Fighter part I

Exhaustion racked every pore in his body. From the tips of his toes all the way up to the muscles in his neck. His shoulders screamed as they moved. His hands shuddered when he asked them to grab something. His legs burned, resisting his every effort to move, until they didnt. Every muscle in his body was sending signals to his brain to stop using it. He grimaced and resisted the pain.

It had not always been thus. A few years ago, he would be in the ring, would win a match, or lose one (in equal amounts), wake up the next morning and be gearing for the next one, sprightly as ever.

Right now, he was in his dark, damp apartment that smelled of roses from the night before, where had he thrown the garland? There, he bent over to pick it up, and his back complained angrily, painfully. In his apartment, he was wracked with pain that a few years ago, he had not seen or heard the like of. The wooden beams creaked as he walked over to the kitchen to throw the already-wilting flowers away. Light filtered in weakly through the old blinds, laden and heavy as they were with the burden of dust and age.

A few years ago, he would drink shot upon shot of alcohol after his fights and wake up with nothing more than headaches. His body had taken one beating too many.

Now he could barely bring the glass of water to his lips without wincing as his hand trembled, his arm shivered, his shoulders screaming. Everything was on fire.

He never thought of giving up. Not then, when he was losing, not now when he was in pain. That was the one thing that had never changed.

Maybe that was why what happened this day would happen. Maybe that’s what the man was looking for. What happened today would change his life and with it, the course of human history. Everything that followed would be of vital import, and yet, he was but a piece in a much larger game.

He grabbed some ice from the fridge, the blast of cool air hitting him like a storm. A towel to wrap it around, and he nursed his right hand first. The ritual of healing had begun. He would stay in the apartment, slowly recovering for the next few days.

The bell buzzed. Strange, he didn't know he had a bell. Again, insistent. He walked over, still shirtless, to the door. Looked through the small peephole. It was dusty, but he could make out the shape of a man, standing still staring directly at him. As if there were no door at all. Eerie. He shuddered, then winced. Undid the door.

The man that came in and spoke for an hour would spin an unbelievable tale, yet the more he spoke, the more the fighter would believe him. The more the fighter would see the truth all around him. What the man was saying was true. How could it not be. The evidence was all around him. He left with a proposition.