(This leather bound book has yellow, worn pages that look to have suffered some water damage at some point, burn marks marring the cracked, worn out leather. A piece of black cord wrapped several times around the edge keeps the journal closed when not in use.
The writing within is delicate but hurried, somewhat spidery strokes and lines forming Courtelli words, Arian's native language. It is a roman alphabet, however.)
January 23rd, 2011
I found this in a drawer today, looking for pliers. It's old and hasn't been written in. I don't know who's it might have been, given this place was occupied by druggies, and abandoned before that. Since I've claimed the place as my own, I guess it's mine now. The pages are old, but they take the ink.
I kept a journal before. I had wanted to have a record of my life, of who I really was so that maybe, somewhere, someone would know I wasn't really a monster. So that Hikaru would know how much I loved his mother, how sorry I was.
I'm not keeping this journal for Hikaru. I'm not keeping it to leave a record of myself. I'm writing because everything's changed, and for the first time in my life-I don't know what to do.
The Exiles...my exiles-are all dead. I don't know where to start about this past year. I need to write it down. I need to see it on paper so that somehow I can, can somehow make it make sense.
March. March 2010. A lot of tournaments to think about, if I wanted. I did tournaments to test my abilities in non lethal situations, as well as the protection they afforded me from hunters. So long as I was a participant, I was relatively safe. Charlie just thought he was blackmailing into the Dark Tournament, but I wanted to be there.
The new GTB was coming up, as was another Dark Tournament. HoH, but I wasn't interested in joining in on that mess. I was supposed to be retired, and Thalius...wouldn't have liked me going off to fight again.
Thalius...
I got an offer from some tournament called The Pits towards the end of the GTB. Hadn't heard of it before, and what's more-it took place underground, miles beneath the earth.
I had no interest in some dark cavern, and besides-I was busy with other things. I learned later a few of my Exiles had received similar offers at Zoologico. I didn't think much of it. Andrew was an up and coming wizard with foreign, much coveted Courtelli magic, being a Ze'Valsh, being the only son in the only House that could use magic on Courtelli Isle. My cousin Clarissa fought in smaller tournaments and did well. Alexander was one of the best archers I've ever seen.
I didn't think much of it.
And then people started disappearing. First Alex, then Andrew-and just like that, I was down two of my strongest and clueless. Oh, we looked. Banded together to ensure our backwards, superstitious islanders hadn't lost their fear of the Mainland, had come after us. Searched and hunted and interrogated. I didn't put it together until they came for us. All of us. Our trained eleven against their twenty or so 'recruiters'.
We took out half. I didn't expect the shadows they brought with them, sneaking, deathly shades that managed to get Ellen alone-and hold her hostage.
I won't lie. For a moment...a barest flicker of a moment, I knew the smart thing to do was to press on, sacrificing her. But I couldn't. I wouldn't. She was the youngest and I had trained her myself. I had trained all of them in one way or another. They were...apart from what I had at the Izanami...my friends. My family.
I loved them all.
The capture happened quietly once they had Ellen. We went down into the dark. We fought, and thankfully-never each other. They put us in the ring as a team against monsters. No rest. Just battle, and people started to die. Andrew was dead before we even arrived there, and Alex could barely stand, feverish and suffering from some kind of infection.
One by one. No audience even, just the grate I never saw open, just the occasional pleased rumble when someone fell, someone was cut, when we won.
Until we didn't win. Until it was down to seven and the thing behind the grate was bored of us.
Ellen, Clarissa, Ellen's Twin David, Will, Claire, Zach and me-survivors. Battered, guilt ridden, slowly losing it survivors. Nine exiles, dead.
I've never been so angry. I've never been so horrified. All I could think about was getting to the surface and then coming back to blow up everything. Make them pay, make those dirty, rotten (Courtelli expletive with no English equal) sons of a bitches pay.
I hated them. Hated them and maybe I was going crazy with hatred. The others though...the others couldn't feed on that. I had to keep it together. I had to keep it together because I knew Ellen and David were all but dead already internally, and Will was hollow eyed and silent. Worn down. That's what they were. Defeated, and only Clarissa and I had the strength to think of revenge.
But we didn't get to go home. We weren't sent to the surface.
No, we were put to work along with the losers before us. Mining some magical mineral, unearthly glowing blue stuff. I tried to resist a few times. I elbowed a guard in a gut. I managed to actually get the drop on another and beat him half to death before I was stopped by another. We tried to ambush two and take their weapons, but it fell apart before we got much farther than our own sleeping area.
We were getting tired and losing weight. I didn't understand at the time, but the mineral was toxic, killing us slowly the more we worked with it. Perhaps the Enforcers didn't realize it either-everyone else I saw there was some kind of metal, including the Enforcers. We were just humans, and we were starting to die.
I started to get numb. I started to lose my anger because...there just wasn't anything to do with it. David was one of the last to die, after Will. Ellen wouldn't stop crying. Claire followed not long after, and I wasn't sure how much longer I had, forcing most of my rations on the others as they started to rapidly lose weight.
I snapped again, went for an Enforcer's eyes after he back handed Ellen for working too slowly. We had lost so much weight and muscle tone, we had been dying in this God forsaken work camp, and he had the nerve to abuse her further.
I don't even remember the things I screamed at him or what exactly happened immediately after in the ensuing struggle, but I know I didn't do much damage. An eye maybe. I didn't have the strength. I was tired all of the time and weak from not eating, not sleeping.
All I remember is the boot on my chest and the sudden stabbing pain in my left hand before they killed Ellen. The lance through my heart was more than the second piercing of crystal through my right hand, the boot forcing it in further in the dirt and flesh.
They had killed Ellen. Twenty year old, happy go lucky Ellen. Exiled at birth for being a twin.
Dead.
I can't...write anymore. Tomorrow. I'll write again tomorrow...
-Arian
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