"Verne, I can't see anything." "Neither can I," he responded, his voice raspy and coarse, for they had been without water for three days, desperately trying to drink the droplets that clung to the stone walls in which they were held. Ambrose was awoken suddenly, moments before they were shoved through a corridor to all the eyes that the arena allowed.

Or that is what he assumed it was.

He tried in vain to open his eyelids, but they were defiant, as if they had been nailed together. He puts his hands to his eyes.

Or sewn shut.

As the deafening jeering got even more thunderous, Verne cried out," Ambrose, Ambrose!" But to no avail, as Ambrose stood frozen in fear, his mouth betraying him, for he tried to shout back, but nothing came out.

The air was hot and humid, stinging on his exposed skin, his clothes shredded from the rough ground he laid upon for days prior. A large thunk was made on the right of Ambrose, where shouts came from, and a large growling noise. Chains clinked and a scuffling disturbed the dust beneath them where Ambrose was met by a delayed dust wind, some reaching his mouth and tongue, graveling against his palate. Verne continued to scream.

Over head a booming voice of a man was played that was of foreign vernacular and proceeded to intensify the crowd's rage and excitement. Ambrose heard another heavy growl, more infuriated, came from behind him. He turned to the noise.

In an instant an array of footsteps came around him, in all directions, faster and faster, in a gallop fashion almost, where a storm of soil particles blew, encircling him in an encasement.

Then he heard an unnatural screech of the animal, where it was echoed in close contact to his ear. In an sudden moment, he felt an intense prickle of claws into his shoulders, talons sheathed upon him as if large daggers. He shrieked in pain, thrusted forward into the ground, mouth full of gravel and sand.

The creature pressed on his back with its weight, slowly crushing him underneath like he was a mat. Ambrose could feel his breath squeezed out of him, slowly consumed by the unbearable weight that compressing skeleton.

Then there was a crash, and the creature was lifted off him, screaming and hissing in agony, tussling on the ground with another. Ambrose lay unmoving on the ground, an invisible boulder still felt as if it was placed on his backside, and a deep sting through his face and lips from his fall.

"Ambrose," Verne's voice shouted at him from afar. He could hear his footsteps getting closer. Verne grabbed him by the chest and pulled him from the ground up, where his feet unsteadily stood, at risk to tumble to the floor again.

"Verne, go," Ambrose pleaded softly as his lungs were weak and damaged.

"Ambrose, I killed him, I killed the serpent."