L.I.M.B.O

Story by KayrinSF on SoFurry

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Convicted, a young tiger finds himself fodder for a voracious need for televised death.

A new story! Gave it a somewhat wacky scenario premise, but what the hell, right?! Gotta stand out somehow. ;)

Hopefully a few of you can get on board with the presentation method I went for said wacky premise. I feel the need to preface the story by saying it isn't at all a reflection of anything political. None of the characters are meant to represent anything, nor does the "world". Just a way to frame a group of males limbo'ing themselves to death. ;)

Enjoy, guys!

Zavis © HandofBlades (on FA)


How many years had the same cries been heard? The demands for accountability in government, and the cynical distaste for the political elites; they didn't know what it was like to be poor, cold and starving. If only the average man was given the power to determine the future of the nation! Free from the tethers of corporate subservience, and armed with empathy for his fellow man, this working class hero would surely give the people hope. The cries had long gone unanswered, and it was only when they ceased to fall on deaf ears that the troubles began.

Jonathan Sullivan had swept to the presidency in a tidal wave of populist sentiment that had begun in the grassroots and ended in the upper echelons of shadowed boardrooms. A plumber by trade, and with little formal education, the plump-bellied canine had no class but plenty of charisma. His crass demeanor betrayed his roots in an urban borough of New York, but his smile was pure Hollywood. Important matters like foreign trade, inter-political strife and domestic security became secondary to the hope that just by being a crude, un-educated, New Yorker, Jon would lead the country somewhere brighter than where it had lingered for so long.

The brown-furred idol proved to know exactly what people wanted, as his citizens learned quickly. They didn't want solutions, however, and though they would argue otherwise it became clear that even the educated gave way to baser instincts when the mob roared. Like the Roman Emperors of old, Jon knew what drove people on.

"So, yeah. Like. Instead of just killin' 'dem crooks, 'ow abouts we make a show of it? Ya know? Like a reality show, 'cept actually real?"

Ill-spoken, but well-timed, Jon's suggestion to Congress made waves throughout the political spheres, and the cogs began to turn. Within six months capital punishment in the country saw itself utterly and irrecoverably altered. No longer a source of contention amongst the politically minded, it became a source of unification. Indeed, as the Roman Emperors--of which Jon could name none--had learned, it was not solution that quelled dissent, but distraction; bread and circus was the lifeblood of the mob.

Executions were televised, and were no longer somber affairs of needles and final words. The sullen galleries of victims, or their families, gave way to the roaring crowds of bloodthirsty spectators. Whole groups of prisoners were executed in a single day, and the method differed regionally; whatever drew ratings, regardless of humaneness, became the accepted means of dispensing justice. The revenues from the executions funded the daily needs of nation and government, and soon became a vital artery in federal cash-flow.

When the stock of murderers became depleted, however, new crimes were deemed to be punishable by death; the money was too fine a wine for the nation to quit it simply because justice had been served too quickly. Soon, even those deemed responsible for car accidents that led to death, or even serious cases of theft, found themselves paraded before the cameras to compete for their lives. The winners would be pardoned, the losers passing from this life to the roar of a crowd who saw their lust for death justified by the crimes of the condemned. Hope was a messy business, and it paid well.

Jason had found himself railroaded by this very system. A single bad decision had landed him in the driver's seat of his dad's chevy; dealing with the rotten steering and faulty breaks was in itself a life-threatening choice, but the case of beer he'd downed certainly hadn't helped. One broken headlight and a corpse later, the young tiger had found himself standing before a judge who saw a chance to make a few extra bucks, and nothing more.

"Death in the games" The words hit harder than the gavel pounding down atop the judge's bench, or the tears dribbling from the wide, deep pools of Jason's blue eyes. He'd been hauled away even as his mother had screamed and his father had shaken his head; would they be watching? The thought swirled amidst Jason's fears as he was prepped, jostled and eventually thrown down onto the indifferent floor of his five by ten cell. The tiger had wept, he'd screamed, and had even pleaded, but the mob needed its blood, young or old.

