The Earth After Rebirth

"I could always forfeit, but you\'re an idiot if you think you have a chance, Zak!" She bellowed, dodging his punch and planting one right on his ribs.

While Zak grunted at the pain that shot through his entire being, planting itself in each of his cells, he made it a point to get an attack in. The crack he had heard come from within didn\'t deter his great resolve to win against Lil.

His fist raised quickly and hammered down on Lil\'s shoulder, her arm immediately went limp with a dislocated shoulder. If the attack inflicted any kind of pain, she didn\'t show it. Her expression was absolutely deadpan, she was clearly used to more excruciating pains.

She instead retreated, falling back to the far ends of the ring. Zak didn\'t follow, he was still nursing his fractured or otherwise broken ribs. It wasn\'t the first he\'d had his ribs broken, Lil always went for them, he\'d been through this many a times but the pain wasn\'t something he could befriend. It was too much to inflict on a man.

Lil did the unthinkable, she was clearly a very flexible girl. The way in which she moved, proved that agility was her strong suit, but it surprised everyone when she used her two feet to fix the dislocated shoulder.

With a very loud pop, she managed to pop the bone back into its right place. She was breathing a little heavy, their fight had been going on for several minutes. It was almost an hour, anybody who had lasted that long was the Gladiator. Not like he had trouble with the opponent, it was because he enjoyed the torturing.

Her shoulder was now better than it had been. She ran toward Zak, there was no way he could fix a fractured rib right now during the fight. He previously thought he was used to the pain, but experiencing this made him realise otherwise.

That didn\'t stop Lil though, she jumped up high. Zak made a small movement, a pathetic attempt at getting out of the way. He wasn\'t just tired, he was exhausted, he was a bit older so it was only natural.

Lil wasn\'t so merciful, she landed on his shoulders and started strangling him using her lanky legs. The grip was a monstrosity. Zak tried to grab and pull her off of him, but that didn\'t work. It never did.

For a moment, Zak considered letting her choke him to death. Life in the underground ring was no life for anyone to live. He\'d been there for years and nobody has ever come to try and rescue them. It was safe to assume nobody knew about the place.

He was sure the rich people that came here made sure of the fact that this place remained a big bad secret of theirs. Every time he would be hopeful, then fall back into the dark abyss of hopelessness. He had no idea how many times he\'d given in to death, but death never really took interest in him.

\'I don\'t think dying would be all that bad.\' He thought to himself. \'Death, you c*nt you better make room for me.\'

He could feel his consciousness leaving his body, darkness threatened to embrace him whole. It didn\'t feel cold or warm, it felt welcoming. He wasn\'t sure if he were ready anymore, but \'do it now you\'ll never be ready\' were words he lived by.

He reached out a hand, and felt warm liquid dripping on his face. As a last act of defiance, he opened his eyes wide. Only to see Lil crying. It was clear she didn\'t want to do this, but at the same time, she respected that Zak wanted to escape their life.

That didn\'t stop her from being sad about it, she tried stopping them. But like a tsunami, it was nature\'s call, there was nothing she could do about it.

They had lost way too many friends in the ring. She wasn\'t sure she could remain sane if Zak left too. They were the first batch from 10 years ago, so they\'d naturally grown closer being together for so long.

"You look majestic even when you\'re ugly and crying." Zak commented, lightly tapping her thigh to tell them he forfeits.

Lil quickly got off him. Zak unfortunately had lost much of his oxygen already, so he fell, losing his consciousness all at once. Lil didn\'t have the strength to run up to him, but she could see his chest slowly falling and rising occasionally so there wouldn\'t be any need to do so.

"Dumbass, pretending like you could beat me." She said tears still welling up.

She was crying but her heart was feeling warmth. She was glad that Zak didn\'t leave her alone in this place, she knew it was selfish but she didn\'t want to die, not in this place anyway. She wanted to see her family one last time.

For Zak, it was easier to give in because he didn\'t leave anything behind. But his bond with Lil was so strong he couldn\'t bare to leave her behind.

This was also the reason they\'d never been pitted against the Gladiator. Some of the rich folks got a hard on seeing them fight. It got some of them all excited, that they even imagined them as lovers who were at odds with each other.

That\'s why even though there was no blood splattered, the entire room exploded with cheers. In their eyes, this was the best one yet. They never went so far as to make the other faint.

"Oh that fantastic!" One man yelled in a high pitched voice, his cheeks were bright red. .net

Lil got cuffed, while emergency personnel entered the ring to examine Zak. When they found that he was okay except for a few broken ribs, they made him swallow a liquid and tossed him into his cell.