wolves

Fighting in the Coliseum Ring

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Those who fight in Coliseum aren’t thought of as heroes, but instead thought of as lowlifes. Today was my day to be in the ring. I don’t want to go, and I’m very scared. I’m raised up into the ring, and let out when I reach the floor. When I step into the ring, I swallow, a lump forming suddenly in my throat. I slowly turn around, the grains of sand grinding under the pads of my feet. I turn my head, and I see that the whole circular stand is full of spectators. They are screaming, and spitting. In my opinion, though, these people look more like a blood thirsty mob. I look up, past some spectators, and see the person who was called the emperor. He sat in the space between two rows, on a throne. This man was a savage! He listened to whatever the stupid spectators wanted him to do. They scream for blood, and the emperor would give it to them. There was a full house today; all 50,000 spaces for spectators were taken. The life of the humans, and the animals, rest in the hands of these people. These people disgust me. Even though the emperor was supposed to have more power than these regular people, he would give them what they want.
I think back on everything that I’ve learned in the past year. For gladiators, training was difficult and extensive. To be able to fight, the gladiators have to fight every day, and the life wasn’t glamorous. You fight until your contract has ended, and then whatever amount of money you have earned, is given to you. But if you die before you reach the end of your contract, your family might get the money. If you were a slave gladiator, then the money was not given to your family. How stupid is that?
As I’m looking around the coliseum, at the faces of the spectators, I have no doubt that this isn’t going to be a good day. I hear cheering, and see this gladiator coming out from a door straight in front of me. It’s not the regular gladiator. It’s an amazon. A female gladiator. These kind of gladiators are not protected as much as some of the male gladiators are. She is wearing a loincloth, a manica (arm protector), a metal greave on her lower leg, a gladius (sword), and a big body shield. This isn’t lucky for me, since I don’t have any of the armor. The match begins, and I drop down into a crouching defensive position, and growl at the amazon.
From what I heard while I was in the Hypogeum, the literal meaning being “underground”, where the gladiators and animals who were waiting to be brought up to the ring to fight, I will be fighting someone who is a criminal or something, and she hasn’t had any training. This could possibly work in my favour. If I am going to fight against someone who has not been taught what to do, and trained, I will have the upper hand, since I am a natural born fighter. I believe that the reason that I was wanted to be a fighter in the Coliseum ring was because it is believed by others also, that I am a great fighter.
The amazon lunges forward, thrusting her sword towards me, and I nimbly dance out of the way. She lets out an inhuman sound that is sort of like what I think you’d hear if a woman was part dog, and was jumping. As she emits this strange sound, she slices her gladius thing at me, and the tip of it nicks the tip of my shoulder. I howl in pain, and she keeps swinging at me. I smoothly dodge her attacks, dancing out of the way of danger. She gets increasingly more agitated with each failed attempt at hitting me. I know that I have more stamina than she does, so all I have to do is keep having her try to hit me, and just hope that I’m fast enough to avoid getting hit. After about thirty minutes of dodging her attacks, she starts to stumble, and her swinging gets weaker. I know that right now is my time to attack. I lunge at her and, since I wasn’t given any weapons, I slip behind her, and sink my teeth into the flesh of her thigh. She howls in pain, like a coyote in a moonlit night. This gives me pleasure in the knowledge that this will be an easy fight, like the kind of fight you will get if you put a rabbit in a ring with any type of cat.
I jump against her back, knocking her into the grainy sand. The blood is flooding down her leg, and she is not giving much of a fight any more. She is way too tired, and this is just the way I like to end a fight. I bite into the back of her neck, and shake my head back and forth, tearing up the tissue on her neck. She lies there, unmoving, and I know that I’ve won. I ignore the sounds of the spectators, and let her neck go. And, because I’m so hungry, and don’t believe in letting a kill go to waste, I dig into her flesh. I enjoy the taste of her meat, and the warm juicy blood. I get a whipped in the back, the side, the face, as I am driven back, away from my meal, and into a cage. My fight is over, for today.
You may think that I am a human. A cannibalistic human. But I’m not. I’m not part of the weak, wimpy race that is called human. No, way! I am a natural born fighter! I am a leader! I am a wolf! I run with the pack, and we do what we want. We aren’t controlled by the ring of a bell. We are strong minded, and I don’t have to live by the will of another. I am a wolf who is captive for the pleasure of the stupid spectators, and I know that I will never be going home.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

This was an assignment for my World Civ class, and I liked how it turned out, so I decided to put it online! Please leave a comment!

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