Match, point... game

Chapter eight:
The in-between

The weeks before freedom are always the longest. It’s the ones that instead of planning you’re waiting, put very simply, and it’s in those times that you become so bored that your head is about to rot off. It also has to do with the fact that you are waiting, in your cage, imprisoned, knowing that in mere days upon days that you will be free. It makes minutes seem like hours and hours seem like days. If she wasn’t careful she would lose her mind just in the few moments before they were going to bust out of here. Lucky for her though… Riddick never seemed to be willing to allow her to be bored for terribly long periods of time.

Instead he would take her around and show her where the ducts were, which way to go, or rather, instruct her which way since it was pitch black and she couldn’t see worth shit. He said he wanted her to memorize it almost as well as he had, though that was unfair since he had been in these damn things for four months now and she only had a week and a half. He had also gotten into the habit of helping her train, to keep her body in top shape for when they escaped, and they would spar for hours on end. She had only won against him twice now and even then those were moments when George was sure he had lost on purpose, she didn’t know why, but she was damn sure of it! And then there was also the fact that they’d been going at it like rabbits since their first time four days ago… that George didn’t mind whatsoever.

And so as George sat with her feet dangling over a ledge, staring over at him from across the ring with her eyebrows furrowed she wondered what he was up to this time. She had been sitting her to get a good view of the electrical system that ran through the elevator support system when it had gone up for the first time in a while with a dead prisoner from the triple max and he had just happened to appear across from her out of no where, staring at her with his head tilted and his goggles covering his mystifying eyes. As she sat there she could think of only one thing. She stunk, badly, and although Riddick never said anything about it besides a passing comment that she needed a shower she was starting to wonder about him. Guys easily produced more pungent body odor, it was how they were made, to cool down their bigger bodies faster, however the murderer didn’t smell like anything close to what he should. In fact, whenever he was near her when they were about to start yet another session of boredom control she had always noticed how pleasantly manly he was, and how there was almost no sweat stench whatsoever. She was starting to think he knew where the falls were and he wasn’t telling her. The bastard. Resentment in something this young and crucial wasn’t a good idea but she couldn’t help it. It was engrained in the human psyche to want what someone else has, and it just so happened she wanted to get naked, clean her clothes and her body, and for once not feel like she was covered in a good inch of filmy oily dirt.

Sometimes she wondered if he could sense she was angry with him because he merely sat there and stared. After a few moments he glanced upwards with a blank expression but in an instant she understood. He longed for the freedom of the stars and of the worlds outside of Brigitus S.8 as much as she did, maybe even more so. There was a reason why Riddick kept breaking out of the Slam’s and she figured it wasn’t just because he was stubborn and exquisitely intelligent where he should be dull. He hated to be held down in chains, to know he couldn’t do something, to know that he was limited by anything that wasn’t his own physical inabilities, and she admired that about him. There was once a time, she was ashamed to think, when she had been willingly shackled down and allowed to have her freedom stripped away. Wincing, she thrust the memories from her mind and jumped from the ledge she’d been lounging on, grabbed a near by cord, and swung herself over the railing with a small thud, the metal beneath her feet groaning.

The rest of the prison had no idea that they were going to break out soon. She had once gone up to the fifth platform again to scout out and make sure that there weren’t any rumors that could spread to the guards and give away their plan only to find the same old dribble. And a pair of newly angered blue eyes locked onto her the entire time. It seemed that Ave could hold a grudge far stronger than George had thought her able to. Either way George had messed with Luke some, murmuring in his ear that Riddick liked the look of his eyes and might just have to take them for himself, and watched the guy go running like a dog with its tail tucked between his legs. It was good that the rest of them were oblivious. Although sound in theory the idea that if all of the double max inmates surged up against the guards, as well as poetic, they would slow them down and the chances of them all fitting into the waiting merc ship, all the survivors that was, the chances were slim to none. Killing and arguing would start and it would cause undue drama and uproar.

It was better this way. None of them could handle what was going to happen and none of them were ready to be back into normal society since this place had warped their minds so badly. They wouldn’t’ be able to hold down their voices, they wouldn’t be able to hold it in that they’re an escaped felon, and then they would be back in a Slam within the month. If they weren’t killed by local police first. As sad as it was… because she and Riddick had been in such a short time they were less likely to have suffered the craziness of this damned hole in the world and were the best candidates for a break out. That and… they were also the strongest and sadly the smartest when it came to this kind of thing.
She just wondered how long after she ripped the warden’s throat out with her bare hands and stuffed it up his ass while cutting his intestines out with her small, dull boot cuffs, that they would find a new runner. It would take only a few days for words to reach, maybe even hours, for them to hear of the passing away of a significant portion of their workers here and would send a fleet of people to rein things in and to get the prison under control. Days perhaps… weeks. What would the other inmates eat? What would they do? How would they react? Would some of them be foolish enough to try to get onto the surface of the planet? She hoped not… Brigitus was not a system to be trifled with, especially S.8. If they set foot onto the surface they wouldn’t stand a chance.

