I am large for my age, huge even. I carry the "Kre'tal'or" in me...the burning anger seen in so many of our young men. People do not like meeting my eyes.
I make my money however I can. It would not be unfair to call me a thug.
But, I am not a junkie.
I just need the money.
The Caldari's punch hammers home, and I taste the canvas of the combat sport glove mixed with the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.
The pounding heartbeat in my ears and the sound of my breathing drowns out the sound of the crowd. The ancient, burned out Amarrian church that serves as the gambling syndicate's fighting ring echoes with their shouts. I can barely hear them.
The Caldari tries to follow through, but my counterpunches hits him in the ribs. I hear him grunt, backing away, circling.
He's a head shorter than I am, yet even wider, his body obviously subjected to some kind of muscular growth drug. His yellowish hair is cut short, his skin pale next to mine. He looks like some kind of holovid action star.
He comes at me again, his left hand jabbing followed by a right sweeping kick to my midsection. I back off the jab, lifting my left leg up to meet his kick, shin to shin. There is a sharp noise, and he grimaces and backs away.
High-density bone designed to support a miner in high-gravity worlds is really not that fun to kick. Sure, its going to give me crippling arthritis and a good chance of leukemia in about two decades, but here, now...its a God send.
He rushes at me, hoping to take me to the ground, and finally does so. I watch with grim satisifaction at his expression as I push out of one of his arm locks. It hurts, but I dont care. I end up on top of him, hammering away at him with one hand. He finally finds a way out from under me, backing away, his left eye swelling shut.
He's stronger, older, and better trained than I am. By rights, he should beat me in a fair fight.
He wouldn't.
I hate better than he does.
For him this is some kind of game, apparently combat sports are big in the State. Ive never taken much joy in any of this.
"You've never had to fight off older boys for your meals, have you?" I ask him in my head...
As we both circle for position, I can see it in his eyes. I'm going to win this fight if it lasts much longer.
Which makes it all the more painful that in about fifty seconds, Im going to have to find a way to lose....
He swings at me again, wildly. I accept them with a grin, absorbing each blow the best I can, then unleash my own when he's tired. My left to his floating ribs stands him up just enough for my right to connect squarely with his face.
I feel and hear his nose make a popping nose.
He staggers back, shaking his head a bit. I watch as his eyes go from glazed over in pain to glazed over in anger.
Now he's pissed....
It will make losing easier this way.
His blows rain in, one after another, from various angles. I fight as poorly as I can, feigning that I'm exhausted and dazed.
With every blow, it gets easier and easier to fake being exhausted, until finally I'm struggling to stand. His fist hitting my jaw, his kick against my thigh, his elbow hitting my fucking ear, which sends me grimacing and staggering away.
Finally, all I can see is him, and then only barely. I watch as he moves toward me, rearing his fist back. I know the punch is coming, and its my job to take it, remembering the words...
"Around 4:53 into the fight, you fall...."
I'm not a junkie.
I just need the money.
I taste canvas and blood again, and the world goes mercifully black.
I find myself behind one of the bars in the refugee camp. Its a place I've never been before, a place I'm not well known.
My body hurts. Badly. But the fact that another pain in me is about to be gone soon makes it all better.
My mind runs away from what that might mean.
"You did good kid, we made quite a bit off of that fight."
I nod slowly, insulted at the way he looked at me, this tiny greasy little parasite. Just give it to me and spare me the words.
"Heck, for a second there, I thought you really were gonna take out Kuseko, but Fenix said you were good at this...he wasnt lying. You know how to lose a fight kid."
My hands shake...."just fucking get this over with!" I scream in my head.
He's toying with me, he's laughing behind his eyes.
"Fenix says you would rather be paid in this shit anyway, so I did you a favor and just got you some good shit" the vials are filled with it, and my hands stop shaking.
He grins. "Here you go.....oops" he says, dumbing the vials on the ground in front of me. The wolf in me growls and gnashes its teeth, telling my body to break his scrawny, cowardly neck.
Instead I find myself scoping up the vials.
I looks down at me, and mutters two words as he turns and walks away...
"Fucking junkie..."
I flee.
The next moments could be hours, seconds, or days. I do not know.
Images, intense sensations with powerful images that mean nothing, things I don't understand but they make me laugh.
My hands aren't shaking anymore.
I see a girl's face in the bar, her voice in my ear, her body in my bed. All of them strung together, with little to tie them together. Still frames of a holovid I'm only barely watching.
I find myself naked on the floor of my tiny apartment, empty vials scattered around me, my head in my hands, my back against the bed.
I hear her, I think her name starts with an A....I can hear heavy breathing as she sleeps naked in my bed....her arm is dangling over the side like a corpses, I can see the needle mark in her vein.
In front of me on the floor is a well-worn, contraband Pax Amarrian, the scriptures turned open to the Prayers for the Damned. A passage about penitent murderers is underlined.
I am cradling my head, sobbing quietly.
They don't get it.
I'm not a junkie.
I just need it to cry.
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