Crucible of Cain

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREECAIN

DAY ONE

Cain sat on his bed in his home thinking about the female. She was beautiful, long blonde hair, and dark blue eyes. Her skin looked soft and it was a creamy color. His c**k twitched and hardened as he thought of her, a female, a new toy, a new prize.

The females were fairly new. He didn’t know how long, but, they were not here when he was younger. What had Master said? “A few years now.” He wasn’t sure what a ‘year’ was, but if he thought about it, that meant hundreds of fights. He could count like that.

Before, when he was younger, for the f*****g, the Alphas, the Champions, took the Feeders. That was what Master called the weaker fighters. The stronger fighters, they f****d the weaker ones and then killed them.

But, Master said that was inefficient, he had Plans, and then the females came. The females were for f*****g, and the feeders for killing. But, not always, sometimes the females were killed too. The females were small, you had to be careful. If you weren’t, you would break them and then Master would be annoyed. He said if you broke your female, you might not get another one. He frowned. He would win, he would get this female and he would be more careful This time.

Cain’s head snapped up. The other Champions were stirring, growling, some banging on the doors of their homes. He jumped up and walked to the door, then looked left down the corridor that separated them. His breath stopped. The female.

A guard walked her down towards him and before he realized it, he slammed his fist into the door. He wanted out, now. He wanted the female, now. He slammed his fist again and let out a roar. The other males, the Champions, were too close. That was his female!

Master’s voice bellowed through the air. “Calm down! Sit! NOW!”

Cain’s body flinched. He lowered his chin to his chest and dropped to the floor. First to his knees, then resting back with his ass on his heels. The place was quiet now, all you could hear was the female. Why was she speaking? Master would punish her for that. Then he heard Master’s voice, he was speaking to the female.

“This will be your home. Get used to it.”

The female screamed out. “This isn’t a home! These are prison cells!”

Cain frowned. Why did she say that? Master said this was his home. Why did she call their home something else? And why did she scream? He could feel the heat rising in his body, he didn’t like loud voices, not in his home. Loud voices were for the fights. When he heard loud voices he knew, it was time to kill.

He fidgeted in place and clenched his fists when the guard stopped at the door of the home next to him. The female would be beside him! The strange buzzing sound came, the door opened, and the guard pushed her inside, then closed the door and walked away.

Master spoke to them. “Champions, here is your prize. Behave yourselves, or I will take her away. You may stand, and do as you wish.”

Cain rocked up onto his feet. He saw Demon in his home across the corridor from him do the same. He growled deep in his chest, Demon. He saw the way he had looked at the female, his female, not Demon’s, HIS. Cain had never fought Demon before, they were in different divisions. That was what Master called them. But, Master said things were going to change, and now the Champions would fight each other. He would fight Demon, and he would kill him.

He walked to the barrier between him and the female. She had gone to the back of her home and sat on the floor. Her back was to the wall and her legs were pulled up to her chest. Her head was bent forward, resting on her knees and her face was hidden. He put his hand on the barrier. There were bars there, just like the ones that surrounded the place he fought in. But, this barrier was different, it had something extra between the bars. You couldn’t see it, but you could feel it.

Cain felt a heat start to burn in his body. His heart was faster, his breathing shallow, he wanted the female. He wanted to beat at the barrier until he could get to her. But, Master’s command echoed in his head, “Behave, or I will take her away” NO! He clenched his fists until they began to ache. He had to behave, that means no beating on the barrier. No disobeying.

A guard walked down the corridor and stopped outside his door. “Cain, door.”

Cain clenched his jaw, he wanted to stay. He wanted to watch his female and make sure the other males, the Champions, didn’t touch her. At the thought of another male touching her, he saw red. He snapped his head around to the guard and growled as he took a step towards the door. The guard took a quick step back, pulled the black box from his side and spoke into it. “We have a problem with Cain.”

Cain flinched when he heard Master’s voice. “Cain, what are you doing? Get to the door.”

Cain looked from the door to his female, then back to the door. Master laughed. “Oh, I see. Cain, obey or I will take the female away.”