“You stink, Georgie,” George had been absorbed within her thoughts, too absorbed to notice that as she sat on the ground pondering the fate of the others here to notice him come up on her. Even in the light of the day with all of the miners lanterns that served as their illumination he managed to come up on her without so much as a creek or flash of flesh. She was starting to think he was a figment of her imagination and that she had gone crazy. She shot him a dark look, staring up at Riddick while pulling on her lower lip in thought, making the skin red and agitated.

“Thanks, but not getting to bathe properly in a good five months makes one vile smelling,” Georgina snapped irritably. It was a sore point for her to not be clean considering her home planet was so filled with water you could boil half of the sea and still have enough for the entire civilization to live on. Once again she swatted the memory of her home away with a snarl and a wince, trying to avoid the lump forming in the back of her throat. That place was dead and gone for a full decade to her now… there was nothing anyone could say or do that would make her dredge up that mess.

She could feel his eyes boring into her from his vantage point and she was starting to get pissy, wanting to yell at him to go away for a few hours and leave her alone. It wasn’t that they were spending so much time together, in face most of the time he just came by for an hour or two for sex, leave, and maybe help her spar. Out of the total twenty four they spent maybe four hours together, and the rest was spent in what she liked to call relaxing solitude that just happened to resemble her form of Hell. She waved her hand dismissively, not exactly feeling up to having her brains fucked up due to the fact that her smell had started to become so strong she had to breathe through her mouth not to wince from the stink. One could only live on musty brown water trickles for so long…

“Then let’s get you a shower,” Riddick stated as if it were nothing and her eyes snapped up to him. Her mouth dropped open while he just stared down impassively at her, his hands on his hips and looking all the world as smug with that blank expression as if he were smiling broadly. In that solitary moment she hated him and wanted to rip his penis off. But… sadly she needed that, if only until she was out of here.

“You, you, ASS!!” George shot and stood in a fit, throwing her arms up into the air. She pointed an accusing finger at him before coming intimately close, though her eyes were screaming his death slowly and painfully. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you knew where it was at!?” she snarled.

Riddick shrugged and let a small smirk quirk at the side of his lips. “Ya never asked, Red,” he said deeply. His gaze followed her as she stormed away from him, running a hand through her stubborn hair while muttering curses and profanities of very colorful sorts under her breath. Stopping when she was about to kick a metal pole and thinking twice on it she turned to him again with a cryptic stare, her mouth in a firm line that spoke volumes of her annoyance. She inhaled deeply to calm her nerves before turning and walking back over to him in long, purposeful strides, trying to convey her anger in each and every thud of her foot.

“Fine,” the joy of a coming shower, however cold, was more than enough to make up for the bottomless pit of anger that had just opened up right now. She could have been clean this entire time, she could have been basking in a fall and getting good and sterile, clothing wouldn’t smell like stale and rotting blood, and her hair wouldn’t be frizzed out to the extreme as it was. She watched as Riddick gave her an amused look through his goggles, and it was scary that she was starting to be able to read his emotions slightly with those damn things on, before turning and walking off towards the stairs. She followed after him grudgingly, thinking in bitter tones that she wouldn’t give him any today for this. Even though she knew perfectly well that she’d give in or he’d take what he wanted anyway.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Riddick had led her through the rings of the double max with practiced footing. Over toppled boulders and deep into the area where the old abandon cells stood ajar, nothing more than holes in the rock face, and into almost impossibly tight passages. It was no wonder that none of the current prisoners knew, really, where the murmuring falling of water stood. All of the older timers that had used these ancient cells were long gone and had taken their secrets with them to the grave, keeping one thing for themselves when the system had taken all that they had owned or held dear. One last moment of spite had taken with it all of the comfort that this place might have held.

When they came to a cliff face within one of the many winding passages of rock and rusted away metal he glanced over his shoulder to make sure that she had kept up with him. Not to his surprise she was right behind him, her breath beating on his neck while her hands held onto the rock face with an uncertain look to her brown orbs. She was so close… too close, he surmised. So he moved away, walking along the small pathway that ran along the rocks and downward towards a rotten metal platform isolated from the others, undoubtedly from the original prison. She followed him without a second thought, almost clinging to him without actually touching Riddick, though he could tell that she was close enough that if she fell she would reach out for him. Whether to take them both out or to try and save herself he didn’t know… getting inside of her head had proven harder than he had thought it to be.

