8

Abraham walked into The Colosseum, its circular insides decorated in the fashion of a multi-leveled Victorian theatre. The whole structure centred itself on the pit in the middle. Abe was on the ground floor. There was one floor above with a balcony looking down at the pit, which was currently shielded from Abe's vision by a chatty, excited crowd, mostly employees from the surrounding businesses. The activities of the three or four higher levels with hidden behind red velvet curtains.

Abe wandered across to a bar. He wasn't sure what to have. Frisky had knocked him for six earlier, made him a jibbering wreck. He'd behaved like a coward and a fool. He wanted something that would make the night more vibrant, but wouldn't snatch his wits away from him. He decided on Ice. He sipped at it slowly and feel it prick the synapses of his brain into calm concentration.

Abe ascended a snaking black metal staircase, one of many dotted about the place. He paid little attention to the other people, groups breezing through easy conversation, guys forcing awkward conversation upon girls, some loving it... Abe found himself paying more and more attention to the people around him as he came to think of it. The women of Esplinade were fascinating creatures.

Lusting at one face after another, Abe moved through the people and towards a view down onto the pit. A punter was waiting to start in against the prey - a bald naked beast with digitless stumps were his arms should be. The concierge handed the punter - a fat, long-haired, greasy behemoth, presumably a technician - the Stunner: a thick plastic baton. More of the crowd drifted towards the front of the second floor balcony as word spread. The bald-headed freak, a third-rate organ clone, had a bloodied noise and a raw red gash amidst heavy purple bruising on the left side of his face. A red-smeared surgical mask obscured the mess that had been made of his mouth. He trembled as the punter stepped forward. The punter took a look at the prey, smiled, then lifted the baton high over his head.

Thlunk.

The soft, precision-designed thlunk of Stunner on skull. It was nowhere near full force - the punter was just getting into his swing - but it was enough to knock the prey's head to the left and send the mask floating from his face to the floor. The prey shuffled his feet a little, trying to regain his balance, to a general chorus of whoops and whoos and 'hit him harder faggot' coming from the crowd. The punter shot his eyes around the auditorium, searching for the bitch with the temerity to call him a fucking faggot. Unable to find the culprit, the punter decided upon taking his anger out on that ugly armless clone cunt instead. He took a breath and swung the Stunner up high over his head, ready to pendulum its weight straight through that clone cunt's skull.

The prey leapt forward and bit, clamping his teeth on the punter's nose. He bit and tore a chunk of flesh off, causing the punter to scream in pain and the crowd to collectively gasp. Without hesitation, the prey moved his reddened teeth to the punter's neck, tearing through flesh, trying to bite through the arterty, red jets of blood escaping through the savagery... black-clad security officers moved forward, four of them, wielding machetes and KN11s.

One security officer pulled the prey back and cut his machete quick across his throat, as the other security officers pushed their machetes into either side of the prey's torso, just below the ribcage. The three of them dragged the prey quick to the ground as the fourth security officer dropped to one knee and held his KN11 to the back of the prey's head. Health assistants ran forward to keep the punter on his feet as the KN11 devastated the prey's head.

A chill made its way across the nerve endings of Abe's spinal chord. Esplinade. The After Life.