The memories of the month which had followed flowed behind Jason's eyes like a whirlpool, trapping the life raft which had kept him afloat during the dark nights and darker days. His orange fur was clean--a hot shower a final parting gift for the condemned--and the black stripes dashing wildly through it glistened in the cold sodium lights which lined the hallway he was being marched down. Ahead of him a dozen other males moved with the same tired trepidation which slowed Jason's feet. Behind him the feline could hear several more bodies shuffling slowly, their feet the only sound save for the jangling chains which bound their arms. Jason's breath ripped from him in needy little shudders, the sound of the announcer drifting lazily from somewhere ahead.

The tiger was smaller than most of the others he would be competing against, and he could only hope that would play to his favour.

"Meat delivery!" A large alligator, his muscles rippling beneath the short-sleeved black t-shirt he wore, shouted into the small headset fastened neatly to his hairless head. The first of the men in the line had already exited into the studio, and as he drew nearer to the wall of sound being pushed out from the crowd, Jason felt himself shiver with something besides fear. He had used his month in prison wisely, letting the fear wash over him until it had run its course. All that was left in him was a sickened sense of inevitability, and a desire to not embarrass himself. As he stepped from the tunnel and found himself bare before the crowd, the tiger's expectations were shattered by the immensity of what lay before him.

Not quite large to be called a stadium, the venue still allowed tiers of faceless onlookers to loom around the performance area. 'A few thousand at least'' Jason thought absently, wondering just as disconnectedly how many were watching through the array of cameras set up on the floor. Somewhere, a man in a booth was shouting commands to the men and women standing at those cameras, and the cat felt himself straighten up and try to stand just that much taller.

The competitors finally stopped. They stood in a semicircle, bodies--big, small, skinny, fat, muscled or slim--bare save for vivid orange briefs with their prisoner numbers emblazoned across the rump of the skimpy outfits. They were not afforded the dignity of their names, but the numbers were all the people wanted; It was a base desire to recognize, no matter how briefly, the scum before they met a just end.

Adrenaline ran rampant in Jason's trembling body, and the feline couldn't help but glance along the row of other males. A few sported semi-erect cocks, the fabric of their briefs pushed taut by the burgeoning meat standing at attention. The sight wasn't something that would normally hold Jason's attentions--a pair of tits had always been a far better distraction--but the cat was dimly aware of his gaze lingering. It was nothing unusual, and the games collected their share of exhibitionists and fetishists. The small uniforms left little to the imagination, and that suited most people just fine.

"By order of the state, I hereby declare this to be the time of your judgement!" The announcer--a bespectacled guinea pig in a three piece suit--was performing his duty as required by the state legislature since time immemorial, but spruced up for mass consumption. He stood on a pedestal near the edge of the floor the males stood upon, a single spotlight shining down on him and the thick book which lay open before him. "Repent and be saved in the eyes of God, for your mortal crimes shall now be cleansed!" With all the grandeur of an evangelist, the rodent's hand rose as though he was calling upon the power of heaven itself to smite the males. The crowd roared its approval of the show, and Jason found himself watching the charade with a sense of cheap chagrin.

The crowd grew quiet, and the guinea pig waited patiently before he continued. "Behold, the scourge that will wipe your sins clean!" The arm swept out and another spotlight burst into brilliant life with a heavy clunk. Its light fell upon a long bar held up by a pair of stands. Standing nearly five feet from the ground, the bar seemed to crackle with a hidden energy, and even from where he stood Jason could feel his fur beginning to bristle as though someone had just rubbed a balloon along it. White arcs of electricity danced along the length of the bar, and the harder the tiger looked, the more certain he was that something burned beneath the nearly opaque surface of the device. He had seen it before, and even as he stared at it the cat felt his muscles begin to clench up. The crowd stomped and a few catcalls drifted from somewhere amidst the darkened masses who had come to see him die. "The Lateral Incendiary Mobile Beam Obstructor!"