Upon reaching the platform and listening to her let out a breath of relief he continued walking, pulling up his goggles as the place was pitched down into such dimness that he wondered if she could see at all. A stumbling sound, a series of colorful swears that could only come from the inventive mouth of Georgie girl, and he got his answer. No. Lucky for her the water fall’s smell and sounds ripped through the tense and acrid silence that had slipped between them, causing her to pause a moment and hold her breath.

Riddick laughed mentally at the scent of her overwhelmed joy and relief at the mere sound of it and when they finally emerged into the chamber where it was rushing down from a near by wall and washing over a cliff face with a railing that was rusted and untrustworthy next to it for the person using it to hold onto he was almost bowled over with the way that her heart sped up and her breathing began to become harried. He had moved aside just in time for her to push passed him and walk over to the massive stream of glittering water, a grateful and almost spiritual look to her face. He didn’t like it.

A part of him wanted it to only be him that caused her heart to speed up like that, for her gasp, for the murderer to be left breathless and in awe. But he knew better than to let that get out of control and pushed the roaring of his animal side down, watching as George opened up her arms as she stepped under the falls, her eyes closing and her face raised up towards the top, a smile on her face. Riddick cocked his head to the side at that moment, amazed for however brief, with watching her hair go from a rusty red down into a deep, deep blood red verging deathly on brown, from wild and frizzy curls to thick wet tendrils that wrapped with spiny fingers around her neck and face, sticking to the scorched skin affectionately. She leaned out of the falls to get a quick breath before going back in, running her hands up her arms and feeling the dirt just wash away in an exhilarating mix, her clothing now glued to her body and clinging on in hilly mass.

It was mesmerizing. He watched with his purple gaze, goggles still atop of his head, as the form of his current bedding partner moved her body around and rolled her head, letting the water cascade down her body in trickling beads of shimmering light. Riddick could feel his own body heating just from watching her shower but when she moved and started to peel off her shirt, determined to get every inch of her dirty form, he had to hold in a moan at the motion. Her back was slowly revealed to him, a back that he granted had seen many times in the last four days, but the way that her back dipped in at the small and her spine curved, rather cut sharply, into the spine, causing every muscles around it to move with force; he licked his lips. Shirt divested, throwing the sopping weight from her form with a flurry, she crossed her arms over her chest momentarily, enjoying how the water trickled down her flat stomach, tracing down the curves in spindly rivets of streams. He watched with hungry eyes as the water dipped into her belly button and then continued down into her cargos that were now a dark green verging on black.

God it felt so good… George tossed her head back, causing the thick strands of stubborn hair to fly back and let out glittering droplets. She opened her arms and began to scrub at her chest and stomach, arms, anywhere she could get at, to get it clean as possible. She felt every inch of grim and filth that had acquired over the months slowly chip away in layers until all that was left was the glowing red of her own skin, making her sigh in relief before taking the opportunity to open her mouth and take a big drink of the frigid water. It didn’t matter that her teeth were secretly chattering, it didn’t matter that her entire body was covered in chill bumps from the chilled water, all that mattered now was that she was clean… finally clean! Or, as clean as someone as herself could be.

Deciding that she had cleansed her upper body as much as she possibly could without removing layers of skin next she hesitated at undoing her pants. She narrowed her eyes for a moment, calculating all of the things that could happen in this moment and all that couldn’t. If she took off her last article of clothing, having kicked off her boots the second she had seen the falls, then she would once again be giving into Riddick in some ways and that was more humiliating a thought than she had ever thought possible. She was a fighter, a warrior, a killer, and the very thought that someone was able to make her submit, to bend to his will, was more than she could stomach. Yet at the same time it excited her to think that he was so powerful, because then that gave her an excuse to strive to be stronger, strive to be better, try to best him. During her hesitation though, with the falls filling her ears and the waters blinding her sight to mere slits of confusion, she hadn’t heard Riddick move behind her or even heard him throw off his shirt as well.

“Sexy, Red,” Riddick breathed in her ear, watching her jump in startled fear and lash out with a balled up fist instinctually. He dodged easily enough but the blow came closer than it had in days and he stared at her intently as she just stood there, arm next to his face and her eyes wide with sudden contrition. “Trying to hit me? Not very partner-ish of you,” he observed.

