"Drip Like A Faucet" by Will Lewis

Like an endlessly dripping sink, she continued to walk.

Step.
Step.
Step.

"She's enduring - I'll give her that - but she's never going to make it!" the loudspeaker overhead blared.
The crowd was going insane. Behind the small girl was a bite dozer traveling at the same speed. Should she fall behind to this coliseum's mad musings, she would be made into chum at the hands of her slavers.
And the slavers were ready. Don Kalsim was sitting above in his throne with Mar Bardom, looking down at the girl and playing with his fake golden locks.
"Why won't she just give it up," he said. "She doesn't even know when the end is. I mean, this is one of those, right? She runs from the dozer until she falls or reaches a certain distance?"
"That's right Mon Don," replied Mar in his uncaring, robotic voice. "It's a Travel Lottery event today."
The loudspeaker continued to taunt the contestant and egg on the audience. "She may just tire the dozer, she just might! Perhaps the sand will eat her instead!" The stadium was a madhouse.

Step.
Step.
Step.

At the back of her mind, she remembered her mother in the slave camp she had been taken from to "compete." Their family's housing was decrepit, but they were one of three lucky families to have a sink.
"You see that over there? You hear it?" her mother would say. "It keeps dripping because it's broken. And, you know, they put us in this broken place because they say we're broken, too. Maybe they're right, but listen to that sink. It wants something, and I don't think it will stop leaking until it gets what it wants. I'm not sure we should, either."

Drip.
Drip.
Drip.