The victim is prepared for the arena; stripped, beaten into frenzy, armed, and then forced out into the ring. After a few moments his eyes get used to the light. He walks hesitantly forward, but his enemy is nowhere to be seen. Then he sees, in the shadows on the far side of the arena, a small child in rags and without a weapon. Is this who they expected to kill him? He walks less fearfully across the sand towards his tiny opponent. The crowd roars; he looks around, expecting the tearing teeth of a wild animal. There is no one but the child. Has there been some mistake? For a brief moment he considers saving the child. They could run to a side door and... No, there is no escape. Still the crowd roars. He raises his arms to the crowd as a question: Where is your champion? The cheering becomes even louder. "Am I the champion?", He thinks, but no, there must be some mistake. He walks up to the child, who is crying and afraid. "Why are you crying?" he asks at length, but the child produces no response. To be sure, when he first entered the arena he also felt like crying bitterly, but the confusion had produced an entirely different response. He reaches down to comfort the child, but the little thing scampers just out of reach and continued crying. "What is going on here!" he cries out, and the child screams and runs in terror. He looks down at the weapon that the sweating slavemaster had placed in his hands before shoving him into the arena. Hardly a weapon at all, it is merely a club with some sort of metal around the grip. He walked over to the child, his mind in a storm. "Will they let me go free if I kill the child?" he wonders? He had not expected to live long enough to even see the crowd, and now they were offering him freedom, if he would just perform his task. "I am the champion?" he thought. The idea was exciting to him. "They must have seen how strong i am. Yes, that's it. Surely, they must have seen my superior ability and wanted to test it... But against this child? There must be a reason for it. Yes, they will tell me as soon as I end this. I was so confused, when they first sent me out here. I thought that I was the victim, but I am their Champion!" He was so surprised by how easily the child fell senseless from his first blow that he hardly noticed when the lion tore his head off at the neck.