George spat at him before crossing her arms under her chest, glaring at him stoutly. “Yea well stop scaring me half to death with your creepy silent walk thingy and I won’t try to hit you. I mean, honestly, what do you expect me to do?” she inquired sarcastically before turning her back to him and running her fingers through her hair in appreciation. When Riddick didn’t answer she smirked smugly to herself, patting herself on the back for making the Richard B. Riddick unable to answer a question. Then again… he was rather quiet. He could just be fucking with her head. Again. God knew it was his favorite pass time, the fucker.

Riddick leaned up against the rock wall and watched as she hesitated; looking down at her pants multiple times and he could almost hear the war in her mind. Though they both were very willing participates he could still feel the unwillingness to bend to him, to do what he wanted even if it was what she wanted as well. She was stubborn to a fault. It would get her in trouble one day… he could just tell. However, she was in here, so it must have already gotten her into hot water a good few times. He watched as she finally huffed and pulled off her pants and threw them over to pile next to the shirt, watching with hazy brown eyes as the blood and shit of the prison started to drain from the clothes fibers. The Slam could be a harsh place and though Georgie girl was a fierce woman and a fighter in all sense of the word he could tell the wear and tear was starting to get to her. The way that her shoulders were slumping in a less prideful way, the way that her gaze distanced for a long time and seemed soft compared to the hard as knives and sharp as glass looks she shot around perpetually, and just her energy sometimes made him wonder if he left her in here would it break her? Would the shear boredom of not having anything to do, of not having anyone to talk to, of just existing and slowly die away from the ages, break her spirit and put her into the common place folder with the rest of the invalid’s around here? He idly wondered if a sedate George would be a good George, if he would like her like that, not always fighting him, snarling and hissing and spitting like the animal that they both were. Or… would he hate it?

He would despise it, he decided. That fire, that shear force of will to not be anyone’s servant or lackey was what he admired in her, had drawn him to her in the first place. That ‘fuck off or I’ll kill you’ look that she would shoot him even still made his entire body shiver sometimes and he just knew that sedate George would only be able to manage quiet submission, just stare blankly at him as if the world itself was pressing on her and his weight was nothing new. He would decapitate that Red before he would see her that way. Something in him was just too protective of the way that she was and he was keeping those emotions in check with several heavy chains and locks and keys to make sure that this stayed where it should. This was nothing more than sex, Slam sex at that, and like she had said… as soon as they were out of here they would go their separate ways and would most likely never see each other again. They would just become distant memories of their time on Brigitus S.8.

He came out of his thoughts when George shot him a smoldering look, her head tilting to the side so that the water that was still pummeling her form caused her hair to slip over her shoulder and curl around her chest. Her body was glistening and when she started to stalk, not walk, but walk very quietly and very determinedly, he knew what was happening. There weren’t many times when George had been the one to instigate anything between them, he was usually the one to take it to the fucking each other senseless level, but from the way that her eyebrows were now falling into a feral glare he knew that there was nothing else she wanted from him.

And he was right for within seconds she was in front of him, her hands coming to grip his arms while her toes rose her up to graze her lips to his enticingly. He did nothing, only watched with his simmering silver eyes as her gaze swept over his bared and toned chest, her tongue subconsciously licking at her lips in anticipation. Riddick allowed George to push her hands from his arms over his chest, basking in the feeling of not only her fingers but the water dripping down his body and the sight of her naked, warrior woman form. There was almost nothing soft about George, the only area’s that he could find that had any fat and not chiseled muscle were her modest breasts that couldn’t have been bigger than a B-cup and her rear, where he loved to sink his fingers when he was screwing her into a wall or impaling her on his lap. Oh so many more positions to try before they broke out of here…

George snapped Riddick from his wandering thoughts when her fingers pressed urgently into his pectoral muscles and dragged down roughly, dipping with the curve and bow of his abs all the way down to his belt, leaving a welted red trail behind her. He didn’t so much as whine but merely moved his head and pushed his lips momentarily to hers in approval, a pleased growl working its way from his chest. Her gaze was hungry when it fell onto his accursed belt and soon it was ripped off of his body and thrown, somewhere, within the cavern of the waterfall. His little hellion, his burning inferno trapped in a woman’s body, oh god it felt good when her fingers were dipping into the front of his pants. Her lips fluttered up his neck, licking and biting in a way that she had learned he liked over his pulse, causing his breathing to hitch for a millisecond. He had already been rock hard since guiding her towards the area where her body would be cleaned off, finally, but now it was becoming uncomfortable. But he was going to let her do what she wanted. If she started it, she would have to finish it, which was how this worked.

