Brawl (Part 1)

Mutilate his body to resemble Maddox; obsessing over the day his own bloody hands would exact revenge for the death of Mary and a stolen childhood now slave to the reoccurring sounds of a brawlers last ragged breaths.

A bell rang, belatedly reaching Solomon in a lucid dream filled with anguish most brawlers only hoped to know. Emotion, something you block out so that it doesn't interfere with remorse. That's if you survived the brawling circuit's initial guilt nullifying effect and cared for life, which most didn't.

Licensed killers. Those whom Solomon congregated nightly, when the day occupation was shredded and the animal within all surfaced, he despised like leeches would a bloodless creature.

A slender finger brought his hatred into focus.

"You never been to Nirvana befo'," said the voice, obviously male. Solomon had yet to turn around and take visual notice of the cliché brawler. "This ain' t a good place to start brawlin'."

"Tetra is nirvana, this," motioning with his left hand, "is humanity stripped. And I'm not here to begin...I've in the mix since the authorities fell down on Lion's-" He was interrupted by an uproar. One could only assume the hospital had gained a new occupant; they just didn't know it yet.

He shifted his physical position, and words around in case they brawled in the future. "I'm not a new brawler." The guy asking questions failed to meet Solomon's expectations, so he ignored storing his facial features. Flexing his hand, metallic shards crept through thin knuckle skin. Blood traveled between his fingers, a nuisance to clean once it dried.

"Well den register. People 'r waitin' to fight ya." He walked away with his words lingering like a decaying stench.

Another boisterous cry from the crowd echoed, and a second body dragged off into the arena's crevices. Allowing time for them to regain consciousness, drunk with the need to stumble back into the fray. Enough midnight, hairline skull fractures can turn a straight A schoolboy, into the kid Mother and Father never wanted.