Sweat dripped down the side of my reddened face as the digital clock on the wall hit nine. I had just finished a three-hour session of on-off instructing-sparring. Everything ached. First off, I lost to Daniel. My showing wasn’t bad but, my odds of winning were low, even if I had been regularly training prior to this, I have never been Daniel’s equal in live sparring. Don’t get me wrong, I won some exchanges, landed throws, and forced taps from the ground, however against Daniel my win percentage today was around thirty percent. Despite losing, once I had been pulled in the BJJ guys called some friends into the gym, and I was ‘convinced’ into an impromptu lesson. Somewhere in the middle of the lesson Daniel had excused himself for dinner and since technically, I was on staff to help people in this exact capacity I hadn’t been able to worm out of finishing the lesson with my acquired students.
Laying on the mat I was exhausted, my sweat-stained gear clung to my chest like a sticky washing rag. It was a gross sensation, yet it was familiar enough to be comfortable. Opening my mouth wide I yawned.
“Hhhmmph I need to get more sleep.” I announced to the empty room. Everyone had left by now and the gym would have locked automatically at eight-thirty. I got up and moved to pack up my things. I noted the decidedly empty and inviting blue medical bed that was in the far corner of the staff room. Technically I was not allowed to use the gym after hours, we simply weren’t insured for use. I had been reminded on many occasions by management to leave promptly after the closing procedures were finished. But I was a pretty good employee and more importantly, I was very tired. I considered for a moment what the worst thing that could happen from spending the night here could be and decided I could live with whatever it was. Even if I slept till the six-am shift started I could just say it had been an accident. I could say I had meant to leave after resting for a few minutes and before I knew it, I had accidentally fallen asleep. Besides, the hour-long bus ride back home and to school tomorrow would be skipped with no downsides so long as I used my spare pair of clothes in my locker. Already I felt my coherent thoughts were drifting out of existence and so with no remaining reticence I threw my gym bag into the medical wing of the office, turned off the gym’s lights on the panel at the front desk and made my way to the bed in the back room.
“BANG… BANG… BANG…” I woke in a start, my mind tried to re-arrange where I was with the cacophonous echoing bashing that woke me. The sound wasn’t stopping either, multiple times a second it would come like a jackhammer, I could feel my ears were ringing. I covered them with my arms, and only then did I manage to remember that I was still in the recovery bed of my gym. Rolling to my side so that my Gi would brace my right ear against the bed, I used my now free arm to locate my phone and checked the time. It read two thirty-three, I had managed to sleep for a few hours, but the gym definitely wasn’t supposed to be open to the public yet.
Besides what was this sound? This whole situation felt bizarre. I lowered myself slowly to the ground and crept quietly toward the door. It had glass squares on the top and bottom halves, but they were blurred and with the lights of the gym outside the medical room on, it was nearly impossible to see anything through them. Suddenly the slams stopped, and I heard a gravelly voice.
“That’s enough for now. Take five?” It was spoken in a lower register, but it sounded more like a women’s voice than a man’s despite its pitch.
“It feels weird to train without any generation or conversion. Like I’m missing a sense organ or something.” A second voice responded in an annoyed tone. This one probably belonged to a man.
“I’m actually able to do some damage with my fists here because of that.” The first voice laughed back.
“Sara I’m serious, I know we promised to do these check-ins when we weren’t climbing but, it’s a huge waste of our time. Honestly, the military stopped being able to provide us with substantial benefits months ago. How many people made it to Asphodel anyway? Fifteen globally this year?” The second speaker asked.
“Careful, you can’t be sure they’re not listening here.” The voice started, quieter this time she said “And we both know the information we bring back about the upper floors is unique, without us they won’t know anything. I think you’re just uncomfortable here because you don’t have your armour.”
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“It’s the cornerstone of my style” I could almost hear the shrug that followed his response. It was silent then and I was unsure about how to proceed. It didn’t seem like these people had broken in and the talk about the military made me hesitant, if the military was involved then they likely would have permission to be here. I did not, worse I had been explicitly told not to be here. Outside of that none of the things they were talking about made sense, Asphodel? Summoned armour? Generation? Conversion? Maybe they were talking about some sort of video or roleplaying game. After taking a moment to consider my options I decided to wait and see if I could find an opportunity to leave without being noticed. That would involve me opening the medical door, getting past the front desk and about fifteen meters of visible hallway to make it to the exit. It would be rough but if that banging began again then maybe I could get the door open without anyone noticing. Thankfully, not long after the women spoke.