Her fingertips brushed with his engorged manhood from under his boxers and his hips moved of their own accord; rolling a long, drawn out graze against her hand. Riddick found that suppressing the moan pushing at the back of his throat when she grabbed it hard in her hand and bit down on his ear at the same time, savagely, as if to say that two could play this game and be on equal footing, was extremely difficult. Her lips pulled from the wounded lobe before kissing at the shell and blowing into it in a hot, breathy stream, making his neck and arms burst into unwanted goose bumps. His pants were unbuttoned and down in a flash of movement and he patiently stepped out of them, tossing them aside with a careless angle and watching her intently for her next move. It came when her body pressed up to his, both slick with the falls, and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing at his lips enthusiastically. With such a polite and agreeable request he couldn’t deny her when her tongue swept over his crease and instantly took her into a dominating and hot battle, his arms coming to crush her around the small of her back to him.

Their mouths did not move from their intense joining, tongues and teeth clashing in a moaning and heated display, while her hand was still against his manhood and pushing up it to where her fingers were pressing at the tip. Riddick had to pull away for a small grunt when she wrapped her thumb and index around the sensitive area and gave it a small squeeze, his eyes glassing over for a moment. He grabbed her hair gruffly in his hands and slammed his mouth to hers again, his body grinding into her hand while her firm form stayed where it was despite the pressure. Pulling at the strands of hair he felt a strong sense of power when she whimpered lightly against is mouth, her eyes flickering open to glare at him for nearly tearing a chunk out. This was why he had shaved his head, well, one of them. Hair was a weakness, if you didn’t have it, then you didn’t have the weakness of whenever someone merely tugged it you wouldn’t be on the floor in howling agony. But Georgie’s hair… oh it was something different. It was something to control the spit fire with, and he found it incredibly erotic to just hold onto her hair when they were going at it like animals.

She surprised him by pulling away again, forcing her hair from his grasp with a sour look before licking her lips again and smiling devilishly. He liked that look… Riddick watched with glowing gaze as her lips flittered down his throat to his chest, her hands now holding onto his hips sensually and her brown orbs locked onto his almost the entire time. Down her lips rained until she reached his navel where she flicked her tongue in and caused his stomach to tighten on instinct alone, letting out a long and controlled breath.

“You didn’t strike me as the type, Red,” Riddick murmured when her viciously blazing orifice reached the cut of his hips and was running along the razor sharp lines with vigor. She glanced up at him with a smug glare before holding out his manhood to a good angle before burying the head of it into her mouth and sucking on it harshly. He had no choice to but to gasp and hood his gaze, a fist coming into her hair in pleasant surprise at her actions.

She didn’t answer his question but instead pressed her tongue into the bottom of the head, feeling the entire shaft within her hand jump at the motion. Deliberately being achingly slow she lowered her lips down until she had him in as far as he could go, halfway down, and then slipped both hands to grasp at the thick member. Riddick had no choice but to let out a hiss at the sensation it sent throughout his body, arching his spine into her touch cautiously. If he wasn’t careful he could lose any ground he had gained, even though he could take it back by force, he liked to be more artful when it came to the game of seduction. If she gained too much power here, making him moan and scream with pleasure like his mind was pleading to do from the way her steaming, sinfully wet mouth moved up his organ and then sucked on the head gruffly again, causing his toes to curl, then their whole relationship would be thrown off balance. He was the alpha here, not her. Though she was doing a damn good job… he wished she would go fucking faster though!

George glanced up to see his face slightly wincing but controlled, every muscle in his face hard and tense to keep the stoic look glued there like cement. She smirked against the skin that was engulfed within her mouth and decided to have some more fun with this. Pushing down again at a shocking pace and using one of her hands to pull at the sack that rested between his legs gently he let out another hiss, before she pulled off of him completely. Listening to his growl of displeasure she merely ran her mouth down the side of his manhood, feeling the veins along the inside that protruded wonderfully when he was this aroused. Small, white specks of pre-orgasm liquid was starting to seep from the hole in the top and when she returned and licked at it purposefully then pressed her tongue into the slit his hips bucked just very slightly, his hand in her hair tightening marginally.

