Unfair Fight
“You're fat!” The words stung – they always did – but Erica Kelvin knew they were true. Erica been teased about it all her life, and now she found herself fighting for that same life, the one she'd never really wanted. The thought that it could be taken away in an instant brought a stark reality to her otherwise callous eighteen year old mind.
“And you're ugly!” She screamed back at her opponent. That was no less true; the spindly girl she had been forced to face off against in the ring was just on the upper edge of being able to go out in public without a mask over her face. A too-large nose, beady eyes, stringy hair and excessive amounts of acne made her a prize anyone would return.
The crowd around them cheered as they traded insults, and Erica felt a warning tingle run up her spine. If she didn't take a swing at the other girl soon, she'd find herself incapacitated while the ugly one got a few free shots at her.
It wasn't as though this fight had been entirely unexpected, but Erica had never really thought it through. Her family was poor – that much had been obvious from the time she started school, but since the world was running short on people, feeding herself and her two brothers had always been something the government took care of. Aside from their basic needs, however, nothing else was doled out, and both she and her siblings had to endure the near-constant taunting of other children in her school and who lived in her subsidized housing. She'd seen these fights on the television, contests between young men and women whose parents were willing to sacrifice them for the family's greater good. There were only two ways to end one of the televised cage-matches: kill your opponent or force them to submit to a life of bondage and servitude under your command. Both happened in almost equal measure, though the crowds preferred messy deaths.
“How are you even going to catch me?” The skinny girl mocked as Erica threw a shaky punch. She knew a bit about fighting from her brothers, but violence had never appealed to her. Art and literature were her secret passions, but the public school in her area had almost no funding for the subjects. Erica also didn't enjoy eating, despite her appearance, but it gave her something to do, something to think about instead of her homelife.
She grunted as the waif danced out of the way of her blow and snuck in underneath her outstretched arm to punch her in the stomach. The crowd cheered as she grimaced in pain, and roared when she managed to put her hands on the little freak and throw her into one of the mesh walls.
Just outside the cage, in the front row, she could see her mother and father. Shirley, her mother, at least had the good grace to look ashamed at what she was forcing her daughter to do, and had her head down on her chest and her hands knotted into a ball in her lap. Her father, meanwhile, had a grin on his face and a beer in his hand – a common look for him. Most of the money he'd brought into the house went to buying alcohol for himself, and he'd never been shy about telling Erica what he thought of her. He'd never gone so far as to hit her, but the contempt he held for her was obvious, and her mother had done nothing to stop it
When the TV men came around, her mother had been flat-out against the idea until they'd talked about the kind of money she could make if she won even a single match. Five hundred thousand dollars was the payout, along with the chance for her to get a wish of her own granted. She'd said no at first, but when her father made clear it was the fight or the street, she'd chosen to put herself in harm's way.
Ugly girl was coming at her again, and Erica could feel her throat start to seize up. She couldn't go on like this much longer – she had to find a way to put the skinny kid off-balance long enough to end it.
“Here fatty, fatty, fatty,” the stick-thing chanted at her, but she ignored it. Erica had heard worse her first day of school. If she'd really wanted to, she could have slimmed down, but what was the point?
An idea sparked.
“You're ugly!” She called out, staring down her opponent.
“So?” The other girl sneered. “You're fat!”
“But I don't have to be,” she said, “I could stop eating. You can't do a damn thing about your face, and your parents don't care enough to fix it. You're ugly forever.”
Erica tensed, ready for an all-out attack from the girl, but the thin, raggedy thing broke down in tears instead. Moving quickly, she grabbed the girl's arm and twisted it behind her back.
“Submit!” She hissed, “I really don't want to kill you.”
Sobs were the only response.
“I don't want you as a slave – I'll let you go as soon as this is all over. Submit!”
There was a silence as the crying cut off, and then her tiny opponent raised her head.
“I submit!” She called out, and the crowd booed.
“Winner!” The announcer boomed over the loudspeaker. “$500,000 prize to the fat girl! What is your wish, winner?”
Some wishes wouldn't be granted, she knew – they'd never let her leave now that she had won a match, but that didn't mean she was powerless. Or stupid.
“The money will go into my account, and only my authorization will release it,” she said loudly.
“Done!” The announcer boomed, and Erica saw her father leap to his feet, beer flying from his hand. She waved, and then blew him a mocking kiss. He'd taught her well – she knew how to fight dirty.
- D
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