“What happened to you?”

Lara looked up from her seat at a concerned yet evidently amused Auras.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she mumbled.

He responded with a chuckle and tossed a large roll of material onto her lap, taking a seat down beside her. “A sleeping bag,” he added as Lara examined it. It stunk of petrol. “We’ll leave in the morning.”

Gnawing at her lip, she expressed her dissatisfaction at the thought of more new experiences. And people.

Recognizing her trepidation, Auras explained. “We get to the City State, Circa.”

“So much talk about Circa and I still don’t know what it is.”, Lara waved the memory away, “It’s lovely: knowing all that time spent reading history books amounts to nothing when a city that’s brought up everywhere didn’t even exist yet.”

He nodded, “I promise you’ll find out all you need to know soon enough.”

“I’m so excited,” She responded unenthusiastically.

“It will be better.”

“Why do I find that hard to believe?” Lara crossed her arms over the sleeping bag.

Auras sighed and leaned back on his seat, “You’ll see.”

“That’s very reassuring, thank you.”

Auras disregarded her sarcastic tone, choosing instead to watch the field of pity that had cleared out with the darkening of the slightly overcast sky.

Lara grunted in annoyance. “So where do I put this?” She apathetically released it, allowing it to plop down on the concrete in front of her.

“I’ll leave you the freedom to make and disagree with your own choice,” Auras stated, peering at the discarded roll of padded pseudo-fabric. “However, if you’d like to get further away from the field, you can move to the second level.”

She peered up, glancing about the stadium to pinpoint any surfaces she hadn’t originally noted as sturdy. Many had crumbled to the ground beneath them, prompting her concern as she began to wonder what lay underneath the rubble around them.

At a loss – particularly of motivation – she lowered herself to the sleeping bag, unfurling it to reveal a dark green mat. “I’ll just sleep here,” she settled.

Before she maneuvered herself in, however, Lara heard Auras with his usual promise of food.

“On an empty stomach?” He mused as he pulled a head of corn from his pocket.

Hopeful, she propped herself up. But quickly disappointed, she looked away, laying her head down.

Noticing how surprised he was by her disinterest, Lara clarified, “You couldn’t pay me to consume anything from this mess.”

She put her face in the mat, muffling the rest of her sentence.

“You really are done for the day.” He grabbed the cob from her hand, replacing it with a less misshapen sibling. “You’ve been eating this food for a year--”

Lara rolled her eyes, “God, I just -- I don’t wanna know.”

She shoved the new cob into her cocoon. At this point, the only thing she wanted to do was go home. The paranoia of being followed was quickly looking better than the disheartening lifestyle she’d been exposed to.

Nonetheless, sleep had come faster than she’d anticipated for her level of apprehension.

But she couldn’t quite pinpoint what exactly had woken her when Lara’s eyes opened to the stadium canopy against the night sky.

However long she’d been out for, she was still exhausted and, inhaling deeply, she tested her commitment to her makeshift sleeping arrangements until the sound of whispers dancing faintly in the shadowy corner drew the warmth from the seductive lure of sleep. Her ears perked in interest and the sleeping bag quickly went from cocoon to constricting web.

Lara shot up, kicking her legs out of their den and stood to find a draft taking hold over every vulnerable surface of her sweat-drenched skin. Mud streaked her arms as her hands rubbed against the goosebumps while she turned her attention to the quiet sounds in the corner of the stairway to the second level. Squinting, she made out the outline of what appeared to be a small crowd. Lara took a quick glance about her, confirming her suspicion that Auras had yet again gone missing, as he often did while she slept.

Unconcerned with his whereabouts, she made her way to the stairs, ascending them with contrived silence.

As Lara approached the group, she noted the encirclement – many of them male. Some hissed and chimed hoarsely in approval of the sight in front of them, contrasting the quiet voices she’d heard below. In the center of the circle moved two bodies, colliding against one another on the ground in an animalistic synchronization. From it, a woman’s scratchy voice called out for items and food. A number of onlookers tossed in half-eaten loaves of bread and tokens Lara had never seen before.

Lara’s stomach dropped as she realized what she was seeing, turning away quickly as one of the figures from the ground got up to scrape at the glinting tokens, while another from the crowd replaced her. She stumbled away from the desperation.

She mentally convinced herself that she hadn’t really seen much of anything as she ran towards the other side of the stadium’s second floor, the field below her empty, save for a few sleepers. Others had opted to rest in the stands, some areas having been converted to small campsites for groups. Lara lightened her steps so as not to attract attention, approaching the end of the second level to discover the stairway leading back down to the ground floor covered in rubble. Sighing, and hoping to hold out until the crowd behind her dispersed, she climbed the unobscured stairway beside it up to what little of the third floor remained.

Suddenly, her ears once more filled with the whispers she’d heard earlier, stronger than before. Her eyes flickered around, searching for the source.

The sound faded while she scanned the level for others, finding herself alone. But when she turned back, her eyes locked onto a door at the end of her path. From its edges grew a strange glow, just as the ghost of voices resurged and intensified.

Lara stared in disbelief for a long while, afraid to lose the image ahead of her.

Taking a few steps forward, her eyes stung as they dried. But Lara willed herself not to blink – to remain focused on the glow of the door.

Standing before it, only the ghost of the light hummed in its frame, imprinted into her vision. Her palm pressed around the rusted knob, and she gripped it, staring straight ahead. At first she felt the resistance of a lock. But when she turned it again –

It opened.

Lara blinked, stepping into the darkened space ahead of her, when she heard a click.

The door closed behind her just as the light flickered on, and she stared down the barrel of a cocked gun.