1 Prologue

I'm... dying.

I can see the spike plunged through my rib cage. sticking out of my chest. I cannot take my eyes off of its protruding presence. I can feel as I take ragged breaths, the oxygen leaking out from a place which isn't my nose nor mouth. Blood is oozing from the wound, warm, sticky, uncomfortable. It's sticking to my clothes. Disgusting.

The turtle with the pink bow attached to its head steps over my broken leg, turning to look at me. It's eyes glint as it opens its mouth and lets out a large laugh. The laugh drips with pleasure and mockery.

Damn you.

I move my hand over the broken glass to push myself up into a sitting position. The bar scrapes against my insides. It's simultaneously hot and cold. A scream bubbles to my lips as I tilt my head back and gurgle a mixture of saliva and blood, red spit bubbles spitting forth from my throat.

Damn you.

People lie around me, face down. Their limbs are twisted. Their faces contorted, despairing. Some I do not know. I've never seen them before. Others... I know. My little brother... Mum... Dad...

If there is a God out there... please. Even if you cannot save us from these circumstances...

My fingers reach out through the air, trying to grasp some invisible string which keeps me tied to this world. The smoke scalds my nose. The tears and the gas sting at my eyes.

Damn you...

... At least... at least let me redo... my meeting... with my family...

"What's this? What's this? You're not dead yet? That's not right, that's not right."

The turtle steps on my protruding femur bone, its flat foot crunching the splintering end.

I scream, its tone twisting with sobs of pain. My neck flings back as my body reacts to escape the pain, the metal bar inside of my chest sliding around again.

"It's unfair to the game, you know, unfair to the game. You gotta go and die, like the rest of these good people here. See, they know how to play."

It raises its right foot and a metal bar appears in its hands. It drags it over to my face, the large smile which stretched from one side of its face to the other never once leaving its round face. It opens its mouth, revealing sharp pointy teeth which bulge outward.

"So be a good player for the game and your family and just die, yeah?"

The bar strikes across my face. I can feel the cartilage in my nose shatter and blood spurt from my nostrils.

I'm screaming for it to stop, my hands reaching up to try and save my face. The bar raises again and comes down with enough force to shatter my fingers. It continues on its warpath through my ligaments and comes down on my face again, crushing my eye socket and my jaw. A voice is hollering across the empty city crossing but there isn't anyone to listen. Is the voice even speaking English anymore? The body's legs flail hopelessly. The torso comes up and down off of the pavement, the protruding pole entering and exiting like a finger through a hole. Blood spurts everywhere.

D-Damn... you...

"Die, die, die, die. It doesn't hurt once you up and die, you idiot. So just die already."

Another strike to the top of that figure's head. It stuns them briefly, but not enough. Instinct is telling it to keep shouting. Yelling to the world, to anyone who is still alive to hear. How unfair. How cruel. How stupid. Or maybe the body is possessed now. By some desperate soul passionate about crying out.

"Stop screaming - you're hurting my ears."

The bar raises, its end sopping with blood, hair, flesh. The turtle chuckles as the bar comes down again.

"Humans are delicate, you know. I'd rate this death... maybe a 2 out of 5. That's being generous, though. Be grateful you even got that score."

Damn y-

The last sensation I feel is of the iron bar entering my fracturing skull and striking whatever fleshy mass lay beneath it.