Jason had to stifle the bark of laughter which threatened to burble up from his throat. He remembered that the first time he'd seen this device used--sitting in the comfort of his parent's home, watching on tv as nameless men in some far away place played the role he now stood in--he'd had the same reaction to the name. It reeked of cheap sensationalism, produced in some boardroom somewhere. It dripped with disdain for the people who were watching and proved that even the ridiculous could seem technical if the proper gravity was applied to it; L.I.M.B.O, what a farce.

Guards shoved and threatened the gathered prisoners into a line as the guinea pig looked down at them with theatrical disgust.

"You have tainted the gift of life granted to you by so loving a God as any before, and now we shall send you to him so you may learn humility in the face of his greatness!" The man's words echoed as a large monitor flickered overhead. Pictures of the condemned accompanied lists of the crimes which had brought them here filled the screen. "But first..." the announcer continued, "A word from our sponsors!" The fire and brimstone intensity of the well-dressed rodent's stageshow disappeared immediately, and even as Jason felt the blunted end of a cudgel drive him into line behind a large stallion--the equine's black hair already glistening with a sheen of sweat--the guinea pig turned and began calling for the make-up girl's attention.

Shifting from foot to foot, the tiger let his breath carry his thoughts. Soundlessly, they blossomed, only to die out seconds later like fireworks fighting the growing darkness in his mind. Even as a tall stoat in a wool sweater began to count-down the end of the commercial break, loud rock music began to pound from hidden speakers scattered across the wall and ceiling. As if this were some innately understood cue for Jason and the others, the line began to move. The cameras began their voracious meal of the macabre spectacle playing out before them. The crowd--as many drunk on over-priced beer, as not--sang along with the music attacking their ears.

The white tip of Jason's black and orange tail drug through the thin layer of dust marring the otherwise polished black tile of the stage. Ahead of him the trudging males--their obedience earned by the gift of hopelessness which had been foisted on them by the circumstances-- began their show. Leaning back at the hips, one after another they passed beneath the crackling heat of the L.I.M.B.O bar. Each step he took towards it seemed to charge the tiger. The tingling sensation he'd felt coming from the bar began to intensify, he could feel it gliding across his trim belly and burrowing into it until even his muscles hummed. The sensation also sizzled through the boy's flaccid cock, and the heavy balls at its base. Like fingers tickling along the underside of that sleeping prick, the charge in the air coaxed it gently from his sheath.

An unbidden blush bloomed in Jason's cheeks, but he carefully maintained his pace in the line even as his cock pressed out against his briefs, as though eager to indulge itself in its final moments of life._ '_Look at me, I'm alive!' it screamed in its embarrassing explicitness. His mind was dragged from the gutter by a sudden howl of pain several prisoners ahead in the line.

A grey and white furred bulldog, his upper-body as impressive as his lower body's lack of definition, had been betrayed by his own hard prick! Managing the feat of maintaining his balance as he tried to sneak beneath the bar, the male's cock had dragged itself along the underside of that very thing. A howl trebled from the male's lips, his eyes as wide as his gaping mouth. Unable to right himself as the heat from the bar seemed to transfer itself into him, the bulldog watched in horror as arcs of electricity from the beam jumped between its white surface and the pre-cum slickened tip of his tent. The heat quickly gave way to pain, and the five seconds which passed between his initial bump of his meat and this new torment stretched itself into impossibility.

"GRAAAAAAYYYGH!" The guttural cry burbled into a choked whine as his cock erupted into a torrent of arching cum. The thin orange fabric of his briefs turned semi-translucent by the sudden moisture it was sucking up. The orgasm brought no pleasure for the bulldog, however, simply a biological reaction to the energy tearing his very molecular structure apart! Even as his cream cascaded down the length of his traitorous prick, the dog's body began to collapse. Thick rippling patches of gey appeared across the male's body, and the canine's dying eyes could only watch as his body began to collapse into a rain of ash across the tiles beneath him. He died only when the rot reached his heart and lungs, eyes rolling back as even they succumbed and dissolved into a fine grey powder. Soon, only a pile of finely ground ash and a skull lay where the bulldog had stood.

