—-It eats you alive doesn’t it,

The mat pressed against his cheek, softly cradling his half conscious mind.

His will to fight still burned deep in his heart.

His eyes burned as he forced his eyelids open. His shattered limbs crunched trying to push his lifeless body off the ground. His lungs collapsed as he took deep crumbling breaths to force oxygen into his failing brain.

The lights of the open arena pointed at him as he forced his noodle-like limbs into position once more. The crowd blared as his foot shuffled into a final stand. their yells thundered through a small arena. Their shrieks of enraged cheers acted as his walking stick to victory, the third leg he needed to keep going.

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He dripped blood from his mouth and nose, sprinkling onto the curves of his lips.The frothy blood flowed into the edges of his jaws and gurgled in the back of his throat. It oozed onto the mat and splashed onto his feet, his strength, in a metaphorical way, leaking out of his body. Within his dim field of view, the ground had been dyed red.

—-To push yourself so far… for nothing.

“HE'S STILL SMILING FOLKS! THIS BATTLE ISN’T OVER YET!”

He chuckles a little as he overhears the announcer say that. He’s got no choice but to rise to the challenge now. The two noodles under his shoulders rebel against their torn and broken exterior and emerge victorious. Even as death watched him in the corner of his eye, his two clenched fists told the world otherwise.

“There is no tomorrow, son.”

He screamed like a protagonist in a heroes show. Never backing down just because his body said so.

Even with his muscles torn,

Even with his bones broken,

Even if his opponent outclassed him multiple times over,

“It’s all about what you can prove, right here, right now.”

He threw a final punch.

—You’re one hell of an actor, kid.