Cain immediately went to the door, dropped to his knees, and clasped his hands behind him. He couldn’t disobey Master. And now, he couldn’t risk having his female taken away. The guards came in and shackled him, then led him down the corridor and into the elevator. When the doors opened, he saw he was in Master’s special place, his office.

He stepped into the office and walked across the fuzzy floor. It was dark in color and felt so good against the soles of his feet. He walked to the place he knew he should stand. But, this place wasn’t soft on his feet, it was hard like stone and had a metal ring in the middle of it. The guard locked the shackles on his ankles to the ring, then unshackled his wrists from behind his back. He knew what was expected, he brought his hands forward and held them together in front of him. The guard put the shackles back on, then ran a chain from the ring in the floor to his wrists.

Stepping back the guard looked to Master. Master nodded towards the door and the guard left.

Cain kept his head low and his eyes down. But, he did peek through the hair falling over his eyes to look at the other men in the room.

Master called these men guests, and he wasn’t supposed to kill them. But the way they looked at him, he wanted to kill them. Slaughter them all under his pounding fists. His hands around their throats, listening to the satisfying crack as he broke their necks. They were sitting on sofas that faced him, drinking, laughing, talking. He hated these men. But, he stood still and listened. Listening helped him learn things.

A man with gray hair, wearing clothes like Master spoke. “So, these women. Bring me up to speed as it has been a very long time since I was here. You buy the fighter’s whores? From the Slave Market, I assume?”

The little fat man with the bald head and glasses blurted out. “f**k no! Those whores on the market are trained, cost six figures. No, we just grab these off the street. If we were to buy them, we would run at a loss! They go through so many of them, it can be hard to keep the female pens stocked some months.”

The men in the room laughed. The sound crawled over Cain’s skin, making it itch.

The gray-haired man nodded. “So, tell me more about the new setup.”

Master leaned back in his chair and swirled his drink in his hand, it made a clinking sound. “As you know we were going through too many fighters. Most died young, so we have changed the divisions and the rules a bit. Now, the younger ones, ages 5 through 10, they are not killed for a loss. But, we do sometimes lose them to injuries, or an overzealous opponent. Once they reach 10, it is to the death.”

The men nodded, and the gray-haired man spoke. “And the older ones? The Division Champions?”

Master smiled. “Yes, now this is where it gets interesting. Of course, we dropped the teams. And as you know we have twelve divisions. This ensures that every month of the year we have a Division Championship fight. For the fighters, the Championship is a year apart. But, for our fans, and more importantly, for their wallets, there is a Championship every month. Now, these twelve divisions are broken into age groups. A fighter has to defeat all in his division to win the Championship. Once he is Champion, the cycle begins again. If he survives and ages, then when he reaches the next age division, he is moved to that group. And starts fighting from the bottom again.”

The men murmured their approval as Master sipped his drink. He leaned over and picked up a cigar, lighting it, he blew out a long stream of smoke into the air. Cain smiled on the inside. He was learning, he had picked up what was happening over the many times he had stood in Master’s office.

His inside smiles were important. He couldn’t smile on the outside, Master would be mad. But, he could smile inside and keep it hidden, all to himself. Maybe when he killed Demon, he would tell the female about his inside smiles. She might like that.

Master’s voice pierced through his thoughts. “Of course, I can’t have the 10-year-old division fighting Cain’s division…” The men roared with laughter and Cain flinched. It was too loud. He clenched his fists.

“Indeed. Funny, yes, but a bloodbath that would cost me too much. So, the division Champions will be divided into six, the six oldest and the six youngest. That will keep age and experience close enough that most of the fights will be interesting.”

The gray-haired man spoke again, tilting his chin towards Cain. “You sure you’re willing to lose this young buck to Demon?”

The bald man laughed. “Or Demon to the young buck!”

Master smiled. “Simply, Yes. The fact is, although my Champions make me a lot of money, the fans will pay more; Oh! So much more, to see a fight where it is guaranteed, that a Champion will fall. That they will see their head on a stick. That fight will not only pay for the loss, but also make me a hefty profit. Plus, they are older, they have already been making me money for years. Take Cain there. He is twenty-five years old, he has been making money for me for nearly twenty years. If I lose him, he has still paid his way.”

