The creature is right behind me, right on my tail. Just as its pincers reach out to snap me up, one of the blades crashes down. I’m thrown forward by the force and land chest down on the hard ground. The wind is knocked out of me and I wince. Then I look back and see that barely a foot behind me, the creature is twitching against the metal ground, a saw rammed right through its head and black, sticky, gooey blood oozing out of it.
Across the other side of the arena, a group of about five of the children are huddled together, staring at me wide-eyed as though in terror. I just have time to spin onto my back when a boy barrels into me.
“Don’t fight me, you i***t!” I scream as we roll across the ground.
He pins me down, grappling with me.
“I’m trying to keep you all alive!” I shout back.