"Go with God!" Shouted the guinea pig, but there was no mercy in his tone. A large free-standing fan near the edge of the stage sputtered to life and within seconds the ash had been blown clear of the bar area as it was dispersed; Jason could only think of the dust his tail was disturbing beneath him. Above, the bulldog's picture dimmed and the word "EXECUTED" superimposed itself across the slot.

The music continued.

The remaining males watched the bulldog's skull almost superstitiously as they approached the bar. It wasn't until the stallion in front of Jason went under that one of them took the time to kick the skull out of the way. Jason's body relaxed as he stepped up to the bar and pushed his shoulders backwards. The diminutive--or at least relatively so--tiger held his breath as he watched the bar slip past above him, only inches from his nose. From this close he could see the liquid fire inside the beam roil and sputter, as if begging him to touch its surface. As he righted himself safely on the far side, however, the feline could only think of the bulldog's unceremonious death.

Several more prisoners failed in the initial round. A scruffy looking squirrel missing one of his front teeth howled as pitifully as the bulldog had. His body jerked and jolted, sucking up all that the beam had to offer a sinner like him. The squirrel's small muzzle twitched and sneered in pain as his chest began to collapse in on itself. Cum oozed from the legholes of his briefs and a final shaky cry of pain faded into silence as the squirrel disintegrated into useless ash. Again the fan whirred into life, and another male disappeared. The wolf--who looked no older than Jason, perhaps nineteen or twenty--who'd stood behind the squirrel in the line approached the beam with newfound trepidation. This reluctance got the better of the boy and his virile cock, however. As he made his descent, his foot nudged against the squirrel's skull, and in a pristine moment of panic the wolf lost his balance.

Bubble-round ass hitting the floor, the wolf found himself splayed beneath the bar with his cock thrust up towards it. The bar wasted no time in punishing the lupine's slight. As though mounted on a track, the beam fell like a guillotine. It landed solidly against the downed boy's belly, searing into him with more intense a force than either of the males who'd been eliminated before him. The power practically exploded in the boy's body, which arched downwards as though the beam were a fist that had just suckerpunched him. Lean muscles broke apart and with a lick of flame shooting from his nostrils, the boy found himself cooked from the inside out in the blink of an eye. Not even afforded the luxury of a pleasureless orgasm, the boy simply died in an outward rush of lupine-based dust. The beam corrected its position as some of the wolf's fur, which had fused to its surface from the intense heat it had unleashed upon the executed wolf, sizzled.

The music continued.

The beam lowered by half a foot as the head of the line found himself standing before it once more. Those who had barely made it under in the first round grew noticeably more anxious at the sudden drop in height. A few shuddered in rekindled fear, and a few grew harder as they faced their own mortality.

The line resumed its repetitious ritual, sweating bodies once more bathed in the mysterious electricity which filled the air around the beam. There was no surprise this time when a tawny lynx's cock banged into the bar. The crowd boomed its approval, but the other condemned watched with a freshly born--and quickly gained-- familiarity. Body seeming to clench, the lynx's tongue jutted from between his sneering lips, his fangs laid bare as he came onto the bar itself. All sense had already left him, his eyes open but glassy; he was alive, but trapped inside his own head as he met his gruesome end. His cum streaked through the air, spattering across his stretched out belly which hung just below the bar. Boiling seed evaporated atop the bar even as its owner crumpled into useless ash below it. The line tightened up to fill the gap left behind, and the lynx was forgotten by those still fighting to survive.

Jason could no longer deny the lust bombarding his nubile body. Blood pounded through his veins, cock feeling as though if it got any harder it was just going to pop right off. Even the breaths he felt tumbling into, and out of, his lungs seemed to excite the sleek feline. When the stallion in front of Jason found himself faltering in mid-bend, Jason watched eagerly. The equine's arms pinwheeled as his tilted back head allowed him to catch the sight of Jason's expression. 'No help here, bub' that look said, and it brought a thinly veiled look of terror to the horse's already frantic eyes.

