The Modern Gladiator A stick brakes somewhere to my left. Instinct tells me to throw myself to the ground, but years of military training kick in. Slowly and quietly I lower myself to the wet, muddy ground beneath me. I hear it again, but quieter as my opponent, if this even is my opponent, is more careful in his step. He is neither moving towards me, nor is he moving away from me so my guess is he doesn’t know I’m here. When I judge that he is around ten meters ahead of me I raise myself as slowly and quietly as when I lowered myself, but instead of seeing the highly trained Russian spetz-naz solder, I see a small doe. I silently curse myself for not realizing this sooner a deer’s footsteps sound nothing like a man’s footsteps. I have been hunting this Russian for almost three days and am starting to regret signing up for this. Twenty years ago a man named Norman Glarten started the “Modern Gladiator Games” in which two military trained personal would battle to the death. Nobody knows how Glarten made it legal, my guess is that he bribed or killed anybody who apposed him, but that hasn’t been proven. All of my #life I have been apposed to the games, I even swore to myself that I would never enter them, killing for my country I’m ok with, but killing for the enjoyment of old, fat, rich guys is another thing entirely, but I am almost broke I can’t land a job and to top it all off I’m getting married at the end of this year. My fiancé doesn’t know I’m here, I told her that I was on an under cover mission somewhere in Russia, I knew she wouldn’t want me to come, but the thought of not being able to provide for her is to much to bare. The prize money is five-billion dollars much more than enough for most of our lives, if I live I’ve already decided what the first thing I buy is going to be, an engagement ring. I follow the game trail that I’ve been following for the past few hours, the center is bowed in an unnatural way, I am almost positive this is the way the Russian took. I don’t know much about him other than he spent eight-teen years training and fighting as a Russian Spetz-naz. I am armed with only a knife. I have a few stones in my pocket, but other than my clothes and a little food, which is almost gone, that’s all I was aloud to bring, they wouldn’t even let me bring a picture of my fiancé.. The arena we’re in is relatively small, approximately twenty square acres, I am surprised the only sign of the Russian I’ve seen is what appear to be poorly covered footprints. I walk for another six or so hours until I stop to make camp my legs and feet are sore but surprisingly my back isn’t as it has been for the last few nights. I nibble on the dried meat that I was supplied with while I massage my feet, I wish I could light a fire, but I can’t, unless I want it to be my last comfort. Where I’ve set up my camp for tonight is on top of a large hill toped with large trees and shrubs giving me plenty of shadow for cover, which was one of the reasons I picked this spot. The other reason is the view, I can see north-west all the way to the wall marking the boundary line for the arena, though most of it is concealed by trees I still have a good view for about five-hundred meters. I look around for some good branches to use for camouflage, is see a couple of them a few feet away and start to get up to get them, but something catches my eye. Somewhere down the hill along the tree line some thing moved I strain to see what it was, but I see nothing. I stare at the spot for another few minutes but I still see nothing. I am about to give up, deciding it’s only my imagination when I see it again, but this time several meters further to the right. “Something is definitely down there” I say silently to myself. Then he emerges. He is about my size, though he is built a little more thicker than I am and he has black greasy hair, that is all I can tell from this distance. He stands there for a few moments before walking off along the tree line. In my head I make a quick decision that this needs to end now, so I wait till he is out of sight then I crawl down the hill after him. When I get to the bottom of the hill I don’t see any sign of him, I look down to the ground for a few seconds for his tracks, which I eventual find, and follow them. After a minute or so to they turn back into the woods. Somewhere along the way I pick up a tree branch that is knotted at the end making it like a club. “Every little bit of protection helps” I tell myself as I examine the stick. It seems the Russian is following along a game trail that wind through the woods like a snake. About thirty meters ahead it goes over a hill. When I get to the hill I stop to look around, going over this hill makes me nervous, he could be waiting up there somewhere for me to walk right past him. I think for a moment then decide to leave the trial and find a safer route. I find a good spot ten meters to my left and I start to belly-crawl my way up to the top, then my heart stops as right behind me I hear, “prevyet americonski, dahahaha!” I roll out of the way just before a sharpened stick hit the ground where I was lying and leap to my feet. He is younger than I had thought, he can’t be more than five years older than me. With the stick back firmly in his hands he thrusts it forward towards my chest. I step to the side and grab it I try to pull it from his hands but his grip is like iron. For the first time I look into his eyes and see no emotion at all, no fear, no pain nothing and suddenly I don’t feel so confident. Once again I try to pull the stick from his hands but I still don’t get it, the Russian thrusts the stick to the left send me along with it. The sudden push unbalances me forcing me to release the stick. When I regain my balance and turn to face him I see he is no longer wielding the stick but has tossed it aside and has his knife drawn. I take out my own knife and charge him, but I stop as I remember something one of my instructors told me. “When you’re fighting knife to knife don’t rush it wait your opponent out, but keep your eyes trained on him,” he had said. I take a step back and keep my eyes on his, he smiles as he realizes what I am doing and casually starts towards me. When he gets close enough I jump to his left and stab at his mid-section but he easily grabs my arm and holds it up smiling at me. Anger flushes and I kick him in the groin he doubles over and releases my arm, but the knife falls out of my hand as he does so. “ideeout” he gasps. I ignore him and punch him in the face, the Russian flies over backwards and crashes to the ground. Given the space I reach down and grab my knife. He is struggling to get to his feet so without a moments hesitation I lung forward and bury the blade deep into the soft flesh of his stomach I pull the knife out and he falls to the ground. I’m about to finish him off with a quick stab in the neck, but before I get the chance he raises the knife and points it towards me his hand shaking. I laugh at this weak attempt and start forward but I hear a light twang and feel a jerking feeling in my chest, I look down to see the blade of his knife buried deep within me. I fall backwards to the ground I have lost all of my feeling and my vision is turning black. I know I am going to die and I feel peaceful about it. I see my fiancés face, she looks beautiful then she leans forward and whispers. “Jesus is waiting for you!” Then everything turns black. Now… white.