Cain bit his lip. Twenty-five, he was twenty-five. He wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but, he would remember.

“You almost sound like you expect Demon to win.”

Master shrugged. “Demon has more experience, and he is two years older. He is the Champion of our oldest division.”

“True.” The bald-headed man said. “But, Cain is bigger, taller, stronger.”

Master nodded. “But, not by much. Cain is only an inch taller, he is 6’9, Demon is 6’8. There is about 20 pounds of muscle weight difference between them. Cain being the bigger one. But, Demon was fighting for a year before Cain got here, that extra year of experience is worth its weight in gold.”

The bald man nodded.

The gray-haired man got up and walked over to Cain, running his eyes over him. “Big changes made the last few years. Dougherty.”

Cain kept his head lowered, but watched the gray-haired man closely. Dougherty. That was what the guests called Master.

Master stood and walked over to stand beside the gray-haired man. “Indeed, very profitable changes. Nothing stays the same. In order to keep the fans spending their money, there need’s to be things that are new, fresh. And this will be new, it will be bloody, and with the improved boost drug, there will be death. So much death.”

The gray-haired man nodded again. “Yes, I wanted to speak to you about that. The females…”

Cain’s full attention snapped to the man’s words… the females, HIS female…

Master said. “Yes, what about them? Do you want to f**k one?”

Fuck a female? NOT his female. He growled, and the chains rattled as his muscles rippled. He wanted to scream at them. But, he would never speak. When he was younger, he used to wear a collar, it caused pain when he spoke. But, now he is older and a Champion. He doesn’t need the collar anymore because he knows not to speak. But, he is also scared to. Even without the collar, he still remembers the pain.

The gray-haired man took a quick step back. That was wise, because if Cain could reach him, he would crush him to bloody dust. The man eyed him. “Little touchy about the women, isn’t he?”

Master laughed. “Of course, that’s the point. The testosterone boost doesn’t just build muscle and aggression. It also builds their libido, to dangerous levels. Toss a female into the middle of them and a fight to the death is guaranteed.”

“But, they win them. Don’t they?”

“Yes, the older Champions can as a reward. And some of them can become rather attached, which is another useful tool. You would be surprised how well discipline works when you slit the throat of their female in front of them for disobeying.” Master chuckled. “Oh yes, it is quite effective.”

The men laughed. Then the gray-haired man spoke again. “Oh, I’m sure it is. And as I was saying about that… You have cameras in the cells, right? And they sometimes kill the females?”

Master nodded. “Yes, they do.”

Cain felt shame wash over him. His shoulders slumped, and his head dropped lower.

“Good.” The gray-haired man smiled. “There is a market for that, a very lucrative market.”

Master pinched his bottom lip. “Snuff films?”

The gray-haired man nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. But, marketed to a very select few. For what your fighters do to the females, that is an excellent market. People will pay top dollar to see it. It’s not just death, it’s carnage.”

Cain rocked on his feet side to side, his chin on his chest. Then he let out a low rumble and closed his eyes. This conversation was causing him pain. This caught the men’s attention.

“What’s his problem?”

Master approached him and slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Ah well, he is one of the reasons we had to make a few changes.”

The men talked amongst themselves. One asked. “Do you have a video of that? He’s a Champion, that video would sell for even more.”

Master removed his hand and stepped away. Cain’s skin burned where his hand had been. Master’s touch scared him to death. He wasn’t a little boy anymore suffering under the blows of Master. But, the memories of when he had been were burned into his mind.

“No.” Master sighed. “I don’t. It’s a pity, you are right, people would have paid good money to see it. Even if he was defying my orders.”

Cain wanted to curl into himself. The shame washing through his body was crippling, painful. It had been a long time ago, but he had disobeyed— a cardinal sin. He could not speak, so instead, he dropped to his knees. He wanted to show Master he remembered, and he was sorry. Master turned back to him and patted him on the head. “I know. And you will keep making it up to me, Cain. You will never disobey me again.”

Cain nodded his head. There was Master and only Master. He would never disobey again. If he made a mistake, if he disobeyed, he would die. And he wanted to die. If he had to, he would kill himself. He couldn’t go through the pain of disappointing Master ever again.