Feeling himself falling back, the horse thrust his body upwards in a drastic overcompensation for his wobbly balance. The powerful male's ab-sheathed belly slammed into the bar like a bug hitting a windshield. Unable to pull away once its deadly embrace had him, the horse jolted and danced without breaking contact with the deadly device. His impressive cock--which had slid under the bar with no small difficulty--jostled in his orange briefs, and Jason saw that from here he could make out every contour of that mighty package.

"NNNNRAAAAGH!"

Jason couldn't contain himself. A paw drifted down to stroke along his own prick as he watched the horse die, some inner-desire awakened in him that the boy had no interest in quelling. Even the contorted look on the horse's face--which smacked of pain, dumbfounded despair, and humiliation--had the tiger's heart fluttering. The exotic scent of horse cum fueled this new taboo, raining across the horse's body and even striking Jason's left leg as the male unloaded for a final time. Finally, his form seemed to melt as his soft tissue scorched away into a growing sea of ash, which poured onto the floor.

The smugness, which burned in Jason as hotly as the bar, quickly birthed a sudden need in the pit of Jason's obsidian thoughts. Even as the fan blew, Jason hurried beneath the beam. Forsaking his own safety in the heat of the moment, Jason pushed his feet through the remains of the horse's dissipating ash. The boy's toes curled in it, and as he successfully rose back to his full height the tiger looked down with some satisfaction at the grey-hue smeared through the fur of his feet. Why had he done that? The reasoning eluded him, but how he felt at that bizarre sight quickly became all the reason he needed.

The music continued.

More than half of those who had survived the first round fell in the second. Scream after scream punctuated the air as the more inflexible males became little more than dust-motes floating across the pools of light cast by the lamps overhead. As the final boy--a black and white collie--for that round fell into a heap beneath the bar, his spurting cock ashing away with the rest of him, Jason watched with a keener interest than most of the others. The bar dropped again, now standing four feet from the ground.

The acrid smell of ozone mingled with earthen undertones of burnt hair and flesh. Jason's cock oozed pre-cum liberally now, his briefs as damp with the fragrant juice as with the tangy sweat which shimmered in his fur.

Another round began, and passed, with the tiger's knees nearly buckling beneath him in mid-bend. Only the forethought to tuck the tip of his flagpole-like cock beneath the waistband of the briefs saved his life. While the others found themselves struggling with their own respective bulges of musky beef barely clearing the bar, Jason's lay flat against his belly; he could feel his fur growing sticky just below his bellybutton as he leaked more pre-cum, but the cost was a small one.

With the dying shriek of a spasming coyote, Jason found himself alone with only a scaled python, his sand coloured scales and brown diamond patterning glistening with perspiration. Their feet were smeared with the dust of those who had already perished, and the look on the python's face contorted into a look of smugness that had the tiger's blood boiling. He didn't pull his gaze away from the python's glaring eyes as the coyote's cum spurted as lewdly and embarrassingly as those who'd gone before him. As the loser's body disintegrated into ash, Jason was unmoved; only the python mattered now.

"I'll remember you fondly while I'm enjoying my freedom, kitten" sneered the python. The 2 man line-up had left Jason stepping up to the bar first. "Make a nice face for me when you die. I need something to cum on." The air of smugness grew denser as a scaled hand slid out from behind Jason's hip, and stroked the downy fur covering the boy's inner thigh. Jason's paw shoved the python back firmly, a look of contempt competing with the blush rising in the boy's cheeks.

"Gonna be hard to jack anything when it's been scorched off ya." The tiger's blunt retort slid into a considering once-over of the python by Jason's blue eyes. "What little there is, anyway." The momentary look of anger which flashed across the reptilian male's face was all Jason needed to see. He turned his attention back to the bar and with a somewhat awkward wobbling step forward he bent back. The beam hovered ominously, the glow of it bathing Jason in its inviting warmth. Beneath his feet he felt the shifting dust of the coyote, the canid's skull rattling away as Jason's foot struck it. The beam moved past his chest and Jason focused on keeping his head back. Knees barely holding him aright, the tiger's body ached with a sudden desire to simply surrender to his situation.

