“Euugh… Haa… Ugh…” Lying on the floor, blood-splattered and beaten, the medical staff attended to a fallen warrior, a combatant bested by another. Lifting him slowly to guide his body carefully onto the stretcher, a woman stood ringside - held back by others who shared the same concerned expression she wore - and cried hysterically watching her loved one escorted out. The crowd around had mostly cleared. The clean up crew swept the floor and began to pack the seats, as most made there way up and out of the underground arena.
“10 pound on a 50 pound bet, is this a joke to you?!” Up the stairs from the ring room, two men engaged in a one-sided stare down, one calmly behind the counter, the other enraged as many waited impatiently in line behind him.
“Those were the odds. You won. Congratulations.” A wide grin showed jagged, yellow teeth, muck and grime stuck between the corners.
“Con- congratulations?! On what?! Something to wipe with? What am I supposed to do with 10 pound?
“Buy the Mrs. something nice.” Again a toothy grin, bunched together in a way as if he had more teeth than fit in his mouth, if only to fit more dirt between the cracks.
“Oh, funny man, aren’t you?” Jimmy stared up at the Oddsman, yellow gnarled teeth staring right back at him, only a foot taller than he was. Jimmy’s round gut pressed snuggly against the Oddsman’s counter, his brow furrowed, lip twitching in anger and disbelief. “Tell you what, keep the damn tenner and buy yourself a couple toothpicks. I don’t need your cheap money.” Jimmy slammed the counter, leaving the 10 pound note.
“Can’t do that. Take your winnings and get out of here, Jimmy.” The Oddsman slid the note back to Jimmy, pressing it against the smaller mans protruding abdomen.
“Why should I?! Let me tell you, the level of disrespect—!” Jimmy halted immediately, grabbed by the collar and pulled up onto the tips of his shiny Oxfords. “Ah! What is— Unhand me!”
“Listen, Jimmy. You want better odds, then you need better fights. Nobody down here wants to fight your man, so you get what you get. Either move up, or move out. I don’t care. But you take your damn money. Boss’s orders. Everyone takes their winnings. So grab it and get out.”
Jimmy’s eyes widened, beads of sweat forming on his already slick forehead, sliding down and pooling at his bushy brows. The Oddsman’s hot, rancid breath burned at his eyes and nostrils, making him tear up. The shorter man swiped with his hands, breaking away from the Oddsman, grabbing the note, and stepping far enough away from the counter to keep safely out of his reach.
“What would a thug like you know anyway!” he scoffed. “So this is how your ‘boss’ treats his best fighter. OK. Maybe we will move out, make it on our own. Then we’ll see whose laughing.”
The Oddsman chuckled, flashing his smile one last time. “You tell your boy he’ll have his earnings tomorrow as usual. We’ll see you soon, Jimmy.”
“I don’t think you will!” Jimmy dashed out in a huff and puff, the others in line cackling at the round man as he trotted off onto the dimly lit streets and out into the cold night air.
Spotting a trim, strong looking man in his familiar black shirt, gray sweats, and comfortable training shoes, Jimmy stumbled his way past jabbering crowds and towards the back alley entrance his partner was waiting by.
“Luke!” He shouted in a whispered tone. “Lucas, that’s it! We’re done with this small time joint! I respect you too much to let them treat me like this any longer!”
Luke peered at Jimmy between the black shaggy hair that wandered down and tended to rest over his brow line, obstructing some of the upper portion of his view out of his dark brown, almost black eyes. “Alright. What now?” Luke didn’t really care who he fought, and he had noticed that the quality of fighters they had thrown at him in recent memory was nowhere near enough to challenge him. It was beginning to bore him, if he was honest.
“Well… You wouldn’t happen to still have a few connections over at the sparring club?”
“Jimmy, you know I can’t—”
“I know, I know. I’m just busting your balls. Look, don’t worry about it kid. I’ll figure something out. You just need to focus on resting up, get some ointment on those bombs of your, and keep training. I’ll do the rest, got it?”
Luke glanced briefly at his hands, bruises and cuts aching as he tensed and relaxed his fist. “Yeah, got it.”
“Good man! Oh! And hey, don’t forget to pick up your earnings tomorrow. Betting didn’t go well, so we’ll need that for equipment repairs and rent, alright?” Luke nodded, Jimmy reaching up to pat the younger man - an inch or two over 6 feet - on the the shoulder and bidding him farewell. “And stay out of trouble, will you? Last thing I need is you getting caught up in some nasty business again, you hear?” Jimmy called out to him, the two parting ways with Luke giving him another curt nod before losing sight of each other.
Luke moved down the back alley and over onto the small, cobbled roads away from the high street. His training bag was slung over his left shoulder across his body. Snug against his right hip, Luke undid the buckle and dug past his gloves and other equipment, pulling out a sealed glass jar, an oily substance filling it nearly three quarters of the way up. Undoing the metal lid and sliding it safely into his carrying bag, the fighter fished out a small amount of ointment with two fingers, carefully placing the jar in his bag so that it didn’t tip over. He rubbed the ointment onto his slightly tanned hands, working it into the various bruises, and feeling the slight sting as it covered the cuts along his knuckles, until the ointment had mostly evened out on his beaten skin and left his hands only somewhat greasy.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
His fingers creaked and cracked slightly as he opened and closed his hands repeatedly, feeling the cool sensation of the medicine getting to work. He shut the jar, dropping it back into his bag. Unbuckling a smaller outside pocket, Luke took hand wraps and snuggly wound them around each hand, starting with the left, and enjoying the benefits of the light compression relieving a bit of the pain in his joints.