She wasn’t an assassin for nothing. There were skills, such as this, that you had to learn when in her field of work. Sucking a guy off just happened to be something she had picked up and had figured out how to do it well enough to have almost every guy panting and whining at her by now. But not this Riddick guy, no, as she stared up at him and started to rub a hand up and down his shaft, squeezing in the center and almost releasing at the end, he was merely narrowing his eyes as if debating whether or not to let her see him enjoy it. She knew he was, because when, as now, she pressed her lips to the joining of shaft and sack, pushing her tongue up hard into the most sensitive area, he let out a groan and rolled his head back, both hands now coming to grip her hair.

“If ya know what’s good for you, George, you better get back to it,” his voice was husky and rough, filled with lust and desire and it made her spine turn to goo. Her knees were already weak just from watching the way that his face was screwing up lightly from the bolts of pleasure when her mouth once more descended down on him. She didn’t know how much more she could take before her own passion needed attention. Disregarding her own raging libido she started to bob her head up and down, the water around them providing all the lubrication she should ever have needed.

Salt filled her taste and the muskiness that came with pure maleness. She pulled off again for a minute only to lick at the opening again before pushing his hips back and taking him all the way to the back of her throat, forcing herself not to gag and to breathe through her nose. When it was comfortable enough she swallowed slightly and that caused Riddick, to her pleasure, to jump ever so vaguely, and grip her head to his aching, burning arousal.

He couldn’t take it anymore. His entire body was on fire with need and he could smell in the air his own scent heavy and thick in the air around them, mixing wonderfully with the power of her own acceptance. He pulled on her hair hard to where she came off of him in a growl of resentment, glaring at him for a moment before he turned her around and pinned her to the rock face. Riddick buried his face into the crook of her neck, lavishing in the way that her breathing hitched and her body curved into his from its position against the wall. A hand came and separated her legs to his liking, to where it would provide enough balance and width that he could enter, before running a skilled finger over her slit. It was music to his ears when she moaned and shifted her hips into his touch, her smoldering stare locking backwards with his.

Riddick pushed his stomach to her backside, his organ standing proud against her rear, and watched as her backside flushed a deep red from the surge of blood. He licked his lips momentarily, taking in the scene before him with gratification, before putting both hands on her outthrust hips and bringing himself into alignment. He brought his panting mouth to her ear and bit at the edge sharply, forcing George to gasp and roll her eyes into the back of her head and a sneer appear on her face.

George buried her face into her arms when Riddick thrusted into her hard and fast, causing her entire body to push forwards into the rock and her mind to turn into a pulse of painful bliss. A slow, low moan lifted from her rib cage as he pulled out and slammed back in at a decidedly agonizing pace. She tossed her head back, enjoying how the water slid down her back in chilled waves while her overheated skin was being assaulted by the fellow murderer behind her, fingers gripping into the hard and biting surface of the cliff before them, bruises starting to form on her forearms and chest. But she was too gone in the upcoming build up to even care… and she doubted that Riddick would have anyway.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The sound of pounding feet hitting against dying metal ripped through the screaming and the heavy air of the prison. Panting, harried breath gripped at the running figures chest as they dashed around the corners and through the rings, dodging and barely avoiding the things chasing after them. Roaring and unholy loud and high pitched screams followed after them, all sounding at once, and the scrambling of claws and beating of wings sounded throughout the space where the figure was running full force. Arms pumped and heads ducked, passing by fellow prisoners that hadn’t been so lucky to be as fast as they were or to think of trying anything other than standing still and staring in horror.

George slid along the hard ground, cutting up her recently smaller scabbed up side, and went through a small hole in a caved in area of the ring. Swearing in her head she turned as she came to a crouching sitting, her hair sticking her face in rebellious tendrils, and watched the glowing red and gold through the break she had just cleared. Claws and thin, sinew arms of green and deathly blue reached through the area and then there was the sound of a great crash and she was running again, reaching over and pulling down cords, blocking the path behind her the best she could. The monsters they had been keeping at the bottom of the triple max had been unleashed already this month but it seemed the guards had found out about a small uprising lead by the idiot Ave and had thus decided to do something about it. George had been taken aback by the presence of the sudden yelling and familiar screeching of the monsters that flew through the night and had such voracious appetites that she had almost been caught by one of them when they first showed up. Almost. Key phrase here, because as it stood she jumped over a railing and landed onto a lower landing and continued her run after a small stagger, she was still alive.

Not if those things got her though. The beating of wings sounded in her ear again, unnervingly close, and when she rounded, bringing up her shank just in time, the thing was before her with razor sharp claws reaching down and barreling onto her from the roof where it had been hiding. Pack predators… of course. Why didn’t she see that coming!? She hit the ground with a hard thud, the breath being knocked from her chest in an audible grunt. Her brown eyes glared upon the creature as it now fought with her on the ground, teeth gnashing and claws ripping down at her.