The idea of the--now somewhat agitated--python watching him die brought with it an unspoken desire in Jason's loins. What did he have to look forward to now? He would be forever marked by his appearance here. Even if he won and earned his freedom, what kind of life could he expect? Nobody liked the idea that justice had not been served, and surely the question of his seeming exoneration for his crimes would be raised. Jason was acutely aware of how hot his ears felt. The beam sat just above his throat, the inch or so of clearance he needed for his chin presenting an increasingly dangerous obstacle. Still, the thoughts persisted. Why not give up? Die here and now, feed the lust of that python and make a show of his own passing. A self-destructive allure, keener than any siren's song, refused to leave Jason's mind.

No.

He couldn't.

Fresh determination to see that python die, and to smell fresh air once more, steeled Jason's thoughts! Blood pounding in his ears, the boy refocused his attentions on the nearly mechanical movements he'd been performing amidst this tossing sea of internal doubt. That drive for victory pushed Jason forward, his body bending lower and the clearance he'd needed suddenly appearing. Like some great warrior, Jason found an inner strength in that moment which threatened to burn him away as surely as the heat radiating from the device.

The boy's knees, however, had their own desires. And as he felt them begin to collapse beneath him. Fear bubbled up in his throat. The angle had been too sharp, and worn out from the seemingly endless rotations beneath the bar already, Jason's knees succumbed to gravity at last. Jason's paws shot up instinctively. As he fell, he grabbed for the only thing within reach; the bar accepted his grasp as eagerly as he'd imagined it would.

"GRAAHGAHAGHHAAHHA" The warbling shriek that burst from Jason in those final seconds of his life brought a wave of laughter from the audience, their earlier enthusiasm floating back to the surface as the game came to its end. The python, who had a patchy relationship with honesty, remained true to his word. His briefs pushed down, the reptiles cock bounced freely in the air, clear fluids beading at the tip as he snarled harshly down at the defeated cat.

Jason's body jerked and bucked, his paw remaining firmly clenched around the bar as his muscles seized up with the power coursing through them. His muzzle open in a now silent scream, the boy's tongue writhed frantically against his parted lips before jutting out almost lewdly. Eyes wide and smoke curling from a nostril, the cat's gaze remained fixed on the python towering over him. Was this how it ended? Jason's mind was already failing, neurons sparking out in glorious bursts of radiance and power. As intent as he may have been, the tiger could feel the liquid tackiness of his own cum as it burst out in several thick pumping streams. Pinned against his belly, the boy's dick had no choice but to unload itself across that same plane of white fur and spasming muscles.

The last thing Jason felt, however, was the odd sensation of his body already beginning to disappear. What felt like blood ran down his side as trails of ash began to crumble away from his frame. The feline was gone long before the process began in earnest, and as the python's freshly milked cream splattered across the dumbfounded expression which haunted Jason's dead features, even those features disappeared. White bone gleamed beneath swirling ash as the boy's skull tumbled to a standstill beneath the bar.

The bar sparked as the circuit formed by Jason's body was broken, the flow returning to its normal path through the bar. The soft hum emanating from it was drowned out by the crowd, the announcer plying his trade thickly as he announced the death of the day's final convict.

"Your sin is purged by tribulation!" The guinea pig's spiel floated on the air like a kite, fluttering across the ears of the assembled spectators, and the gloating python who stood alone where so many had stood a short time before. "Praise God!"

Zavis rolled his eyes as he scooped up the skull of that cute tiger. The gleaming bone had been seared clean by the heat that had devoured Jason, and the python drew his tongue along the bared teeth of his new trophy.

"Praise God." Zavis muttered under his breath, grinning to himself as he was led from the arena; Jason's skull tucked against his hip and a bounce in the reptile's step, Zavis couldn't help but whistle.