Gu Lin set his eyes on the clear blue sky, wondering if it really was fake.
He read about it in many of his father's scrolls, and then heard about it from a few of the customers, and then once again in the markets.
It looked as real as the other supposedly fake sky he had already seen, though it lacked the clouds and the winds of his hometown. For the first time in years—perhaps in all his one and a half decade of living—he missed it.
The smell of the medicine. The taste of the poison. His sister's lectures about…
A girl's pained scream jolts him from his trance. It's far to his right. Far enough he doesn't hear her gasp or fight back. He can't see her, either.
Yet, he knew it.
That it was her last scream. He'd learned to tell them apart in the past few minutes, for better or worse.
The young man stood on the middle of a vast plain, covered in tall, yellow grass as far as the eye could see.
He wore the same as any of the contestants: loose, dull-colored rags. Barefoot. He coudn't have brought his own clothes, but who would have chosen to be in a fight to the death naked?
For the sake of balance, explained the Guardian. As if there was any balance to this madness.
On his hands, a crudely-made shortspear—that was optional. He could've chosen from many poorly-handicrafted weapons, but he was no warrior. The sweet spot between reach, weight, and intuition, he figured.
He had little time on his hands.
But wielding the spear wasn't the biggest of his problems.
Skill could be learned. Earned. Faked.
What he lacked was the will.
The will to kill. The will to survive.