They were ugly fuckers. Bat like things with large, webbed wings that were a grotesque peach color veined with purple, their heads were blunt and hammer-ish looking with sharp barbs coming out from the chin and the top of her head, and one particularly nasty one protruding from the end of its tail. She had to roll abruptly when that thing was coming smashing down on her, causing a loud clang to fill the space in which she was fighting and leaving a wicked gash in the flooring. Long little shits, almost snake like in their body, though they had six legs that came off in thin but hard muscled arms that spread off into tri fingered and wickedly clawed, they also had around seven eyes, one on the top of their funny looking heads and three on the sides. It was just George’s luck that they also had two mouths on their freakishly long faces, and both were trying to get a piece of her. How the warden had thought that he could control these things was beyond her. Where the fuck had these things come from anyway??

George was pinned again, with all of the arms held in each of her grasps, rolling her head side to side to avoid the gaping maws that sought to kill her and eat her innards. Sweat was stinging at her eyes and her back was in pain from the continual pushing of this damned beast, trying to get at her. George kicked it hard in the stomach and rolled again just in time for the things tail would have taken out her right arm if she hadn’t. It flipped away through the air before landing in a heap of limbs and wings, its glowing red eyes flaring over to her and the look of death within the orbs. She took out both of her shanks and span them around in her fingers, her mouth in a firm line and her body going taught and ready for battle. Her legs were tired and every part of her ached from running for so long. They had released these demons a good twenty minutes ago, and though that wouldn’t have normally been a problem for someone like her, the fact that the prison didn’t feed them properly had taken out much of her stamina. When she was out of here she couldn’t wait for a good steak, bread, and beer… oh great heavens beer…

With a shriek the thing was at her again, all of its shinning claws reaching for the woman, and George fell backwards onto the floor, kicking the thing upwards, and bringing her weapon into its side. Her face was bathed in sickeningly warm and wet blue blood as the thing screamed at the top of its lungs and floundered in the air before crashing. She stood, her eyes the only part of her face untouched by the goop, and watched the creature stammer and stagger, its feet and hands ripping at the metal while its tail was thrashing around in defiance of its death. She glanced around and spotted a metal pole that must have been part of the railing at one point. Kicking it up with her toe she held it heavily in her hands, a glare directed at the thing that was now hissing at her, starting to stumble as if to give one last charge. With a ringing she let the pointed end of the pole fly, watching with satisfaction as it smashed through the creatures skull, shattering the bone like skeleton that surrounded its face, and started to spew out the same azure goo that covered her face. She gazed on as it moved for a second, seemingly unaware of its injury, before it fell down and let out a final cry to those that were fluttering above, waiting for the coming of the girls death that never happened, all the while thin slivers of curly grey matter began to ooze from the gaping hole and around the embedded pole.

George glanced upwards when she heard similar cries from the others that were still alive, swooping and flying around the ring in anticipation, before running full force out of there, leaving the carcass. They were after her again, she could tell from the hissing and the scrapping following after her, and yet wherever she went, whatever cell she passed by, all of the inmates were watching her with wide, helpless eyes, refusing her entrance into safety. They merely gasped and withdrew when the creatures rushed by them and were leaving the female to her fate. Fine with her… she thought with a panting breath, reaching up to another thick bundle of cords and ripping it down, causing the end of it to hit something with a thunk and a scream, a cracking noise telling her that one of them had broken something, somewhere.

George was coming up to a cross roads; up ahead there were stairs, narrow and small where she could maybe take them one by one, or one of the cords she sometimes used to pull herself up to her own level. As it stood she was three platforms away from certain safety from these creatures from the depths of the ninth hell. The cord was almost certain death, so were the stairs, but with the stairs the chance of living was slightly higher… Swearing in her head for her horrible odds, her lungs starting to burn and her vision now searing with the running blue blood seeping into her orbs she turned and flew up the stairs two at a time, reaching up with desperate hands at the bars and pulling herself along. Slamming noises told her that they were coming up the stairwell none too gracefully, their wings trying to beat against the thin walls around her.

The final stair came with relief and she pulled herself up and over it, turning with a shank and driving the business end right into the first one that came up from the stair way, its massive head the first thing she saw. With a shriek it fell back, its eye now officially gouged out and all of the tendons severed, but not before she slammed her boot hard into the center of its face and heard the satisfactory crack that filled the air. With a growl she turned and fled, not even watching the body be pushed away by its fellows and just reaching for the rope that was hanging just before the platform. With her slight lead she could pull herself up and then fly up the stairs and get to her cell just in time. Launching herself off of the railing with sure, booted feet, she gripped onto the coarse binding and began, immediately, to scale upwards, not even stopping to think about the scary popping noise that had sounded from one of the muscles or the small throbbing that had sounded from her arm when it had happened.

