Echo Aelian

"Well," he said,"My story isn't long, it's kinda borin' an' you won't know for sure if I'm serious or just jokin' your a*s around." He smiled a strange smile and the fire flicked and crackled which for a moment made his eyes glow with a devilish red. With a grunt he sat down and spat into the fire, which hissed.

"I don't know about you, but I would kill for a decent slice of meat. Speaking about which, I know a lot about meat, yes surie. A couple of years in a meat factory will learn you all you wanna know about meat, and everythin' you don't. There's good meat, bad meat, meat you won't feed your dog with, intestines that look funny an' makes some people puke. But any job is the same, you soon get used to it and it won't bother you anymore. Many of the workers became vegetarians, not me though. They say that it's never the same after you seen where the meat actually comes from. I say a steak is a steak and God knows how long it's been since I had a beef and a beer. That was what put me into trouble in the first place." He sighed and looked gloomily into the fire for a while.

"My family needed food and a steak sometimes wasn't much of a deal. It was worth riskin' bein' caught and I never regretted the last steak I ever stole, regardless of what it lead to. Hah, the sociopath mobster who ran the factory wouldn't believe it at first, that someone would dare steal from him, and right under his nose, too!" The man laughed a mirthless laughter.

"They tried to beat me to death, but when their last man lay bleedin' on the bloody floor they gave me a choice, either fight in the Stadium like the ol' gladiators, whoever they were, or my family would 'suffer the consequences' as they said. So I became a gladiator and my family survived, or so I thought. I wasn't allowed to see them, I was caged for most of the time, when I wasn't fightin' or eatin' or exercisin'. I was good, no one survived when I was out there, rampaging on the field of the old Stadium. That was part of the problem, 'cause soon no one dared meet me in the pit, as we called it. I hadn't used guns or weapons before the Pit, but I was a fast learner. You see this," the man pointed with his chin against his shoulders, "this is a real human skull. I didn't kill this poor sucker, but it made me famous after I used it to beat the crap out of the first opponent I had. And those teeth, yeah, they look good, don't they?" The man yawned.

"When they let me out, I found out that my family had been dead all along. Needless to say, I tracked that son of a b***h down and killed him, all Pit style. It was thanks to him I learned all those nasty little tricks that makes a death take time and look wicked. My poor Elisabeth... I hope his death delighted you. Nothing left now but me, and all I want is some steak!"