Chapter 13 snippet (brand new writing for today...)

The hard clay crunched under her foot. Looking around, Kate felt shock rising in her body. Glancing around in a circle, she could see empty stands rising at a forty-five degree angle. Craning her head back, they appeared to rise up to the clouds floating by.

Just what the hell am I doing here? She asked, recognition making her blood cold.

The fighting arena on Necko was known throughout the settled galaxy. It was there that gladiator slaves fought, and died, for the gambling entertainment of the spectators. Shaking visibly, she found herself recalling her time there.

Closing her eyes, Kate saw images of friends, and lovers, who died on the floor. The years of misery and death that surrounded her before their escape. She clenched her hands into fists, wanting to lash out, wanting to scream, but not finding the energy to do so.

Opening her eyes again, she did scream. Before her, until the end of the arena floor, were dead bodies. Not just any dead bodies, but the bodies of people she had killed in her lifetime. There were gladiators, the Marines from Ireland, the scientists in Irwin…

She settled herself down and started to walk. Moving through the bodies, she was horrified to find they were alive. Instinctively shrinking back, she felt their eyes boring into her as she passed.

“You killed me…” one of the marines breathed.

Shrinking away from him, she kept moving. The only way she was going to keep her sanity, she told herself, was to keep moving. Everything about this experience was working to drive her over the edge!

“Who are you?”

She spun around, trying to find the source of the voice. It was the same voice from her earlier dreams, she told herself. The same god-like ball of energy that searched her before! Just what the hell was happening here?

Seeing nothing, she kept moving. Each marine she passed made the same accusation. Dropping her head, the shame washed over her in waves. Even though she had to do it, in fact had almost no choice in any of them, the guilt felt like a sharpened sword jabbed into her chest.

“Murderer…”