She pulled herself as fast as she could but it wasn’t fast enough to beat the surge of the flying devils, they filled the air around her with that unholy sound, surrounding her and reaching out with claws and barbs to tear her apart. George slashed at one that had gotten too close, taking off a wings membrane with a calculated move, and it went plummeting down with a startled scream, down into the darkness. Flesh was beating now against her face and scratches were opening around her fingers and arms, their determination to make her let go evident while their damn cackling was filling her ears. She opened her eyes from their tightly closed position and stared at the railing of the other platform that was mere feet away, but her momentum was lost. She would be lucky if she got there… then again… luck seemed to like her lately.

She swung her legs, using the head of a nearby demon as leverage, and started the rope in motion. After the third swing and pump of her legs, which were by this time starting to feel like jelly, she threw herself from the dangling thing, grabbing onto the railing with a thankful grunt. She didn’t have time to thank whatever lived up in the stars above because one of the damn things was coming right at her, its mouth open and wanting a chunk of her spine, so she curled up into a ball and used the platform’s floor as a vaulting and span over the railing while still gripping it. Her hands were running now with blood and there were several cuts but she didn’t care at this point. Cuts could be healed if you were alive, not if you were dead.

They charged after her and George started off again, her chest feeling like it was going to cave in. But sweet, sweet salvation came in the form of recognizing her surroundings. In her controlled panic she hadn’t thought about the possibility that she may have miscounted her progress and when she slid around a corner, hiding behind a pillar and waiting until they ripped passed her, driving her weapon into ones tail, taking it to the ground, and then snapping its thin neck, she glanced over across the ring to where a single, solitary cell stood open and waiting for her to return. The dying yell of its fallen pack member alerted all of the other creatures and they swung around, flying through the air as if it were nothing, circling around and letting out indignant noises of rage towards their prey. She panted and had to force her jumping, dissolving muscles to move away, to push off and start running again. Though it was getting harder to keep going… it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

She heard the scrambling, the clangs again, but it was there. It was right there!! George reached out with a frantic hand, her eyes wide and her teeth bared in a snarl, she wouldn’t die because of these fucking things. She was knocked to the ground… and rolled over to face with one of the largest of the demons, its mouth baring down on her and reaching for her neck, for the finishing blow. George barely had enough time to bring her weapon up into the things stomach, but even as she twisted the thing and it let out a keening cry, its tail came down and tried to take off her head. She rolled it to the side, her breathing harried and her fingers now pushing the knife upwards, cutting from its abdomen to its neck, and though her body was awash in the blue, it didn’t’ give up. Now all of them were above her, circling like vultures, while this thing that wouldn’t die was cutting at her arms and trying to get passed them to the weapon buried hilt deep into its skin. Intestines flooded from the cavity and landed on her with a sickening slopping noise, sliding over her revealed stomach, and she winced but was too lost in driving the thing impossibly harder until its eyes glazed over and drool began to drop from its mouth in sickeningly smelly strands.

‘Get up… gotta get up…’ George thought as she glanced over towards where the other monsters were staring at her with hungry eyes. Staggering up to a standing, with the monster still draped over her, she pulled her shank out and backed up a few feet. They slithered towards her, as if sensing her fatigue, and they started to lick at their non-existent lips with long, slimy black tongues. George turned and took off full force, pushing all of her remaining energy into her legs.

She surged passed the area where her and Ave used to just hang out and barreled into the area where her cell was located. They were right behind her, she could feel some of them just barely miss her back by a breath’s length with their claws, and when the open, bared door came into view a grateful noise lifted from her chest. Diving in, just as one of them had reached out after her with its tail to impale her and allow the rest of the pack to gorge, she turned around on the ground and kicked the door closed powerfully. The clang and loudness with which it resonated caused all of the things scream momentarily from the pain but then they were ramming into the strong door, seeking to devour her, to kill her. Luckily… it was locked, and though she kept her legs on the door she slumped back and let out a shaking, harmonious sigh of relief.

“I have got to get out of here…” she murmured to herself while her head was now pounding. Her eyes slid shut, her chest heaving with searing breaths, and she fell into a fitful slumber, curling away from the door where the creatures were now paroling around, trying to find a way in. That was the closest she had come to death in a long time, and George had no intention of getting anywhere near it again.