him to the rest of his life.

Eventually, Titus reached a second set of steps leading back up again, and when he reached the top of these, he found himself confronted with a new door. This time, it wasn't an ornate wooden carved feature; it was a set of iron bars hinged on one side. Again, he pushed the door aside without stopping to ponder and walked right through.

As Titus passed through the doorway, A small boy immediately ran up to Titus from the open room beyond.

"Titus! Titus! Oh, please tell me your name is Titus," the young boy said. "I've needed to go for a wee for hours, but I was told to wait until you arrived. Please, God, tell me you're Titus." The boy was hopping from foot to foot and the action made Titus smile.

"Calm down, calm down. I'm Titus. But what..."

"Thank the Gods! Then please follow me," the boy said. "Just give me a minute, alright?"

Titus followed the boy for a few steps into a large open square room, and watched as he quickly darted through a small wooden doorway before shouting, "One minute!" from within.

A moment later, the boy emerged again, looking much more comfortable than he had a moment ago.

"My name's Jacob," the boy said. "Oh, but you don't need to know that, do you? I'm such an idiot."

"Stop," Titus said, trying his best to get a word in edgewise. "Why don't you just tell me who you are and why you are waiting for me?"

"Well," the boy stammered, "my name is Jacob, like I said, and I was told to wait for you because you were late and you probably wouldn't know where to go when you got here, so I am to greet you, tend to anything you should need tending to, and show you the way to breakfast."

"Alright," Titus said. "But what do you mean 'tending to'? Who are you? What exactly do you do? And breakfast?" He didn't know which question he wanted the answer to first, so he just blurted them all out at once and hoped that Jacob would answer him more sensibly.

"I'm one of the arena hands, of course, but that's just for now," Jacob said. "Because when I turn sixteen, I hope to be a Contestant, just like you."

Titus saw Jacob's eyes twinkling at the notion of becoming a Contestant. At first, he'd thought young Jacob had been sarcastic when he had said those words, but after peering at the young lad for a moment, he realised that he truly was being sincere, and it seemed that his main goal in life was to become exactly what Titus had just been forced to become against his will.

"Why would you want to do that?" Titus asked. "Become a Contestant, I mean," he added quickly, "not the part about tending to my needs." That was an entirely different question in itself.

"I tend to your needs because it's my job," Jacob said, ignoring the instruction, "along with the rest of the arena hands around here. We do our jobs, and we do them well, and the best of us will be selected to become Contestants, and then perhaps even become Hunters afterwards, provided we do well in the arena of course."

"Forgive me," Titus said, "but why would anyone want to offer up their life to the arena and the kinds of monsters I've heard about?"

"What?" Jacob asked with wide eyes. "Just putting aside the fact that Contestants and Hunters are beloved by everyone in the city, but they carry out a duty that helps all of us. Wouldn't you want to know that you can make a difference, to make the lives of others better?"

Titus scratched his chin. "What?" he repeated after he couldn't quite figure out what Jacob was talking about. "I think my knowledge of the arena, Contestants, and Hunters is a little lacking, to say the least. How is it that these people help the city and its citizens?"

"I can answer that!" a loud, booming voice reached the pair from around a corner in the hallway. A large, bare-chested man entered the square room and walked straight up to Titus, past Jacob almost like he wasnt even there. He towered over the pair of them, his muscles rippling, and he wore a leather skirt down to his knees.

Titus couldnt help it: his jaw dropped, for he had never seen such a behemoth of a man.

"Running low on supplies in my room, Jacob," the man said. "Why don't you go and fix that?"

Jacob nodded and quickly scurried away, after saying: "Of course, Darius."

Then the large man turned his attention to Titus.

"Contestants hone their skills in the arena, but it is not until they are Hunters that their true work begins. Because the Hunters are what keep you safe from those monsters you're so scared of. It's the Hunters that thin their numbers and keep them from the city walls. So the next time you're all cosy up in your bed, just remember to thank the Hunters."

"A... are you a Hunter?" Titus stammered.

The large man let out a booming laugh that seemed to go on for a little longer than necessary.

"Do you think I would be here if I was a Hunter, walking around inside the arena? No, if I was a Hunter, and I wasn't out keeping you safe at night, I would be surrounded by women, food, drink, and adoration. That's what Hunters live for." Then he tousled Titus's hair and said: "Run along now, boy. But don't forget what I have said. Be thankful to those who give their lives to keep you safe. I wish you well on your journey."

But before he could turn to walk away, Titus quickly voiced a question: "Could you tell me where I need to go? I think Jacob was supposed to take me somewhere, but you sent him away."

"No idea," the large Contestant said. "But if you follow these hallways straight on, you'll be able to smell where you need to go soon enough." Then he added thoughtfully: "By the way… if anyone asks… you didn't see me here, OK?"

It was a weird thing to ask, Titus thought, but he agreed nonetheless. After all, he didn't really have any grounds to object.

At least the man's instruction rang true, because after walking a short distance along the hallway that the large man had indicated, Titus could indeen smell food, and then realised more than anything else, that he was hungry. Really, really hungry.

Following his nose, Titus eventaully reached the breakfast hall. It was much larger than he would've ever imagined, and laid out before him on no less than ten impossibly long tables, was a veritable banquet of every food he could've ever imagined. And sitting on either side of the tables were hundreds of people who looked to be anything from their late teens or early twenties, up to middle-aged men and women.

Nobody seemed to notice Titus arriving, given that the entire hall was filled with talking, laughter, and the sounds of cutlery in enthusiastic use, so he slipped inside and began looking for wherever it was that he was supposed to sit.

He made a beeline for the people who looked closest to his own age.