“Let’s start again. Same rules” In response the man only grunted. The banging sounded again. Gauging the timing roughly, I opened the door just a sliver and then waited. The banging continued, so I crouched and ducked forward, making sure to keep my head below the front desk. After getting myself oriented I was able to place the two people as being on the open mats meant for sparing, rather than the lifting or cardio sections of the gym. That destroyed my theory of it being some weird weight slam that was causing the sound. If I wanted to make it out without being noticed, I was going to have to risk looking, to see when they were distracted. With that thought in mind, I raised just my eyes over the counter. On the mats stood two people. The less eye-catching of the two was a man who stood about six feet tall and wore military-branded gym clothes. He had cargo pants and a grey workout shirt on, he was also notably human. Normally being human would not be something worth mentioning as a description but the appearance of the other person on the mats makes such normal conventions of language worth reimagining. Sara was humanoid certainty. She wore a flowing dress of black that seemed far too cumbersome with its long pleats to fight in. The non-human side of Sara was the large scythe-like horn that grew from the middle of her forehead.
Maybe this was some weird dream? I felt my pounding headache from the banging then moved my attention to the sensation of the hard floor beneath my feet. No, that wasn’t likely everything was vivid, and my brain seemed to be functioning at normal capacities. The moment where I had taken everything in was frozen in my mind, however, the two individuals were anything but frozen. Sara and her unwieldy dress flowed at inhuman speeds around the man. She punched him repeatedly center mass and as the final blow landed the man who seemed to have expected it, brought his arm around to counter. Only his fist seemed to catch nothing but air and the whips of Sara’s dress. She moved like lightning to his backside and continued landing more punches. The deafening machine gun sound was undoubtedly the pounding of Sara’s fists. Only as seconds passed and Sara continued to keep ever behind the man, it became obvious that despite their ridiculously powerful nature the hits didn’t faze the man. He did not seem to even flinch as they landed. He kept his hands in front of his face in what seemed like a standard boxing style, and they only left his guard when he attempted to counter, which wasn’t often. Sara must have been growing frustrated with her lack of progress because faster than should have been possible, she planted her back foot and aimed an axe kick towards the back of the man’s head. Unsurprisingly, it flew true, and a sickening crunch echoed around the gym.
That kick would have sliced the consciousness away from any normal human. Against this man, it seemed to only have bounced off his skull. Unfortunately for Sara, the inability to down the man wasn’t the biggest problem with her kick, while turning the man had managed to grasp her extended leg. With what looked like no effort the man spun. He launched Sara over ten feet straight into the padded wall. Noticing that for the first time, both faced away from the exit, I reigned in my thoughts. Whatever this was I wasn’t supposed to know about it and if I wanted my presence to remain undetected, I would have to make a choice. I could sneak back into the medical room hide there until these people left and leave after or I could attempt to sneak out now. The problem with the first plan was that if they decided to grab something from the front desk or the medical room I would likely be discovered, additionally, they might stay until my boss showed up in the morning at which point, I would have no recourse. No, I decided I wouldn’t leave it up to chance, I would attempt to sneak out, besides who knows maybe if I did get caught everything would turn out ok.
I refocused my attention on them and noticed that the two currently seemed to be engaged in a post-fight discussion. Surprisingly they had remained facing away from the door. While I had many negative personality traits, indecision was not one of them. I grabbed my bag and as quietly as possible made for the exit. I took only a few steps before I heard Sara yell.
“Andrew grab him!” Getting seen was not ideal, but if I could get outside, I could probably hide somewhere in the dark. That would be better than dealing with whatever this was. I ran as fast as I could, I was about five meters from the door so I shouldn’t be caught before I escaped was what I thought. My thinking turned out to be naïve. I heard his footsteps close behind me and right before I reached the door, I felt his hand grip my right shoulder. He gripped hard and the pain sent me into a fight response. On instinct alone I stepped back into his space and pinched his arm between my right bicep, tilting my weight forward I attempted a shoulder throw. I wasn’t insanely strong like some athletes who cross-trained grappling with the weight room however, I had practiced against resisting opponents who weighed around two hundred fifty pounds and they would go. This man, Andrew I think, would not go. I squirmed in his grip and for a moment I felt the crushing pain of his grip worsen then it invaded my mind. I screamed and everything went black.
Time did not feel linear. Conscious came into and out of existence. I saw colours, heard strange voices, and felt strange sensations as the environment around me shifted. I heard parts of a conversation.
“The military will never release footage from inside the facility obviously. There won’t be a body. How could anyone find out?” Said a voice.
“We are essentially killing an innocent person; we weren’t supposed to be training outside the base anyway.” A hissed voice responded. Interpreting the voices was hard. I remembered then how I had promised to meet my mother tomorrow to talk about her gym’s finances. She lit up when I asked, and she told me it was because she hadn’t been able to help me with academics since middle school. I was excited to get her help on the paper too, these days all we did was argue about competitions. Everything faded again as I began my descent.