Finishing up the other hand, Luke noticed the surrounding air grow hazy, a sudden mist surrounding the area. The city was no stranger to it, but Luke had hardly ever seen it settle in so rapidly. It was eerie, passing by the dimly lit back-streets, little in the way of light to really appreciate just how rapidly the fog thickened. The square-chested man, in the final year of his teens, quickened his pace, long legs striding over the cobbled road. Soon, however, he had to stop in his tracks, unable to tell left from right. In the dark of night, with visibility low enough to watch his own legs vanish into the fog, Luke searched for any light or sound that would indicate the right path to take.
With hesitant steps, he ventured forward, doing his best to recall the countless times he had taken this very path back home, and how the street continued on for what should have been at least 100 paces. However, after no more than a dozen, he found a faint light piercing the shadowed fog to his right. A street lamp perhaps? He hoped. Luke wasn’t one to be easily fazed, but - in the dark - imaginations tend to run wild. He thought of the ghost stories his father would tell at the campfire, or the books he had read as he adventured from children’s tales of fantasy and magic, to adult re-tellings of grim reality. In that moment, a scuttling rat could have been a creature born of evil and come to devour him.
The light, however, presented a quick escape from his overactive mind. Shuffling along, it grew brighter and brighter, diffused as it was by the heavy sheet of mist now settled and unmoving. Edging closer, Luke assessed that the light originated from around chest height, nowhere near high enough for a street lamp. Slowing, tempted to stall himself once more, he stepped forward instead. The light flashed - a blinding brightness for his dark-adjusted eyes.
The underside of his black and white shoe touched grass, the softness of flora and soil odd to him. The light in front was gone, replaced by a light up above, and the smoky haze of condensation had grown brighter all around with the new lighting. So much so, Luke stepped back reflexively, expecting the cobble street to be there, but a calf height tussock met the underside of his shoe, bending his ankle awkwardly leaving him wincing in pain as he adjusted it. Turning, the shades of night were gone, as if day had suddenly come. The stagnant air, unexpectedly chill, was silent. Even the scent had suddenly changed. Instead of the murky, well-traveled streets he’d grown up in, the smell of nature - reminiscent of the days by the campfire from his past - filled his lungs.
“Agh! Ow…” To his right, in the distant fog, Luke heard a voice. A woman’s, perhaps. He followed the sound, stopping abruptly. As if parting for him, the fog opened up enough for him to see only in the direction from which he had heard the voice. There, a girl - certainly no older than he was, if even that - laid pained on the ground. He watched her roll to her back, grimace turning to horrific surprise. Luke followed her line of sight, watching a shape he couldn’t quite make out disappear into the fog, just as the faint sound of what must have been a bell rang out.
Confusion betraying him, Luke struggled to grasp at what he was witnessing. His eyes focused back on the girl, her chest burgeoning with near hyperventilation as a shadow cast down upon her. It came from another woman. Her outfit was primitive, almost ritualistic, like those from a civilization of old he had studied in school. Parts of her body were wrapped much like his own hands were. Her skin was a pale blue in hue, with pointed ears, black horns of no substance he had ever seen, and a wooden mask painted with red markings.
Luke blinked and now she turned from a middle-aged woman to an elderly lady, spine curved from age. Again his eyes shut and as he lay his sight upon her, she was as young as the girl she stood over, albeit her aura intimidated none-the-less. He wasn’t sure if the woman was good or evil, or what her intent was with the blond-haired girl, but by the look of how the younger girl glared up at the inhuman woman, it didn’t appear that she was particularly comfortable beside her. In fact, Luke knew fear, what it did to a person. He didn’t have to watch her legs tremble to know she was shaken up inside. He had trained his entire life to know when someone’s fears had overwhelmed them, and to take advantage of that very moment. There was fear in her eyes, he knew it and he could barely even see the teary jades at that distance.
The woman knelt, and as she moved, Luke took an inadvertent step forward. His foot clashed with a rectangular shape on the ground, a box. Shoe pressed against it, Luke knelt down and picked it up. The white box bore decorative markings in silver and gold. It was quite the expensive looking item, odd for it to be tossed aside out here. Eying the handle and prying the lid open, he knew just what it was. Though uncertain where he’d seen this kind of object before.
He cranked it quietly, moving through the fog and watching it part to give him a slight view, closing behind him. He had no idea why the mist acted in this way, he couldn’t possibly know, but it did. And he was taught to use any advantage he could get when in a dangerous situations. No questions, not now, at least. Just action.
Placing it on the ground, he dashed as soon as he let it go, hearing it click and clack the joyful tune. The mist struggled to part fast enough for him to see as his short, quick steps - in an attempt to not twist an ankle on the uneven ground - led him behind where he best assumed the blond girl was. He stopped for a brief second, allowing the haze a second to clear and aid him in finding her. There, in that instant, he found the blue-skinned woman with her back turned to them, and the blond shaking in fear on the cold, wet ground right beside him. Luke acted immediately, stepping to her and hugging her, dragging the small-framed girl up to her feet and pulling her along.
As if on auto-pilot, Mia stepped alongside him, fear-rattled brain processing her surroundings in a stunted state as she tried desperately to settle back into reality. Luke felt her attempt to break free on instinct, and though he wished not to rough-house the frail-looking girl, he gripped her tightly, taking her by the waist and wrist, pulling her along.
She protested, of course, now leaving the woman and whatever that strange creature was behind. With the hum of death no longer plaguing her mind like an ear worm sent to break her sanity, Mia struggled against her aggressor, though she found his grip vice-like and near unshakable. Still, Mia would be Mia, and none had ever truly found a way to oppress the raging fire lighting her spirit.
“Hey! Who the fuck—! Ah! Shit! Let me fucking go!” Latching onto him with clawed grip, Mia dug her nails fiercely into Luke’s arm, sharper and longer than you would expect for someone who played multiple string instruments.